Kite Wei

Kite Wei (风筝魏) is a Tianjin folk art founded in the Tongzhi era and listed among the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage extension projects in the city. Its founder, Wei Yuantai, was born in Tianjin on 8 June 1872. At sixteen he was apprenticed to the Jiang family's Tianfu Zhai paper-and-colour shop inside the north gate of the old walled city, and four years later he opened the Changqing Zhai Wei Ji kite workshop on Drum Tower East Street. The second, third and fourth inheritors, Wei Shenxing, Wei Yongchangxue and Wei Guoqiu, carried the craft on in turn. The covering uses pure silk, satin and gauze, hand-painted with graded shading, and the designs include the gong-and-drum wild goose, the flying eagle and the dragon-eyed fish.