Robert Loera is crazy about kites. The owner of three Maui Toy Works stores is a kite master who has won national championships and attended kite festivals across the globe, including in China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealand.

Loera credits his passion for kites to his father, who owned a kite shop in San Diego called Beauty in the Wind. His parents divorced when he was a teen; because he lived with his mother, he and his dad were out of touch for a few years.

When Loera reconnected with him and visited the store, one of the kites his dad showed him was just a quarter-inch tall. "With a magnifying glass, I could see a Japa­nese boy and koi that he had painted on the tiny surface," Loera said. "I was hooked!"

Today Loera has a collection of some 400 kites as well as pins, art, headbands — anything that has a kite theme. Most are gifts from kite-flying friends around the world.

In 1981 Loera and Alfred Chang, a fellow kite enthusiast, founded the Hawaii Kiteflyers Association, which currently has about 50 members on Oahu, Maui and Molokai. From 1982 to 1999 Loera owned and operated Kite Fantasy in Wai­kiki, which offered kites for sale, kite repairs, daily demonstrations and free kite-flying lessons. During that same period, he organized kite-flying competitions at Kapiolani Park, Sandy Beach and Kua­loa Regional Park.

Loera will be in his element at the third annual Chinese Kite Festival. Highlights on Friday include an exhibit of 30 traditional and modern kites from his and Wo Hing Museum’s collections. Also on display will be a 9-foot tetrahedral kite. Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone, built the first such rigid multicelled "box" kite in 1902 as an early aeronautics experiment.

Festival attendees can help Loera make a second tetrahedral kite that’s 6 feet tall. When the giant kites are launched Saturday, some 20 people will be needed to hold each line in what Loera describes as tug of war with the wind.

As they will discover, kite flying is not kid stuff. "Some acrobatic or sport kites can fly more than 100 miles an hour," Loera said. "Skilled kite flyers are called ‘pilots’ for a good reason. Hawaii’s winds can be really strong and constantly change in duration and direction. Kite pilots know how to take and release tension on the lines, which is tricky because up to four lines are sometimes connected to one kite. It has been said we do with kites what the Blue Angels do with jets."

Everyone is encouraged to bring his or her own kite to fly Saturday. Loera will be on hand to provide guidance.

"Kite flying is mentally and physically stimulating and lots of fun, too," he said. "When you’re outdoors in the sun and fresh air and see your kite dancing high in the sky, you’re energized. It brings a smile to your face. When someone tells me they’re feeling down, I tell them, ‘Go fly a kite!’"

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.

Kites at a glance

As an old Chinese tale goes, a gust of wind blew a farmer’s hat off his head while he was working in the fields in Shandong province some 2,500 years ago. Annoyed, the farmer tied string to his hat before putting it back on. But another gust came and off went his hat again; this time, it played with the wind while the farmer held the string.

Thus, the kite was born.

Since bamboo for their frames, silk for their heads and flying lines were readily available, kites became a part of everyday life in China. Villagers began releasing kites inscribed with messages to the gods, asking for rain and thriving crops. They believed looking up at flying kites improved vision, and because their mouths opened slightly when their heads were tilted back, excess heat was expelled, resulting in an optimal yin-yang balance.

In olden times, people flew kites for good fortune during Chinese New Year. When they let go of the kite, bad luck supposedly went with it.

Kites were also used for measuring distances, testing wind speed and facilitating military operations, including calling troops to action. During the middle of the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907), with China at peace, kite flying became a recreational pastime and the making of kites a respected art.

In the 900s, craftsmen began creating elaborate kites with hand-painted designs featuring cranes, peaches, dragons, flowers, butterflies and other images symbolizing peace, power, prosperity, good luck and long life. Whistles, flutes and little gourds were affixed to some kites, enabling them to make music as they cavorted in the air.

From China, traders took kites to India, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and then to the West.

SCHEDULE

FRIDAY

Wo Hing Museum

1 to 7 p.m.: Kite exhibits

2 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m.: Presentations by Busaba Yip Doug•las, Wo Hing Museum’s cultural director (ancient Chinese kites), kite master Robert Loera (East Indian art of kite fighting) and kite master Scott Augenbaugh (modern kites)

3 to 5 p.m.: Chinese knot tying, kau chim (divination) presentation by Doug•las

3 to 6 p.m.: Mahjong, traditional erhu music

3 to 7 p.m.: Kite-making activity, kite-flying demonstration by the Hawaii Kitefliers Association

4 to 7 p.m.: Pork hash, manapua and other Chinese food will be sold (cash only). There will also be a tea demonstration.

5 to 7 p.m.: Help build a tetrahedral kite

SATURDAY

Kaanapali North Beach Open Space Park (weather permitting)

9 to 10 a.m.: Registration

9:30 to 10:30 a.m.: Dragon kite-flying demonstration

10 to 10:30 a.m.: Sport kite-flying demonstration

10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Kite flying (with attendees’ own kites), kite-making activity

12 to 1 p.m.: Tetrahedral kite flying demonstration

1 to 2 p.m.: Kite-fighting demonstration