Kite Orgy at Lake Balaton: Égenjáró Sárkányfesztivál II

Semmi sem rombolja annyira az ember testét, mint a tétlenség.
– Aristotelesz

István’s eyes were wide open, gleaming, and watery … Two worlds were reflecting in them: a world of fun, happiness, and joy … and a world of gloom, depression, sadness, and the endless Hungarian plain.

István’s eyes were asking a question.

And they were irresistible.

So Gregor said – yes. And István was happy.

Look at him running with his Muslinca 🙂

---

Sayonara!
– Gyuri, to Yoh, when they met for the first time

We left Ljubljana armed and dangerous. In the car we had three powerful assets that we intended to use mercilessly on the unsuspecting people of Zamárdi, a pleasant little town on the southern shore of the Hungarian sea, Lake Balaton.

We had all the stuff for a 200-plus-kite workshop. We had a LED trilobite to light up the night … with fully charged batteries.

And we had Yoh!

---

It was one of those incredible coincidences that can only happen to kite flyers. Alja, whom we knew from last year’s Floating Castle Festival, had become a project manager at Center Rog, a creative hub in Ljubljana. Somehow she had kept our number and called us a week before the festival in Hungary.

– Hi, we have a Japanese lady here in Rog as an Artist in residence; she is making kites and I was wondering if you could offer any assistance to her, since you are the only kite people I know.
– Which Japanese lady?
– Eeeemmm …. I believe her name is Yoh something, and …
– Yoh Yasuda?!
– Yes …?
– We will be there in 15 minutes!

Yoh Yasuda doesn’t “make kites”. Yoh Yasuda creates incredible flying art. This is not about a rokkaku adorned with some nice appliqué, or a funny inflatable kite in the shape of a Proteus anguinus. She’s a master, she’s right up there with Anna, and Kadek, and István Bodóczky – to mention just a few of the crème de la crème of kite artists.

She made this kite prototype in like minutes.

Yoh is in Ljubljana! We rushed to Center Rog, overwhelmed sweet Yoh with our enthusiasm, and then looked at each other … and popped the question:

Would you come with us to a kite festival in Hungary next weekend?

Yoh had been in Ljubljana for barely a week, and we were almost certain she’d say no. One has to settle in, acclimatise to a new city; to immediately leave for some festival somewhere in Hungary with two guys one had just met was a bit far-fetched. There are rules of social behaviour, after all, even among kite people. There are limits.

Sure, I’d love to go!

Now we had to coordinate with the organisers, and we left a message for István about Yoh coming to the Égenjáró Festival just before the phone died. So István had to send the most beautiful voicemail:

Please please pleasepleaseplease bring her!!!!

And so we did.

And she brought this most beautiful kite with her, a giant leaf of Fatsia japonica, Japanese aralia.

---

Hey cutie, what religion are you?
– L’ubica

Autumn kite festival season had begun, and after a long, hot, and almost windless summer we were eager to fly, and even more eager to check on our friends. A small and sweet kite festival is perfect for getting back into kite-flying shape, and the Égenjáró Sárkányfesztivál in Zamárdi was exactly what we needed.

There was L’ubica, and Gyuri, Erzsébet, Ferenc, and Kati, and István, and Toni, and Réka. And Daniela and Gerhard! And Norbert, who tried his best at looking even more ridiculous than he did last year, and Anouk!

Few things can compare with stepping out of the car onto a kite field and seeing best friends running into your arms, and the chitchat that continues effortlessly as if we had parted last Thursday, not many months ago.

And few things can compare with L’ubica’s pickup lines.

---

You have to make a statement.
-Gregor

The windswept Hungarian plain around Lake Balaton is, well, usually swept by the wind. And the wind was indeed blowing perfectly on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday and on Monday.

The Égenjáró Nemzetközi Sárkányfesztivál was held on Saturday and Sunday.

Kites must fly. A festival where the kites lie around on the grass like unfortunate blobs of sadness is hardly a festival. Yes, there were true kite masters, Ferenc, Gyuri, Gerhard, István, who managed to lift their superflyers seriously high above Balaton, and Gregor somehow put his MASAG β up there too. But five or six kites hundreds of metres high, one train, and one big lifter wobbling in the sky hardly make a true festival.

Even letting the kids run with the trilobite, while fun, simply doesn’t cut it.

Kites must fly, yes, and there must be a lot of them in the sky for a kite festival to be a success. This is not a complicated philosophical position. It is basically the kite equivalent of saying that a swimming pool should contain some water.

Kids to the rescue! Toni and his students at MOME held a superb kite workshop for kids, making intricate little kites. Kids cut and coloured their birdies, attached tails, and ran around the meadow in pure bliss. Hundreds of kids running, hundreds of kites flying, now that’s a statement, that’s a festival!

But …

The cute bird-shaped kites were small and rather complex, and it took a child almost half an hour to make one, even with their parents helping, that is, making practically everything themselves. So after two hours of the workshop there were about 40 little kites dancing in the sky, not hundreds.

