The Pastime

Much like anywhere, holidays are a time when people can relax with their families. In Boston, we huddle around the fireplace, in Australia they head to the beach, but in China they head to the park, which is where I went this week.

The park was jam packed with what seemed to me was half the city, but in reality was probably a just a fraction of the folks in the surrounding apartment towers. As I strolled through the park I came across people doing all sorts of recreation: from thrill rides to bumper boats, from old ladies doing tai chi to a rowdy crew singing Italian opera to the accompaniment of an accordion. My two favorite groups were the Chinese who'd learned African Tribal drumming, and were out burning a dance beat and the hoards of wanna be seamen who'd rented one of the motorized boats in the lake, and accidentally turned it into impromptu bumper boats - thank goodness for slow speeds and flimsy rubber bumpers. Truly everyone who was anyone was out and about, relaxing in the unseasonably warm day.

Yet nothing was as captivating as those engaged in one of China's favorite pastimes - kite flying. In a scene straight out of The Kite Runner, I sat and counted upwards of 25 kites in the air, with another half dozen in the stages of launching. Trying to figure out who on the ground controlled which sailing vessel proved to be impossibly fun. Some of the fliers were near professionals, with expensive bicycle-wheel-like apparatuses to pull and slacken their lines with. The best managed to put their kites so high in the sky they seemed little more than dark flecks on the rare blue sky. Most of the people, however, were armatures content simply to raise their kites to reasonable levels.

Yet observing the scene was remarkable because it was not static like I imagine it would be. Like any good scene, there was humor in the children running wildly to hopelessly raise their kite as they meanwhile tangled their short strands in the lines of far more advanced fliers, whose kites were indistinguishably off in the distance. Yet tangles did happen, and when adults tangled, watching them maneuver on foot to steer their kites out of danger, discussing with other fliers the best direction to go to avoid entrapment, the scene took on a social level I've never considered kite flying to have. Needless to say, I'm rather eager to get a kite and fly one myself now.

Perhaps we don't fly kites on our major holidays. We don't even go outside for our biggest ones unless you count the shiveringly dangerous game of tackle football many play on Thanksgiving. Yet it was unmistakably familiar to walk around that park - families with families, doing simple things that give them joy.