Kite Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The Nantong plank kite, also called the "whistle-mouth plank kite," originated in the Northern Song dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Nantong City lies in eastern Jiangsu Province, on the north bank of the Yangtze River estuary. Surrounded by water on three sides, with a mild climate and fairly even wind volume, speed, and force, it is highly suitable for flying the relatively large plank kites. The plank kite gets its name from its shape, which is like a flat board. Its making is concentrated in the eastern and western Zha townships and Qinzao Township in the suburbs of Nantong, and in Ligang Township, Liuqiao Town, and Sian Town of Tongzhou City. It integrates frame-building and pasting, color-matching and painting, musical design, and "whistle-mouth" carving. Its shapes include squares, rectangles, hexagons, and octagons, with the hexagonal plank kite being the most common (a kite with six protruding corners formed by combining a rectangle and a square), as well as "seven-star," "nine-star," and "nineteen-star" combinations built from multiple such geometric figures. The large ones are over a zhang (about 3.3 m) across, while the small ones are barely a chi (about 0.33 m); the decorative patterns are mostly fine-line heavy-color painting, with subjects such as the "Eight Immortals," "Phoenixes Playing with Peonies," and "Tales of the Three Kingdoms." They favor red, black, blue-green, and purple to create strong color contrast. The kites are studded with "whistle-mouths" of varying sizes, up to several thousand on a single kite. A "whistle-mouth" consists of two parts: a whistle face and a whistle tube. The whistle face is usually carved from bamboo strips or brittle-textured wood blocks; the whistle tube is divided into two main types—tubular and spherical. Tubular whistle-mouths are collectively called "whistles" (xiao); in ancient times they were often made from the inner membrane of bamboo tubes and goose-feather quills. Spherical whistle-mouths are collectively called "mouths" (kou), usually made from gourds, fruit shells, silkworm cocoons, and the like. A standard whistle-mouth plank kite, large or small, can withstand winds above force 5; even in force 7–8 gales it remains stably suspended several hundred meters high and emits a beautiful sound. The basic characteristic of the Nantong plank kite lies in its "whistle-mouth" design; differences in the size, shape, and material of the whistle-mouths make the volume, timbre, and pitch of the sound emitted endlessly varied. Nantong currently has over twenty thousand kite enthusiasts and more than one thousand artisans (including over fifty whistle-carving artisans). The main inheritors are Wang Zejun, Huang Zhiling, Wang Deqing, Gu Jirong, Gao Huanwen, Gao Yuwen, Zhou Guangquan, Guo Chengyi, Gao Zexian, Gao Caicai, Lu Guilin, Lu Baoru, and others. However, the surviving master whistle-carvers are all past fifty, some painters are already past sixty, and fewer and fewer people can both paint and carve. Moreover, the small kite exhibition halls and kite associations are all folk organizations in a state of fending for themselves.
The flat board kite
Shaped like a flat board, its face is papered and painted, with feathers round the edge that twist in the wind like a kite-hawk.
Frame, colour, sound and whistles
Frame, painting, musical tuning and carved whistles are combined in one kite, which is heard before it is seen.
The flying ground at Nantong
Ringed by water on three sides, Nantong has steady, even winds and flat mudflats that suit the great board kites.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Nantong City lies in eastern Jiangsu Province, on the north bank of the Yangtze River estuary. Surrounded by water on three sides, with a mild climate and fairly even wind volume, speed, and force, it is highly suitable for flying the relatively large plank kites. The plank kite gets its name from its shape, which is like a flat board; its making is concentrated in the eastern and western Zha townships and Qinzao Township in the suburbs of Nantong, and in Ligang Township, Liuqiao Town, and Sian Town of Tongzhou City.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Kite Making Craftsmanship · Kite Making Craftsmanship · Kite Making Craftsmanship · Kite Making Craftsmanship · Kite Making Craftsmanship · Kite Making Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, Ligang Township was named a "National Kite Homeland" by the Ministry of Culture. Guo Chengyi (from the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born 1945, a native of Nantong, Jiangsu. A representative inheritor of the first national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage items, for the kite-making craft (Nantong plank kite); a Jiangsu provincial master of arts and crafts. Guo Chengyi's father, Guo Wenhe, was the founder of the Nantong Guo-family kites. He studied the craft under his father for over forty years and designed and made many plank-kite works and traditional-shaped kite works. Plank kites generally are fitted with "whistle-mouths" that, once flown into the sky, produce rhythmic sounds. The kite faces have exquisitely painted patterns that set off the whistle-mouths, forming a unique aesthetic and an unparalleled artistic form among Chinese kites. He has published several articles on plank kites; his representative works include Door Gods and Plank Kite. At present, Guo Chengyi is employed by the Nantong Kite Museum, where he continues to research and make plank kites and actively passes the craft on to his apprentices.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Guo Chengyi 01-0197
- Han Fuling 03-1345
- Wei Yongzhen 03-1346
- Hayiqi 04-1867
- Fei Baoling 04-1868
- Wei Guoqiu 04-1869
- Kong Lingmin 05-2781
- Zhang Xiaodong 05-2782
- Yang Hongwei
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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