BaToCo Barriletes - News

Yangjiabu Engraving & Kites

Yangjiabu is located 15Km North of Weifang City. It is well-known for producing two elements from the vast Chinese cultural tradition: New Year engravings and kites.

New Year Engravings: It is a centenary tradition to decorate the house doors and windows with very colorful printed picture cards. The motifs usually represent scenes associated with prosperity: fatty children, the Longevity Buda, flowery landscapes full of birds, mythological or opera characters. There are thousands of designs, but the message is always the same: Good Fortune and Celebration.

Weifang Kite Museum

Its dimensions and spot are really outstanding; it is located downtown, on one of the margins of the river that crosses the whole city. In the access, there’s terrace with a fantastic sculpture at the front.

Once inside, a great hall houses a good number of hanging kites, where the typical Weifang dragons excel. It has six exhibition rooms, an auditorium, a large shop, and a small room for teaching/ demonstrating how to build the traditional Chinese kites.

Weifang Kite Festival

Weifang City administration carries out multiple strategies for promoting kite activities, from the cultural, industrial and tourist point of view.

This city holds an old tradition in building and designing kites, having generated its own style that differentiates it from the models developed in Beijin, Tianjin or Nantong. Perhaps, the most emblematic model is the dragon. But the drive given to the kite activity was thanks to the local government initiative; it promotes sustaining a kite manufacturing industry massively, with trade exchange as suppliers at local and global level.

The Southern Cross In Education

This initiative consists of collecting books donated by people and carrying them to create libraries at frontier schools located in the four cardinal points of the country.

With the purpose of meeting this goal, Rubén Sosa, began to develop a series of solidarity actions to help the frontier schools create their own libraries.

Claris At The World Kite Museum

Very Special Exhibit 2009 AKA Miniature Kite Master Claris Skoczdopote June 27, 2009. This is the title of the announcement published by the World Kite Museum, the unique museum in the U.S.A. devoted to kites.

There will be exhibited the miniature kites built by Claris and that were donated to the museum by Nelson Borelli and Dave Shattuck.

Congratulations to this BaToCo member and friend! And we invite you to visit Claris’ profile!

Kong Xiang Ze & Kong Ling Min

Thanks to Andreas Agren and Li Ruo Xin, we had the fantastic opportunity of meeting two members of the Kong family, well-known kitefliers from Beijin. Li Ruo Xin holds a special and affectionate friendship with them: Kong Xiang Ze (father), Kong Ling Min (son) and Kong Bing Zhang (grandson), three generations of fine builders and artists.

Li Ruo Xin –Master Kiteflier From Pekín

Li Ruo Xin is a talented and creative kiteflier. He has performed several original and ingenious works, receiving the recognition of colleagues from China and other foreign countries.

His creations highlight due to:

A Flying Dodecahedron

The idea of building a dodecahedron kite aroused while looking at a book on geometric shapes. We wished to build something new, and the dodecahedron called our attention for its beauty and harmony.

We started searching for drawings or pictures in books and Internet, and although there’s plenty of information about the dodecahedron, we found no reference to kites having this shape. So, we started from zero, designing our own model. Below you’ll find an account of this flying dodecahedron creation.

Drachen Foundation

It is available the December 08 edition of Discourse from the end of the line, published periodically by Drachen Foundation .

Wind Party 2008

A detailed report written by Dave Shattuck for Kitelife , kindly shared in Spanish for our site. Our acknowledgement to Dave, who is currently visiting and helping us with his experience, and to John for staying near.

Again, we are deeply thankful to all the persons who get involved, working, accompanying us, and letting us carry out these small achievements.

Wind Party 2008 in Buenos Aires