Ming was a happy eight year old boy. His father was a fisherman and Ming always wanted to go sailing and fishing with him. One day Ming’s  father was going for fishing and it was very windy. Ming was sad because his father did not want to take him along as the sea was very turbulent. But he kept on pestering his father until his father said yes.

They loaded their nets in the boats and started the journey. The sails of the boat were giving them a bit of trouble as one of the sails was beginning to tear. But Ming was lost in his own thoughts. Ming always enjoyed being on the boat as it gave him lots of time to think, dream and imagine. He had an older friend back at home who was also very good at inventing things. His friend’s name was Mo Di.  He was dreaming soon. Suddenly, there was a loud sound which woke him up. He was too sleepy but heard raised voice, others on the boat were saying something about the sails.

He ran up to his father and said, “What happened bà ba?”

His father who kept looking at the sky and without saying anything pointed at it.

Ming looked at the sky and took two steps back when he saw what he saw. One of the sail cloth had torn up and was flying high in the sky with a rope attached to it. The rope was stuck to a nail to a boat. Everyone on the boat was in awe of what has happened.

Something that was not a bird but it was still flying. High up in the air.

We all know what it would have looked like. Kites!  But those guys had seen nothing like this before.

Coming back to the story.

When they got back to the sea shore, Ming ran to meet his best friend, Mo Di and told him everything. Mo Di listened and his eyes started glistening. The boys kept talking to each other and planned to design their own “bird that would fly in the air”. They used a lot of thin bamboo sticks and designed the earliest kites that stayed in the sky for almost a day. Excited by their achievement they designed the next one with bamboo and silk, it stayed up in the air for three days.

Slowly and slowly this caught up and kites were built big enough to carry human. It was used mostly for millitary purposes.

Later when paper was invented the kites stated getting used for recreation purposes and it’s being used for that even till date.

Do I need to say more?