Over the past seven months, the COVID-19 pandemic has, with frightening speed, turned our worlds upside down. It has confined us to our homes, cutting many of us off from family and friends, compelling us to cover our faces every time we venture out, and instilling in us a sense of deep paranoia of something we cannot see. This pesky microscopic intruder is like garrulous dinner guests who overstay their welcome or a drunk uncle misbehaving badly at a family wedding.

I find it hard to comprehend that something smaller than a dust mote has kept me tethered like a horse in harness to one spot making it impossible to do what I love best which is to take off for foreign lands. 

 However, if there is anything positive to take from this imposition, it is that this is the first time I have experienced a Balinese tropical ‘winter’ since I moved here ten years ago.  Along with the cooler weather at the beginning of July, the trade winds arrive.

 These cooling breezes blow east to west just north and south of the equator. These winds begin as warm, moist air at the equator which rises quickly into the atmosphere leaving a vacuum which is filled by cooler air from the poles. The beauty of the Trade Winds is they create a climate that is as close to perfect as you are ever going to get. Between early July until late September the winds are as reliable as a finely crafted Swiss watch beginning at about 10 am each morning blowing steadily throughout the day and only easing off at about midnight.  For the local population, this is the time for them to indulge in one of their favourite pastimes. 

 Kite Flying.

As I write this above me the sky, from horizon to horizon is festooned with hundreds and hundreds of kites of every shape and colour imaginable, their guwangs (bows) vibrating and humming as they soar ever- higher through the heavens as if trying to reach the stars.

What is it about flying a kite that is so thrilling? You stand, earthbound connected to this splendid creation that, once aloft soars and weaves like a Dervish dancer riding the wind like some wild, intrepid bird desperate ascend ever higher. You can almost feel its will to fly free as it tugs and pulls on the line, which sings and buzzes in your hand. 

Kite flying has been around for quite some time with the first kites flown in China and the Malay Archipelago two to three thousand years ago.  The earliest written accounts of kite flying were from the journals of the Chinese general Han Hsin during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.). During one military campaign, the general was said to have had a kite flown above a besieged town to calculate the distance his army would have to tunnel to reach under the city wall!

Kite flying became a popular pastime spreading out from China along trade routes to India, Japan and arriving in Korea in the period of the Three Kingdoms (645 A.D.)

Over the centuries, the ‘sport’ grew and captivated the hearts and minds of populations across the globe. Designs evolved and became more adventurous and inventive. In Japan, in 1712 a thief named Kakinoki Kinsuke is said to have used a large kite to carry himself to the top of Nagoya Castle where he stole the scales from a pair of golden dolphins. The luckless Kinsuke unfortunately boasted of his exploits and was captured by the emperor’s guards and promptly boiled alive in oil.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, kites began to play their part in scientific discovery. Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Wilson applied their knowledge of kite flying to gain a greater understanding of the elements that create electricity. Sir George Cayley, Samuel Langley, Lawrence Hargrave, the Wright Brothers, and Alexander Graham Bell all experimented with kites to bring their inventions to fruition. !n the 20th-century weather bureaus relied heavily on the humble kite to carry their meteorological instruments ever higher into the atmosphere.

Here in Bali, kite flying is a fiercely competitive business with villages competing in tournaments around the island where their creations, constructed in deep secrecy are revealed on the day of competition. The coveted trophies bring status and bragging rites to the village headman.  

Each kite’s frame is handmade with thin bamboo struts and then covered in light fabric in a variety of colours representing the Balinese Hindu Trinity: red=Brahma (creator of the Universe), white=Vishnu (the protector), black=Shiva (the destroyer), and yellow=Dewata Nawa Sanga (eight gods of the eight directions). 

Children in the villages, aspiring to be future champion kite flyers spend hours crafting homemade mini- kites dragging their creations behind them as they run, jump and sprint down dusty roads trying to get the kite to lift into the air.

The most popular kites in Bali are the Janggan (bird) the kedeber (ribbon tail) some as long as 100 meters or more, and the Bebean (fish) is the most common while the Pecukan (leaf) is the most difficult to fly due to its odd shape making it difficult to keep aloft.  In addition to these, one often sees fabulous designs joining the kites mentioned above. Lately, we spot dragons soaring across the sky, no doubt inspired by the Game of Thrones television series.

Perhaps the sky is festooned with so many kites; it is a sign that all is not well in this part of the world. Unemployment is at record levels, schools are closed, and people have time on their hands. But, what better way to spend idle days than to be sending a kite that has taken weeks to build soaring into the cloudless skies.

In so many ways, the sight of these aeronautic marvels is a symbol of the most powerful emotion we have.

Hope.

Bali August 2020 

Paul v Walters is the author of several best selling novels and, when he is not cocooned in sloth and procrastination in his house in Bali, he scribbles for a variety of international travel and vox pop journals.