A small rainbow kite with a long tail high in a cloudy blue sky
A pink kite with a looping ribbon tail against a white sky
Yellow, green and blue paper kites with tassels hanging on a workshop wall
A crowd of painted bird and butterfly kites filling a blue sky
A woman holding up a large painted dragon kite on the field
Colourful kites flying high over a sandy beach full of people

Feiyan Kite Workshop

Bamboo and silk kites from Weifang, split, glued and painted by the Wang family since 1987

See the kitesFrom CN¥38 for line to CN¥1,680 for a 30 m dragon

What's the wind doing?

A steady day is the easy one. The eagle, the dragon head and the carp all climb off a short walk backwards.

A flyer in red launching a long scaled carp kite beside a pondCarp kiteCN¥340Soft whale and octopus kites with long legs floating against a pale skyWhale and octopus pairCN¥580An eagle kite with spread brown wings flying among other kitesGolden eagleCN¥298A blue and gold dragon kite with red whiskers flying close overheadBlue-and-gold dragonCN¥940A dragon centipede kite hanging straight down the sky from its painted headDragon centipede, 12 mCN¥760A red hawk kite flying at sunset above a crowd watching from the fieldRed-tail hawkCN¥260

Swallows

The bird every Weifang child flies first. Fat ones for a breeze, thin ones for small hands, and a pair for two people on one bank.

Two pink and orange bird kites flying side by side against a blue skySwallows

Pink swallow pair

CN¥168

Two kites · 70 cm span · 30 m line each

Painted the day it's glued

A hand holding a fine brush, laying colour onto a painted panel

Freehand

Liu Meihua paints every swallow without a stencil. The wing feathers take her about eleven minutes. The eyes go on last, after tea.

Alum water

The silk is brushed with alum first so the colour sits on top and never bleeds. In May a wing dries in a quarter of an hour; in March it takes two.

A woman on a crowded kite field watching dozens of kites in the sky

Sunday on the Bailang river bank

Where our customers test what they bought on Saturday.

A smiling older man with white hair holding a wooden pole

“I bought my first swallow from Old Wang in 1994. It still flies. Only the red has gone a bit pink.”

Sun Peng, retired bus driver

An older woman in a flowered blouse giving two thumbs up

“My grandson launches the carp on his own now. Three runs and it's up.”

Zhang Rui, flies every Sunday

An older woman in a red vest and white blouse sitting for a portrait

“Thirty metres of centipede and not one knot when we wound it in.”

Li Wenjing, Qingdao kite club

Line, and something to wind it on

Every kite leaves here with 30 m of line on a card winder. For a dragon, or a long afternoon, you want more.

A spool of bright red braided line on a marble tableLines & reels

Red braided line

CN¥38

100 m · 30 kg breaking strain