Vietnam hosts international kite festival

The color of kites moving to the sound of music—a combination that will be entertaining tens of thousands through this weekend.

Vietnam is hosting what organizers hope will be an annual international kite festival on Tam Thanh beach.

More than 100 kite artists from 10 countries have brought a variety of flying objects to display and dance with.

You won’t find the classic diamond-shaped kite here, nor the rectangular box kite. You will see fish, birds, octopi, characters from folklore, even abstract sculpture—all able to soar aloft motivated only by the offshore breeze.

“We are flying many types of kites here: octopus, sting ray, lobster among others,” explained Vietnamese kite artist Le Van Quy. “Through our kite collection, we want to send a message to everyone to protect sea creatures.”

Several thousand Vietnamese came out to see the show on Friday. many, many more are expected over the weekend.

Kite-flying used to be big in Vietnam. It fell out of favor as modern youth turned to more modern pursuits—mostly accessed through the screen of a tablet or cellphone.

Maybe seeing the amazing things these kites can do will create some converts.

Or maybe, the young people will be excited to see a kite doing the famous “horse dance” to the strains of Koran pop hit “Gangnam Style,” courtesy of Korean kite flyer Kang Seong Soo.

“The song Gangnam Style is well known all over the world,” he explained. “I want to do something fun with the kite and introduce Korean culture to everyone.”

The high point of the day is these performances by professional flyers. The pros choreographed their kites’ flights to music. Korean pop, American music from the ’50s, Japanese folk music … and anything one might hear on the radio, all these styles of music gave rise to different styles of kite acrobatics.

Pham Van Tam might have been the highlight of the show.

This Vietnamese kite artist flies four kites simultaneously, with control cords attached to various parts of his body.

“Controlling four kites at the same time is not easy,’ he said in an obvious understatement. “This is a sport which require a lot of practice. I do not only use my hands but also my shoulders and hips to attach and control the strings.”

The festival offers fresh air, a view of the ocean, a quick swim if it gets too hot—plus a wealth of sights and sounds that are not only beautiful in themselves, but are uniquely and artistically combined.

There might just be enough color and sound at this event to distract the children from their LCD screens—at least for one day out of a weekend.