I went to Nanjing the other week (which I might get round to blogging about eventually), on the second day we went for a walk in a park and came across the usual bunch of of old people exercising and people flying kites. Half of them were sat around, presumably making small talk about the state of the wind that day, how they used to come here while it were still a ming palace or how they used to able to buy 1km of nylon string for 2 fen and still have enough to buy a portion of xialongbao; the other half were holding the ends of extremely taut pieces of string, which, if you looked hard enough, were attached to tiny dots of colour in the sky.
Nanjing Kite Society
One of them was struggling to string up an odd looking kite, it was kind of shaped like an octopus but was just made of fabric and string, no sticks, it caught my interest, we went over for a chat.
Octopus – a strange subject for a kite
It turns out that “teacher Wang” was the leader of the Nanjing Kite Society and had invented this kite himself he said, “it is based on parachute principles” he said, sure enough the kite had lots of fancy wind pockets to propel the kite to the edge of space itself. It had taken him two days he said, he had made it himself. “Can we see it fly” I asked, “Yes, of course!”, “HURRAY!!!”.
GET WIND!!!
He unravelled the string and my friend helped him to launch it, off he went, sprinting backwards, the kite followed, about 10 feet off the ground and floated to the ground the second he stopped, momentarily bobbing upwards every time he jerked the strings in an attempt to bring it up. We tried again, and again, and again.
Mr Wang walked back to us, winding up the string, “it’s the wind” he explained, “it died down a while ago”, actually I’d already noticed a late arriver struggling to get his red crab in the sky, “this kite needs level 2 wind” (kite speak), I pretended to understand and agreed with him
“Let me show you how it would look” he said, and off he took, sprinting round the park with the kite six feet behind him. When he got back he was panting like a hot dog “DID YOU SEE? DID YOU SEE?”
Teacher Wang – Lord of all Kites
In the end I was so amused we offered to buy it from him and took it home for 50rmb (with string), I’m just waiting for level 2 wind and I’ll be out there, ruling the skies. I can guarantee it’s going to fly better than the last kite Swiss James tried to fly.
10 Comments
I like kites. I saw a kite this weekend shaped like one of our space shuttles and I wanted to knock the kid down and take off with it. In the end I thought that was probably pretty bad karma.
You know, i’m surprised i’ve not seen any taikonaut kites after the recent space walk, they’d make a killing.
50RMB for that thing?
I’ve got some magic beans you may be interested in buying Professor Dingle.
The best kite I ever got was that one we got that day at GongQing park (not the crappy eagle one). It needs hardly any wind and flies up higher than the sun- these fancy-dan designs are for suckers.
Hilarious story. I love how Wang laoshi is just too stubborn to admit his design is a failure and move on to the next design, a hairy crab perhaps. I also get the impression he was a kite salesman rather than a kite designer, and he’s certainly qualified for that, selling a kite that doesn’t work to a gullible foreigner for 10 times the market price.
You know when you guys talk about RMBs I like to make up exchange rates in my head. In this case 50RMB is like 100 dollars and dingle is an idiot. But then again he could make 2 million RMB a year and then it’s like monopoly money.
I need to get out more.
Swizzle, you’re forgetting that the wind was not “level 2″, just you wait until the wind reaches “level 2″, you’ll be green with envy.
Ah yes, I remember that kite you bought, I seem to remember spending half an hour trying to get it to fly last time we went to a park.
Woai, yes, he certainly was selling them, one of the other kite club guys had just bought one when we arrived. Actually I think my friend questioned his status and he got out some business cards saying that he was president of the kite society, he had some kind of lock-up at the park where he got the string from we got with it. 10 times the market price!! you’ll eat those words when the “level 2 wind” arrives!!!!
Kristi, yes 50rmb is approximately 100* of your US dollars, I lose count to be honest they’re losing value so fast
*7.32449 USD to be more exact
to be honest i didnt like nanjing very much, i went there this summer.
Is this the “friend” who recently moved in to your apartment dingle?
The last time I tried to fly my kite there was no wind to speak of whatsoever- level 2 was but a distant dream on the horizon.
However! My kite will fight your kite any day of the week*
*not Wednesday.
Where’s the post on your take for the Nobel prize for Chemistry? Chasemeladies did Krugman
they give Nobel prizes for Chemistry??? I remember when it used to be a prestigious prize, they’ll be handing out a Nobel prize for Whores next.