Kite Display Helps Keep Cultural Traditions Alive

And no wonder. These were traditional-looking Korean kites, the type that for more than 600 years have flown bearing messages of hope and renewal. The kind that Joosung Chung hasn't seen since he came to the United States 15 years ago.

A half-dozen of them are on view at a shopping mall in the center of Koreatown to help commemorate the centennial of Korean immigration to this country.

And, this being Los Angeles, the artists who created the banner-like forms, called yeon, included Latinos, an African American and a Caucasian along with Korean Americans.

"This is a very good illustration of our lives, from A to Z," Chung explained as he studied one of the 12-foot strips of cloth covered with symbols depicting the past 100 years of Korean life in the United States. "This one is very good for first-generation immigrants."

Turning in another direction in the sunlit atrium courtyard of the Koreatown Galleria, Chung, a dentist, pointed to another kite. It bore a stylized view of stars in the Big Dipper representing the future hopes and dreams of Korean Americans.

"The star one is good for second- or third-generation immigrants," Chung said approvingly. "It's very good for them."

The kites trace Koreans' path from the sugar cane and pineapple fields of Hawaii in 1903, through the fires of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and to today.

They also document Korea's traditional culture and point to its continuing importance in Korean Americans' lives.

If the display, called "Taking Flight: Migration Dreams," is an unexpectedly colorful chronicle of Korean immigration to this country, its setting is unexpected too.

Koreatown's lively nightclubs, restaurants and shops are a draw for the 92,000 Koreans who live in Los Angeles. But many lament that the area lacks corresponding amenities, such as museums and cultural centers.

The 2-year-old, $33-million Koreatown Galleria mall at Olympic Boulevard and Western Avenue commissioned the centennial project as part of the city's requirement that new developments display public art.

It was the mall's exterior design that inspired the kite display inside its interior atrium.

"I was driving by and saw these shapes that looked like giant picture frames," said Karen Mack, who first proposed the art exhibition. An African American, Mack is founder of L.A. Commons -- a nonprofit organization that helps local groups create public art. She lives in the nearby Wilshire Miracle Mile area.