Kites in various shapes and colors fly in the sky during a festival

The city’s raucous motorbike melody doesn’t stop locals from shooting the breeze.

Though banned in some urban areas to prevent tangles with power lines, kite flying is still a popularity winner among generations of Saigonese. The relaxing hobby suffered from the accelerating urbanization that sees people less likely to enjoy open-air playgrounds as they did in the old days. But the good childhood memory has become a reality again to many Ho Chi Minh City locals.

Flying back to childhood

Over the past few years, the muddy paddy-fields in Phu My Hung, District 7 have been filled in to make way for apartment complex projects. The vacant lots that await the high rise housing have provided the ideal playground for kite flyers.

As soon as flyers set up their ‘camps’ there, the kite businesses started to bloom with dozens of motorbike and bicycle vendors offering all types of flamboyant nylon or cotton kites from China, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. With only VND45,000-200,000 (US$2.65-11.7), flyers are ready for their childhood journey!

At weekends, the place is packed with up to a thousand kites. Only skilled flyers can keep their kites from getting tangled with others. Some of the people moved to Nguyen Van Linh Street in District 8, earning it the new tag Dong Dieu (Kite Field).

Big time kite collector

As kite flying becomes more organized, flyers have set up clubs to share their experience in flying and building kites.

Fifty eight-year-old Nguyen Thanh Van, who runs a kite club in District 8, has been passionate about the hobby since he was a kid.

Fourteen years of researching and making kites has given the artistic craftsman a collection of more than 300. Van also participates in several annual kite festivals held in Hoi An, Vung Tau, Dong Thap, Hue city, and Nha Trang, and has won many prizes.

Van never keeps a record on how much it costs to make one of his creations but he guesses his most expensive kite would cost him VND2-3 million (US$117-176) and a great deal of work.

The kite has to be aerodynamically designed to fly well in the wind. Van first sketches the kite spars and lines then seeks the right fabrics for the sails, as well as the best type of bamboo to build the frame. Van has his own sewing machine to put it together. The next step is to experiment, experiment and experiment!

Van makes kites in all shapes including Ben Thanh Market, rockets, octopi, turtles, crabs and lobsters.

The craftsman is attempting to break his own record with a 300- meter dragon kite which will be brought to Hanoi for the Thang Long (Rising Dragon) - Hanoi millennium anniversary. “When completed the dragon kite will battle his 100-meter older brother,” Van said.

Along with his 4m x 18m bag kite in the shape of the Vietnam flag, Van’s giant kites can lift a single person into the air. For those breathtaking performances four to five men must be summoned to hold the cords.

PARKOUR

Founded by David Belle, Parkour is a newly imported activity which has appealed to many local teens’ risk taking mentality. The ‘sport’ aims to develop participants’ flexibility as they run, leap, bounce and slide at break neck speed from one point to another negotiating everyday urban obstacles.

Not for the faint-hearted

Le Thi Rieng Park has become a regular practicing site for PB (Parkour Boys), the first local Parkour teen group. The group’s daily warm-up routine includes push-ups, frog-jumps and jogging.

Jumping from a 3-meter height, PB leader Thuan impresses the crowd of spectators with his tiptoe landing technique called Lazy Vault. Three other members continue to thrill passers-by with their mid-air maneuvers and sophisticated landings. “Spiderman” Anh delights everyone with his Pop Wall Spin as he runs up a wall and back flips.

Members say that many of the would-be-PB-members who witness the group’s “basic” techniques put off joining the group for another day.

Fearless but not careless

“We always watch Parkour performers’ clips over and over again and discuss the techniques before using them. The worst injuries so far have only been scratches or sprains! Parkour Boys who are adept at some basic techniques learn from more experienced members before going up another level,” a PB member said.

“Parkour is not categorized as a sport or an extreme sport, neither is it a branch of hip hop or break-dance. Parkour is just… Parkour! It’s the art of movement of its own. Players have to manage the best and most effective solutions to get over obstacles as though it were an emergency,” PB members Thuan and Thang said.

Parkour has already spread to Da Nang and Hanoi where Parkour girls are becoming more and more fascinated by the activity. “Parkour does not just get the boys’ adrenaline going, it also boosts girls’ flexibility and self-confidence,” a Parkour girl on an Internet forum said.

Reported by Hong Ha – Minh Hoa