At the first Égenjáró Festival we told Toni that we pursue two goals when selecting and perfecting the design and workflow of a workshop kite. First, the cost of the material. Second, the time needed to make a kite. Both must be as low as possible, we said, and Toni looked sceptically at us, thinking these guys just want to spend as little as possible to increase their profits, and don’t want to spend much time with the kids. The scepticism persisted:

We have our stuff with us, can we join in?
Hmmm … maybe tomorrow, ok?

Ok. We’ll show you tomorrow what a kite workshop is.

---

Every child knows that being naughty is much more fun than being good.
– Janikovszky Éva.

Last year, the Égenjáró Festival was dedicated to the father of Hungarian kite making, István Bodóczky. This year, only his giant head was sternly observing our shenanigans, while the festival itself was dedicated to the famous author of children’s literature, Éva Janikovszky.

Every Hungarian knows Éva and her deadpan humour, and everyone here grew up with her characters brought to life by her incredible book illustrator and cartoonist László Réber. Together they created something very rare, even in children’s literature: she doesn’t write down to children, but from the child’s point of view, and very often the child sees through the absurdity of adult behaviour much more clearly than the adults do. Réber’s illustrations, economical to the point of scarcity, subtly enhance the message.

They formed a perfect pair.

And Éva was a perfect patron saint of this year’s Égenjáró Festival: at a kite festival, kids and adults transcend their differences, and we all run like mad, holding a line to the sky, with a kite dancing high above us. It is one of the few situations in which a grown adult can sprint across a meadow screaming at the top of their lungs and still be considered perfectly respectable.

And we were gifted their famous book, Who Does This Child Take After?, courtesy of Móra Publishing House, one of the main sponsors of the Égenjáró Festival, and we are really enjoying it, belatedly Hungarianising a part of our childhood.

---

You want ME to show YOU how to make a patang???
– Gregor to a nice couple … from India

Tomorrow came and we were allocated one table, out of six, to participate in the kite workshop for kids. As you all might have realised by now, our kite workshops are pure chaos. And a trap, a trap into which Toni blundered before the whole shebang had even started.

I will help you with the kids, and I will translate if needed.

We got to it. He sat down at 10:00, the first customer came, we showed the kid the steps, Toni was translating.

The kids were coming in numbers.

Then Toni was showing the kids how to tape the edges.

The customer influx overwhelmed our table, so we commandeered another one. And another one.

Toni was now fully occupied: the sticks, the tape, the tails, the line. One kid after another ran away with a kite dancing above them, and the sky above the meadow was filling with colours.

Ten kites. Twenty kites. Thirty kites …

Toni was in the zone, no longer registering the outside world. Hello, would you like to make a kite? Sit here. You will make an Indian fighter kite! Tape here, select the tails, put the sticks here. Tie the loop like this. Hello, would you like to make a kite? Sit here …

– Toni, lunch!
– Huh?
– Lunch is ready.
– Huh?
– Food, Toni. Eat.
– Ah.

The lunch was ready at one PM. We managed to pull Toni out of the pile of kids and kites at two.

When we returned and were basically ready to leave for Ljubljana, István’s irresistible eyes got in the way.

And Gregor said yes.

So we had a second workshop. Hundreds of little colourful kites were dancing over the meadow in Zamárdi. And Toni is still contemplating the unique dynamics of our punk type of kite workshop – faster! more! go go go! – where parents and kids and us drop deep into the zone, concentrating solely on making a kite, with his own, smooth, gentle, ordered one.

The statement was made.

---

Food is one of the cornerstones of a kite festival, and oftentimes people remember a festival not for the wind or for the fantastic aerial show, but for what they ate. The way to a kiter goes through their stomach. This is not merely a proverb, It is field-tested kite-festival science.

In Zamárdi we had fantastic pizzas courtesy of Pizza Pazza. We had a cool lunch at the PartON Bistro. But the highlight was, as ever, an authentic Hungarian dinner made by none other than chef Toni!

Last time he filled us to the brim with slambuc, and this year he decided to bring out the big cauldron again, filled it with meat, bacon, beans, carrots, potatoes, and his secret mixture of herbs.

And a generous smudge of mustard!

After many hours of slow bubbling over an open fire, he created a broth so divine even Szélanya was impressed and sat down with a full bowl, the hungry Hungarian Goddess of Wind completely forgetting about us trying to make a night-kite-flying session happen.

Toni’s broth was so soothing we went for a second.

And third …

---

Please please please, just one more time!
– the good people of Zamárdi

The windswept Hungarian plain around Lake Balaton is, well, usually swept by the wind. And the wind was blowing perfectly on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday and on Monday.

The Égenjáró Nemzetközi Sárkányfesztivál was held on Saturday and Sunday.

There were some lazy thermals supporting a couple of exceptionally capable kites. Gerhard was making fun of us, effortlessly lifting ever more beautiful kites one after another, while our sad bags were left crumpled on the grass. But the thermals go to bed early. As soon as the sun set, the air stopped moving.

