September 2007

Newsletter, September '07

"Of all possible mistakes to be caught by, making predictions is the stupidest."*

OK, so here's a big one:

The center of the kite world is shifting east.

It's happening and that the trend is strong and irreversible. The evidence is everywhere you look.

Firstly there is the ever-increasing number, size and success of international kite festivals in the Asian sphere. The proximate beginning was a rash of international focus (as opposed to local) kite events in the '80's: Thailand (Ron Spaulding), Singapore (Shakib Gunn), Indonesia (Sari Madjid), Desaru in Malaysia (Lee Poi Long), Weifang in China, Bali, India and Japan.  Some of these- Weifang in particular- developed organisational and financial underpinning to grow year by year, others were one-offs but nevertheless have had lasting influence.    Although far from the being first off the blocks,  Pasir Gudang in Malaysia is now THE model for how to make international kite festivals work- for sponsoring bodies, for local people,  for their country, and for kite fliers from everywhere.  Pasir Gudang is a tribute to visionaries within the P.G..Authority and the Johore Development Corporation- and has already spawned two major new festivals in Malaysia (Bintulu in Sarawak, now in it's third year, and Kelantan planning it's second) with adjacent countries also now clearly eying up the model. 

Do more people in total now attend international kite events in the east than in the developed west? - Maybe, depending on the definition of 'international', but if not, they soon will, by every definition. 

Secondly there is the sheer weight of people- 3 billion and growing fast in Asia, just 700million shared between all developed western nations- and stalling.

Thirdly there is attitude.  In Asia, almost everyone believes that life for their children will be better than it is for them.  They are optimistic and go getting. By contrast, in the west many people see things as getting worse- and are dragging themselves down further by health, safety and planning regulations that make trying to do anything new, or even continuing to run existing events, almost impossible.  By contrast, just in Malaysia, Pasir Gudang has built a major dedicated kite park complete with museum and permanent viewing stands in quick time, Kelantan cleared a beach area for kite flying within weeks of deciding they needed a site- and Bintulu is now thinking longer term about the old airport only150m from the centre of town, where their first 3 events have been. Other ASEAN Kite Council nations are similarly can-do.

Then there is the underlying kite culture in Asia. Not only have they been flying kites for MUCH longer than westerners, but also in many countries there, kite flying is an every day part of life to an extent that it has never been in Europe or America. This is true for all the ASEAN countries as well as for China, India, Japan and Korea, but it's even truer for Bali where they are totally kite mad. Driving back to Denpassar from the recent International Kite Festival that was up the coast an hour, it was usual to see 40 or more big kites high in the sky during the course of the journey.  Often they were their favourite Bebeans  (around 6m wide, 8m long), Pelukans or long tailed (up to 200m) Janggans.  These were not up because of the event, but just normal everyday flying. Nor do the Balinese (or any other Asians for that matter) confine their kite flying to traditional designs- the varieties of original new single line kites I saw in Bali 3 weeks ago would have been top of the pops at any western kite festival. 

And Asia has now taken to sports and traction kite flying with a mission.  Sure, kite quality and flying skills there can still seem to be a bit marginal- but will this still be true even 5 years from now?  And then there is the observation that there is probably already more sports kite flying going on in China than in the rest of the world put together.

Finally, an apposite story about east-west kite discourse:  In the months leading up to the Bintulu festival (Sarawak) this year, Jenny and Craig at Peter Lynn Kites Ltd in Ashburton were puzzled by an order from the Pasir Gudang people for a KiteCat to be delivered at Bintulu. Of course they saw it as great opportunity to get kite sailing established in Malaysia, but weren't able to understand where it was to be used, neither events being adjacent to water. However, an order is an order so I was to be roped in as delivery boy.  Gulp, at 4.5m long, 0.75m wide and 0.4m deep,  40kgm,  this was going to be a challenge to even my excellent baggage allowances with the requisite airlines. On the day prior to my departure the fog cleared during a series of last minute phone calls. The order had actually come from Bintulu, not from PG- they'd just passed it through PG because of their longer standing commercial relationship with PL Kites Ltd. And, the order from Bintulu was for one wau kuching, which had been translated verbatim as kite cat, but actually means a cat kite.

*Peter Lynn, San Francisco, 4 Sept '07