Fighting in the sky
Ron Tan, 75, is an architect who hasn’t lost his desire to play. Recently, at CenterPlace at Mirabeau, he showed 25 kids the games of his youth. He spun a teakwood top, threw a marble, and described how to make a fighter kite. Later, he demonstrated his ability to control the small yet powerful kite built of bamboo and colorful tissue paper.
The children from the Spokane Valley Parks and Recreation Summer Day Camp oohed and ahhed as the kite swooped, spun, twirled and dived while Tan jerked on the string. One boy yelled, “Dive bomb it,” and Tan did, with a big grin on his face.
Kites have been around for at least 2,000 years. They have been used in battles and celebrations, and for fun as well as scientific experiments, such as those conducted by Benjamin Franklin.
Tan, who grew up in Singapore, flew fighter kites as a child. The sky would be full of them, and the kites would fight over a mile up. The manipulators on the ground were skilled, knowing when to dive and when to retreat.
The single string that tethered the kite was often partially coated with a powdered glass and glue mixture, making it easier to slice an opponent’s kite string.
“Bystanders would wait around with tall bamboo sticks,” said Tan, “and when a losing kite was cut loose, they’d go running after it, trying to snag it with the stick.”
Perhaps his building kites as a child motivated Tan to continue to build and enjoy his creations, or it could have been his exposure to many cultures.
“Singapore is the most multicultured area in the world,” he said, “There, I learned Shakespeare and English from the British.”
In 1951, he came to the United States, and in 1956, graduated from the University of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. Since then, he has been the design architect for more than 200 projects in Washington, Idaho and Montana including buildings at Gonzaga University and CenterPlace. He is the president of Tan-Moore Architects.
His love for playing games, drawing and building has never ceased.
“I never grew up,” he said, and that is apparent in his youthful nature. His hobbies include fishing, camping, mushroom hunting, gathering wild foods, the arts, exploring, classical music, cooking, and of course, making and flying kites. He could not find fighter kites here so he makes his own, and he could not find an opponent so instead, he shares them with others in a sky all to himself.
“When you learn to create, you cease to destroy,” he said, and who can say they haven’t been filled with a childlike glee while watching a kite soar through the sky?