Kite flying is not just a hobby?

The sky is blue and vast. The kites are drifting, the flute's melodies carry the breath of the land, the trees, the love and the countryside. The childhood imagination has always flown with the kites and those melodies.

In my village and perhaps the whole Red River Delta, kites have long been associated with children herding buffaloes at the riverbanks and grass fields. Adults, especially the elderly, often enjoy flying kites on moonlit nights. Choose an empty field, perhaps right at the entrance of the village - after dinner, they call out to each other, one carrying the kite, one wearing the string, one holding the pipe, one carrying the teapot or the pot of fragrant guava leaf water. When the kites are flown, we children can only follow their flight path with our eyes glued to it and sit with our mouths open listening to the stories of our uncles and elders. No matter how hard the adults' farm work was during the day, when the kites were released into the magical moonlit sky, the flute's sound was melodious and enchanting, the tobacco smoke was intoxicating..., after a few sips of water, we children got to hear a whole treasure trove of stories from the East and the West, past and present, and commentary about kites and flutes... On moonless nights, without needing to see how high or low the kites were flying, standing still or circling, kite flyers could tell by the sound of the flute which kite was demanding strings, which kite was turning strongly and needed to adjust the rudder or the flute's pitch...

I have been fascinated with kites since I was a child. Perhaps because I was born in a rural area with few games, I was soon fascinated by the kite and the flute's call. At the age of four or five, I already knew how to play kites. My mother cut out a piece of newspaper, waved it around, and attached a long paper tail (later I learned how to do this so the kite wouldn't flip over). I only needed to add about two meters of thread, tie a rudder, and I could run around the village streets, exposed to the sun like my friends. Memories of that "early" passion are still preserved on my... calf: while I was busy running kites on the village streets, dogs from the alleys rushed out to chase me, "snatching" me until I bled and had scars to this day! When I learned how to make kites myself, the fig tree in the corner of my garden became the victim of the numerous cuts to get sap to fly the kite. The kite, like the flute, has long been a part of my childhood memories. It must be because of my innate sensitivity that I am haunted by the thought that kites always carry a sense of restlessness, a desire to conquer certain mysteries in the vast, pure, and clean sky... but I did not know that it was an elegant folk hobby, a spiritual and cultural activity not only of a rural area. Because later on, when I went to Hue, to France and many other places, I learned that kite flying has a history of hundreds of years. Kites are not as primitive and simple as those made and played in the countryside, but there are many types of kites; the size of the kites, the way of decorating the kites and the rules of playing are also different. Kites are also a spiritual and cultural activity of many ethnic groups in the world .

Along the way, whenever I have the chance to wander, I suddenly see kites flying in all sizes and colors from many other lands, and I am lost in thoughts of haunting memories from the years filled with memories. Is it because the sound of the kite flute is always a vast blue sky, not only for my childhood?

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tha-dieu-dau-chi-la-mot-thu-choi-185857118.htm