“Why are you advertising night kite flying if there is no wind!?” screamed some obnoxious guy into István’s face right beside a poster that said Night flying on Saturday eve if the weather permits it.

As the Goddess of Wind was busy devouring Toni’s divine broth, we had no choice. The crowds demanded, we shall provide.

So we, dare we tell you … ran.

The crowd went OOOoooooOOOOOooohhhhHHHHhh!!!

Again.

WooohooOOOOoooOOOooo!!!

And again.

AAAAaaaaAAAAAAA!!!

The roaring of the Zamardi crowd surely gave us momentum, but only so much: the trilobite was heavy, the path long.

Please please please, just one more time!

OK. One more time.

---

Why do you want to write the letter O on the license plate of my car???
– Ferenc, a second before he exploded with laughter

In one of those late-night debates, all lobes and a couple of beers deep, we were discussing the difference between a calling and a job. Teaching is a calling, not a job, said Toni, and we all agreed. Artists have a calling! We nodded. Doctors! Sure. Lawyers, added Gregor, of course. Scientists were offered, and the discussion got heated over whether philosophers count. We agreed that they do, although the philosophers themselves were not consulted, presumably because they were somewhere else thinking about whether consultation is an ontological category.

So there are five basic callings: length and quality of life, doctors; exploration of the environment, scientists; exploration of the mind, artists; education, teachers; and the framework of civilisation, lawyers.

We forgot one calling.
Oh, yes?
Yes. Kite flying.

We drank to that. And thus emboldened,we discovered that we can alter a whole perception of a car just by adding one letter to its licence plate:

---

I saw your camera flying!
And I miss your camera!
– Gerhard and Saša debating kite aerial photography

Gerhard is a quiet master of KAP, and he made a spectacular video using his beautiful delta in the lightest of breezes, a breeze so gentle the image-stabilisation software basically had nothing to do.

We, on the other hand, boast incessantly about our kite aerial endeavours, but had only the heaviest Picavet with us, one that even our Original Blue rokkaku could barely lift properly. Gerhard’s smooth success got on our nerves, so we toiled in the Balaton sun, pumping the kite, pulling it across the meadow while barely avoiding the trees, and cursing the thermals that left the kite idle up there and the camera bobbing a couple of metres above the ground.

But we caught L’ubica’s beautiful kite in action!

And our base, ZAM! Kulbuborék

And the beautiful Tihany Peninsula with the imposing Tihany Abbey …

So, it was a successful kite aerial photography session after all!

---

Nigen!
– Gyuri to Hunor, after Gregor sneakily infiltrated a new word into Hungarian language

It was in the middle of our kite workshop, when all rational thought had already left and the workshop masters, that is, Gregor and Toni, were more like zombies than anything else. One of the few words of Hungarian we’ve picked up through the years is vége, from the Gusztáv cartoon, and női and férfi, meaning Ladies and Gentlemen, from the toilets of a shady bar in Nagykanizsa. Another useful survival word is igen, meaning yes.

So when Gregor was faced with an utter abomination of a kite made completely wrong, he wanted to scream NO!!! in Hungarian, and his train of thought went from the word he knew, igen, meaning yes, to negating this word: no igen – nigen.

Nigen!

A word born out of necessity, spread around as a joke, and finally getting into everyday use, when Gyuri stated firmly that his son would nigen get something the young guy wanted.

(Or at least that’s what we heard. Hungarian is a dangerous language when your vocabulary consists of approximately seven words and three of them are toilet signs.)

Will it stick around? Well, maybe yes – or as we say in Hungarian: migen!

As for us coming back to Zamardi next year, the answer is not nigen, nor migen.

It is definitely igen!

---

Big, big thanks to everyone who made the fantastic Égenjáró Nemzetközi Sárkányfesztivál happen again.

First and foremost – thank you, Kati, István, and Tóni. You are the best.

Thanks to all the friends we met again on the field, with a kite line in hand. To all the sponsors and supporters. To the kids who ran, the parents who helped, the organisers who somehow kept everything moving, and to István’s eyes that proved once again to be an exceptionally effective instrument of persuasion.

ZAM! ART a kultbuborék; ZAM Zamárdi and the girls and guys running the place, Pizza Pazza, PartON Bistro, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, all the volunteers, helpers, workshop masters, and of course the kids that made so many so beautiful kites – and Norbert for the incredible drone footage (we are still waiting for it, Norbert!).

And, of course, big big thanks to Yoh, who had just arrived in Ljubljana and somehow ended up in Hungary with us, flying a giant Japanese leaf above Lake Balaton. This is how kite festivals work. You never quite know where you are going to end up, who you are going to kidnap, or how many kites you are going to make.

And if there isn’t enough wind, there is always Toni’s broth.

---

P.S.

A lot of photos were brazenly stolen from Réka, Daniela, Gerhard, and others.