We all have fantasized about flying, soaring into the clouds, but in the real world the next best thing may be flying a kite that can rise above it all.

If you're a kite-lover, amateur or professional, spring is your season. Parks around Shanghai and open land in the suburbs beckon kite fliers. Some are lovers who both get a thrill out of grasping the tail of the kite. Some are kite craftsmen and fanatics who study the wind and build aerodynamic creatures that delight us with their ingenuity.

Some are teams of deadly serious professionals who are getting ready to fight and fly their creations in the National Kite Championship in Tianjin on April 26 and 27 in northern China.

One of the most passionate is Huang Guoming, coach of the Shanghai Shenying Kite Team, the official city entry in the national contest of 15 teams. He is CEO of a real estate group and builder (he's also a mechanical engineer) of what he believes is the world's longest kite - a dragon with a 3.2-meter-high head and a 200-meter-long body.

He and his eight team members will fly the dragon in Tianjin. He has applied for a Guinness World Record.

"My love of kites might have something to do with the success of my career," Huang says. "As recreation, kite flying can carry all your troubles to the sky. As competition, flying kite inspires me a lot in life's philosophy. For example, it requires patience and strategy."

The first kite in China is said to have been flown 2,500 years ago. It might have been a farmer who tied a string to his hat to keep it from being blown away in a high wind.

Kites were said to have been invented by Mo Di, who labored for three years to make a wooden bird that finally took wing. Later, Mo's student Lu Ban improved the kite by using light bamboo instead of wood.

Early kites were used by the military and for communication. They later became a form of recreation.

In the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), a zheng or zither was attached to a kite. When the wind blew, the zheng played. The kite was then called fengzheng (feng means wind). Centuries later, kites were soaring in every corner of the world.

Dou Hui, a retired university professor, remembers showing his three-year-old granddaughter how to fly a kite, when he visited his family in the United States.

"It's a tradition of spring outings," Dou says. "Flying a kite with my little granddaughter always delighted her. I cherish the moment when we were running and following the kite together in the backyard of my daughter's house."

For some, flying a kite is a serious business.

Coach Huang of Shanghai Shenying Kite Team will lead his team to compete in many of the 11 categories in the national championship, including stunt flying and dragon kite flying.

At the last tournament two years ago, Huang won the championship in the dragon category; he was a runner-up in the hard-wing category. At the 13th Shanghai Sports Meeting, Huang took the gold medal for dragon kite flying.

His cabinets are filled with cups, trophies and certificates of prowess.

"One day, I hope kite flying will become an Olympic sport," Huang says.

Huang fell in love with kites when he was five years old; he dreamed of flying to the sky. As today's life is so hectic, flying kites brings back childhood memories and helps him relax.

Huang holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Beijing University. He began to design and build his own kites in 2005.

In the 2006 National Kite Championship, Huang's grand dragon kite won the prize for best technology.

For Huang and others, flying kites improves physical fitness. Huang used to suffer from neck pains, but he says the stretching from kite flying has cured him.

Practicing for two hours a day for half a year can bring most people to professional level, he says. Handling the kite and knowing when and how to tug on the string are crucial.

Huang's team is probably the best known in the Shanghai Kite Association, which has about 25 members. Last September the team attended the invitational Asian Pacific Kite Friendship Cup in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, along with teams from Singapore, Malaysia and some Middle East countries.

The Shanghai team wowed everyone with their dragon kite.

For others, kite flying is about feeling, not skill. There's definitely a romantic side. Who says men are just like kites and all a woman can do is to hang on to the string?

"It's like a ceremony. When you are with your beloved and you hold the string tightly in the hand and fly the kite high to the sky, it feels so good," says Zhao Ji. The white-collar lady and her kite-flying boyfriend plan to marry.

She says the kite "is like our future. When we hold the string together in our hands, it feels that we are steering our future together."

(Shanghai Daily April 7, 2008)