Kite Making: Soeun Tim and his father, Tim Sao, fly the kite, 1987

Kite Making: Soeun Tim and his father, Tim Sao, fly the kite, 1987

1987

To fly the Klaing Aik we went to a nearby park located on the crest of a hill that overlooks the city of Lowell. The infamous day of the flight was August 24, 1987. It was a beautiful, cool, fall-like day with big puffy clouds scudding across the sky; a perfect day to watch and take pictures of the Klaing Aik in action. However, when Soeun Tim and his father, Tim Sao, tried to launch the kite it climbed only ten feet into the air before veering to one side and crashing to the ground. On their second attempt, despite the strong gusts of wind that bent the tree tops, they were unable to launch the kite again. The wind was not steady enough, it came on strong then quickly died before the kite was aloft.

Kate Making, photograph 17 of 19, from Cambodian Traditional Crafts and Religious Ceremonies.

View the Kite Making group of photographs in order on the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/CambodianKiteMaking.

University of Massachusetts Lowell

UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information. 

1 photograph; 8.8 x 12.6

kite_making_17