Let's Go Fly a Kite

By Chris Frey
March 25, 2010

With tuppence for paper and strings, you can have your own set of wings. With your feet on the ground, you're a bird in flight. With your first holding tight... to the string of your kite." — Mary Poppins

The Zilker Park Kite Festival in Austin, TX

In the magical last scene of the iconic 1964 film Mary Poppins, it's clear that the formerly uptight and elusive Mr. Banks has turned a corner towards loving fatherhood when we find him singing and skipping through his London home at the prospect of taking his children to the park to go fly a kite. For generations—centuries, in fact—families have bonded over the thrill of launching a kite into the wind and seeing it soar.

And so it is at the annual Austin, TX Zilker Park Kite Festival, the oldest of its kind in the country. A few weeks ago, I joined 15,000 of my neighbors, young and old, to experience the simple joy of flying a kite at the 82nd annual Festival. Originally started in 1929 with the goal of encouraging creativity in children, the festival today continues that mission more formally, with donations from revenues generated by vendors and concessions to a variety of non-profit organizations that aid children across Central Texas.

As I meandered through the maze of strings on the Great Lawn, the 46-acre section of the Park where the Festival took place, I found it nearly impossible to focus on any one kite at a time. Traditional shapes, colorful abstracts, and homemade versions crossed paths with more recognizable figures such as Spiderman, Tinkerbelle and Mickey Mouse. There were elegant birds, butterflies, and ladybugs comingling with more menacing types: sharks, skulls, dragons and hometown Austin icon, the bat. (Austin’s South Congress Bridge is home to the largest urban bat community in North America.) Aside from the occasional lawn or tree branch casualty, the majority of kites, large and small, were airborne.

The Zilker Park Kite Festival

Historically kites were not only emblems of beauty, but they also served practical purposes: to measure distance, to send messages, to test wind and measure atmospheric conditions for weather forecasting, and as instruments in the scientific development of early aircraft and electricity. It is believed that the first kites, ones constructed of silk and bamboo, may have been used in China about 2,800 years ago. The oldest known kite is the “Luban,” dating back to the 5th century BC and currently housed in The Weifang Kite Museum in China.

Determined to become part of kite flying history—or at least to not show up empty handed at next year's festival—I decided to find a kite of my own. I turned to eBay seller Qi Liu, who has sold "a few thousand" kites in the past four years and currently has dozens for sale. Liu's personal favorite is a sporty classic called a Delta. “It has a combination of cool colors and includes a windsock. It is simply beautiful and comes complete with a very long flying line, a comfortable grip handle and a nylon bag to store,” Liu says.