Lisa Siregar

Detail of a kite representing Dewi Sri ,the rice goddess, hanging in the Indonesia Kite Museum. (Photo: Lisa Siregar, JG)

Flying High In the Indonesia Kite Museum

The Indonesia Kite Museum, located in Pondok Labu, South Jakarta, was quiet last Thursday, but brightly colored pictures of children flying kites on the brick walls of the front office welcomed curious visitors.

Museum founder Endang Puspoyo has been collecting kites for more than 20 year, and is particularly fond of Balinese kites. Her focus is on “creative kites,” which can be shaped to look like animals or birds, or utilize other decorative styles.

Over the last 17 years, she has also given lessons in kite-making at schools in Jakarta and nearby areas.

“Ever since I learned about creative kites and how beautiful they are, I started collecting them,” Endang said. “Then, to preserve the existence of kites, I decided I needed to start teaching children.”

She initially taught the craft at international schools only because students at local schools showed little interest in the subject. But that has changed and she now teaches kite-making at several local schools, including at a special school for disabled children.

Six years ago, Endang opened her museum. Entry to the venue — billed as the only kite museum in the country — is Rp 10,000 ($1) and includes a lesson and materials to make a kite.

Entering the museum, visitors pass through a ceramic workshop, a craft showroom and the office before finally arriving in front of a 150-year-old pendopo (pavilion) that Endang moved from Prowulan, East Java. Kites hang on the walls of the pendopo and from the ceiling. Rolls of colorful material are scattered across the floor.

One of the first kites visible upon entering the pendopo is a human-sized creation. At its center is a paper and polyester sculpture of a woman dressed in a red tube top, with a bright pink shawl tied around her hips and a crown upon her head. Her hands are wide open in a dance pose.

“This one over here is my creation, it’s called the ‘Peacock Dance,’ ” said Asep Irawan, the Sundanese guide and caretaker of the museum, who is also an experienced kite maker.

It took him a month to finish the kite, which he said had won awards at a local competition.

A few visitors sat in the pendopo in front of a man painting a portrait from a photo on a white, long-sleeved T-shirt. Hanging above them was a kite in the form of a delman (traditional cart drawn by a horse).

Other kites take extraordinary forms, such as a sailboat and a dragonfly, and look more like flying sculptures than kites. The simplest kite on the wall is a traditional diamond-shape with an image of Harry Potter’s face on it.

But kites aren’t just decorative. They have a role in religious rituals and cultural traditions in many Asian countries, including Indonesia. In Bali, for example, kites are seen as sacred.

“When a Balinese person makes a janggan kite [a traditional Balinese kite with the head of a dragon], he is required to fast,” Asep said.

Janggan kites are typically large, usually 1.5 meters wide with a 100-meter-long tail. To add to the realism of these dragon kites, a fire is often lit in

a paper lantern attached in front of the dragon’s mouth.

These kites are usually used in Balinese Hindu rituals, and although they can also be flown in festivals or competitions, tradition dictates they must never be allowed to fall onto the ground.

“The Balinese have ceremonies [they perform] before they make a kite, after they finish it and before and after they fly it,” Endang explained.

Janggan kites come in both male and female versions — and during ceremonies the former must be flown higher than the latter.

According to Endang, these kinds of creative kites can be seen as a symbol of unity in communities, as up to 40 people can be involved in making and flying them.

There are plenty of other rituals associated with kites.

“In the past, people used to fly kites to tease the angels in the sky to come down to their village and bless them with a good harvest,” Endang said.

“That is why people create beautiful kites that look like dancing princesses, and sometimes with some kind of drone to create a low, humming tune, to invite the angels to come down.”

In a documentary video, shown at the beginning of the museum tour, visitors learn that in Japan kites are used to mark the birth of a boy. In Malaysia and Korea, kites are believed to be powerful enough to help get rid of bad spirits. In Thailand, kites are used in rituals to prevent the rain. It is also said that the Wright brothers used kites when develop their airplane.

The exact origin of kites is unknown, but in Indonesia an ancient painting of a kite was found in Muna cave in South Sulawesi.

Besides rituals, kites have over the years been used for a variety of purposes, such as sport, transportation and even for fishing. Fishermen near Mutun beach in Lampung use kites equipped with nets while out on the ocean.

The museum’s collection also includes kites from India, Istanbul, Japan, China, Korea and Turkey.

After the tour, visitors can sit down with Asep on the terrace to learn how to make a kite. With a pre-prepared bamboo skeleton, it only takes about 15 minutes to create a simple, diamond-shaped kite, which can be decorated with colorful polyester or acrylic paint.

Diamond-shaped kites decorated with everything from cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Casper the Ghost to caterpillars and bees are sold at the museum for Rp 20,000 each.

Visitors can also learn to shape and mold ceramics using pottery clay, paint on paper umbrellas, T-shirts, traditional hats or lanterns, or make batik handkerchiefs.

Each of these activities takes about 45 minutes, and costs anywhere from Rp 40,000 to Rp 50,000. .

Endang said she believes kites encapsulate a lot of social values and philosophy.

“A kite is just like a man who needs balance to exist and has to control the balance,” she said.
The guide and caretaker of the museum, Asep Irawan, 43, was born in Bandung and raised in a kite-making family. He learned how to make kites from his late father, along with his seven siblings.

His training began when he was in the fourth grade. Initially, he made simple, diamond-shaped kites.

“I used to sell my kites for Rp 75 each, and only needed Rp 25 to make one,” Asep said, adding that he could construct 100 kites in two days. As a child, he used the money to pay for his school fees and books. Sometimes people ordered as many as 100 to 200 kites at a time to be flown in weekend competitions. “My clients [when I was a child] were rich people,” Asep said.

Kites with thinner bamboo sticks fly better, he said, so that was how he made kites for competitions.

Asep eventually constructed his first creative kite, made to order, in the form of a red dragonfly. Dragonflies remain his favorite kite design.

It took him a week to finish the kite and Asep still has a photo of his father, in a yellow shirt, standing in front of the kite, which is the same height as him.

“An Chinese [Indonesian] guy ordered it to fly in a competition in Tanah Lot,” Asep said.

His second creative kite was a giant elephant’s head, made to order for a competition in Lampung.

Asep said that when he constructs creative kites he draws the design on his own, usually just by looking at a photo of the subject. Besides the dragonfly, his other favorite shapes are butterflies and birds.

“The most important thing is the size [of the sticks so the kite is balanced], and the bamboo that you use to make the skeleton,” he said.

Asep grinds down two sticks of bamboo with an old knife. When he goes home to his village, he likes to cut his own bamboo, which he brings back to the museum, or uses to make kites at home.

“I sometimes go home for four or five days to rest, but usually I end up making kites, especially when there is an order,” Asep said.

People order kites directly from him, sometimes for competitions, sometimes to sell themselves. In two days, he can create about 10 one-meter-wide dragonfly or butterfly kites. Each is sold for Rp 35,000. Smaller kites cost Rp 25,000. He sells the larger, person-sized kites for around Rp 500,000.

“Kiting is a good sport, but I can also use it to make a living,” Asep said.

Before he moved to Jakarta, he went out with his friends to fly kites on the weekend.

“Once you manage to fly the kite, it’s relaxing to see it flying in the sky,” Asep said. “You can just tie it to a tree so you don’t get tired of holding it.”

He said he then likes to hang out under the tree with his friends, chatting and sipping coffee.

“It’s refreshing,” he said.

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