![]() Hindered by their heavy kite strings, the Chinese grew tired quickly and would tie their kite "to a tree and lie down and watch it." The Koreans also denounced the Chinese as being poor kite-fliers. The owner of a kite is often considered unable to fly it, and when he does away, another who understands kite-flying will take the reel and play it." "Women sometimes fly kites from their yards, but it is said that anyone can tell when a kite is flown by a woman. The Americans were not the only ones who could not fly kites ― at least according to the Korean men: The teachers complained "the absence of a tail makes these playthings unsteady, and in letting out the line the kite generally makes a series of plunges, which must be controlled by the promptest action, guided by a remarkably quick eye." They apparently were not the experts they thought they were and should have confined their teachings to math, English and science. But another opinion gained ground, as the only success achieved on that occasion was the loss of several kites, which by their plunging were cast down into neighboring grounds and became the prey of the ubiquitous small boy." "They had noticed the antics and gestures used by natives in manipulating the string, but supposed this to be the effect of the Koreans' natural demonstrativeness. They considered themselves quite the experts ― "having flown kites at home" ― and decided to educate their Korean hosts: Gilmore and some of the other American teachers were at first rather pedantic in regards to Korean kite-flying and battles. There is so much skill involved in the manner in which one string may be made to cut the adversary's without being parted itself, that it demands the appreciate sympathy of a large concourse of do-nothings, who completely surround the kite-flier and gaze, open-mouthed, up into the sky, utterly oblivious of aught else." The severed kite falls fluttering to ear, while the victor relieved from the strain, rises with a mocking toss of triumph yet higher into the air. Then, by adroit, each tries by rubbing against it to cut the other's string, until one succeeds. Two kites are flown near each other, and then each so handled that the strings shall be brought to intersect. Sometimes they soared alone in solitary grandeur sometimes they flew in pairs, and the two hovered about each other like a couple of angry birds. As they are not wholly white, but in part colored, there was at intervals a momentary flash of red or blue or brown to the distant sheen as the kites turned in the air. ![]() And then, as my glance wandered, I discovered another and then another, and away off in the distance still others, hovering over the roofs of the city like great white birds. "I saw far up a rectangle of paper sailing across the blue. Oftener than not, they stand right in the middle of the highway and other people as they pass the spot, turn aside for the gazers, as a matter of course."Ī Korean kite reel in the 1890s Stewart Culin, Korean Games with notes on the corresponding games of China and Japan, 1895Īlthough Lowell was only 29 years old, his description of the kite fights evokes an image of him as being an elderly man screaming at his neighbor's children to get off his lawn: Percival Lowell, an American residing in Seoul during the winter of 1883/84, frequently encountered "groups of men and boys standing gazing up into the sky. Not all Americans were pleased with the inconvenience this caused to travel. Gilmore claimed that shopkeepers and merchants would often cease business transactions and crowds of up to 1,000 people would gather in the streets to witness these aerial battles. The baby may have been fascinated with the idle flight of its older sibling's kite, but others weren't ― they wanted to see kite fights. In the late 1880s, George Gilmore, an American teacher in Seoul, noted that it was "not at all unusual to see a boy flying a kite while the baby on his back gazes at the bright thing in the air or sleeps with its little head thrown back to a position in which dislocation of the neck seems imminent." ![]() ![]() Korean men of all ages ― including the king ― were either active participants or enthusiastic spectators. These kite fights were, declared Il-han, "the sport events of the year and every Korean boy at some time in his life has hoped for the championship of his village." However, it wasn't just boys who took a keen interest in kites. These kite fights ― as well as the kite-flying season, took place during only the first two weeks of the Lunar New Year. In Pyongyang, nine-year-old Il-han described the kites as resembling "a vast flock of gulls" dashing and whirling about, but they were not flying about aimlessly, for they all had "a real purpose" ― they were the weapons in the annual kite fights. In early February 1903, the sky over every village and city in Korea was filled with kites. A postcard of a Korean boy preparing his kite for a day of flying circa 1920s. ![]()
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