The Kite Making

The Kite making activity was conducted by a villager around there named Jep and his brother Man, which are professionals kite-flyer. They are so talented in making kites and Wau. Wau is like a kite but it is bigger  and huge. Usually people who play Wau are professionals because Wau needs a better skill and technique than a normal kite and because of its size and strength, a Wau can fly higher and tougher when it is struck by the hard wind and hot sunlight.

Here are some pictures of the process in the kite making which we participated.

Wood Choosing

The very first yet very important step is too choose a fine and strong bamboo wood before chop them off to sticks. This is because kite is flying up on the air and exposed to strong wind and sun ray. The stronger the wood, the longer the kite can stay up on the air.

Stick Sizing

On this process, the kite-maker has to make the bone for the body and the wings. Both of the sticks have a different length. The wing must be longer than the bone because long wings could make the kite goes higher as a factor of wind it breaking through. 

Refining The Bones

In this stage of the process, the kite-maker needs to refine the stick as thin as possible. The finer the sticks, the lighter the kite. The kite-maker has to be carefully smoothen the stick so that the bone will not easily break. So it is a 50-50 work that need our patience.

Bones Balancing

After the refining process, the kite-maker will do the balancing. He has to make sure that the curve points between the sticks (wings) are equal and deep. This is very important because once the point is not equally right, the kite will face a difficulty to fly high.

Bones Binding

After the balancing and refining processes are finished, the body and the wing need to be bind together.   The binder need to tie the two sticks tightly.

Adding Sail and Decoration

The last process is to paste a piece of paper to cover the whole kite. This paper is not a regular paper, it is called Siamese paper. Its thin and light which make it good for a  kite. The paper does not work only as a decoration where people can add as many color as they can, but also as a sail. Some professionals will crush the paper first so that the paper would not get tight and torns as they are exposed to the sun.

Let's play!