{"id":181444,"date":"2015-02-19T15:38:21","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T23:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=181444"},"modified":"2015-02-19T15:39:22","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T23:39:22","slug":"kite-makers-age-lofty-tradition-goes-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/02\/kite-makers-age-lofty-tradition-goes-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"As Kite Makers Age, Lofty Tradition Goes to Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>McClatchy&#8217;s Stuart Leavenworth reports from Weifang, Shandong, China&#8217;s kite capitol, on how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/2015\/02\/18\/257057\/as-chinas-kite-makers-age-lofty.html\"><strong>an ancient tradition may be in its autumn phase<\/strong><\/a>\u2014and how a similar fate faces many Chinese cultural traditions in the modern age:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Zhang Xiaodong\u2019s workshop is strewn with all manner of flying contraptions. There are dragons, eagles, butterflies and ingenious mechanical kites, including one that features a frog seeking to devour a praying mantis.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]\u00a0Chinese kite makers have much to worry about these days. As China modernizes, a new generation is playing video games instead of attaching painted silk to bamboo frames. The artisans that remain are rapidly aging. Nearly all of them are men in a nation of almost 1.4 billion people.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;] The slow demise of kite making is part of a larger cultural saga in China. Historic architecture, crafts and music are being overwhelmed by China\u2019s growth and its inability to effectively preserve traditions of the past.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2006, China\u2019s Culture Ministry has devoted $3.5 billion yuan, about $574 million, to programs seeking to preserve the nation\u2019s \u201cintangible cultural heritage.\u201d But late last month, the ministry announced it was disqualifying 300 of those programs, either because they were ineffective or couldn\u2019t account for expended funds, <a href=\"http:\/\/usa.chinadaily.com.cn\/culture\/2015-01\/25\/content_19402613.htm\" target=\"_blank\">according to a story in the China Daily<\/a>. [&#8230;] [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/2015\/02\/18\/257057\/as-chinas-kite-makers-age-lofty.html\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read more about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/2015\/02\/18\/257057\/as-chinas-kite-makers-age-lofty.html\">traditional Chinese culture<\/a> via CDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>McClatchy&#8217;s Stuart Leavenworth reports from Weifang, Shandong, China&#8217;s kite capitol, on how an ancient tradition may be in its autumn phase\u2014and how a similar fate faces many Chinese cultural traditions in the modern age: Zhang Xiaodong\u2019s workshop is strewn with all manner of flying contraptions. There are dragons, eagles, butterflies and ingenious mechanical kites, including [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":985,"featured_media":181447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,14744,14745,14746,5],"tags":[3606],"class_list":["post-181444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-society","tag-traditional-culture","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>As Kite Makers Age, Lofty Tradition Goes to Ground<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/02\/kite-makers-age-lofty-tradition-goes-ground\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"As Kite Makers Age, Lofty Tradition Goes to Ground\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"McClatchy&#8217;s Stuart Leavenworth reports from Weifang, Shandong, China&#8217;s kite capitol, on how an ancient tradition may be in its autumn phase\u2014and how a similar fate faces many Chinese cultural traditions in the modern age: Zhang Xiaodong\u2019s workshop is strewn with all manner of flying contraptions. 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