On December 11, the 4^th Kite Festival of Xiamen University was held at the track field on XMU Xiang’an Campus. At 8:00 in the morning, the contestants fetched at the display area their separate kites that had been hand-painted by themselves and started to tether threads to the kites for a trial flight. When the opening ceremony and performances ended, the participating teams got themselves geared up for the kite flying competition, during which over 100 kites soared into the sky one after another.  When the game was in full swing at the main venue, the parent-child interaction zone was also buzzing with activity and excitement. The host provided free blank kites and pigments, with which many children busied themselves designing and painting the kites on the scene with their parents. When the painting job was done, the kids went running and frolicking with the kite reels in their hands, the scene just reminding us of a verse of an ancient Chinese poem that goes “children hurried back home after school with zest, for they were eager to catch the vernal wind to fly the kite.”

The Kite Festival was hosted by the Working Committee of the Communist Youth League of the XMU Xiang’an Campus and organized by the Xiang’an branch of the Association of Student Societies in Xiamen University, including a series of activities such as online knowledge quiz on traditional Chinese culture, on-the-spot kite knowledge quiz, kite designing contest, and kite flying competition etc. During this festival, a total of 130 teams signed up and nearly 300 participators contested in the quiz competitions. In the kite designing contest, the DIY Innovative Awards, Best Design Awards and Outstanding Design Awards were given according to the online and on-the-site voting, and throughout the game the total votes amounted to 20, 000, of which 2,227 went to the team called “Kites flying over the moon” which has captured the first prize. In the kite flying competition, the players were evaluated against the criteria that mainly depend on the players' performance on the site. At the end of competition, many students commented that the Kite Festival, as a special activity on Xiang’an Campus, has not only popularized traditional culture regarding kites but also enriched the campus culture, bringing them a harvest of happiness and friendship.

Edited by Luo Shuang 

Source: http://news.xmu.edu.cn/b8/b7/c1552a243895/page.htm