From a Plastic Bag to the Zhuangzi: Wind, Freedom, and Ethics in a “Flying Kites” Note

Table of Contents

Original 2019 Reading Note (Preserved in Full)

Reading check-in + Day Twenty + Rustling Reed Flowers + reading notes

In front of the academic corridor, a garbage bag was lifted by the wind and soared upward. Did it rise ninety thousand li? I have been thinking about that garbage bag all day today, so in the evening I opened Rustling Reed Flowers and read “Flying Kites.” I went looking for it deliberately; before I looked, I did not even know whether this book contained anything about things flying in the sky. Because what I wanted more to talk about was this garbage bag. This garbage bag moved me deeply.

The garbage bag I saw in the morning was so free, dancing in the wind like ballet, and also like some exquisite martial art. It followed the rhythm of the wind, and dissolved the force of the wind. It borrowed the wind’s strength, and revealed its own grace. It fulfilled its own grace, and did not resent the wind’s coming and going. It rode the wind, unbound by form, transformed into formlessness, taking nature as its law; the Way was within it. It was like taiji, with yin and yang flowing through it.

In the author’s heart, the kites of his hometown are more beautiful and more full of feeling than the kites of Weifang. In my heart, the garbage bag is ten million times more beautiful than the author’s kite. However beautiful the author’s kite may be, it is still a kite; it is not free. The garbage bag in my eyes is simply a garbage bag. It has been discarded by people, yet it delights in itself. When the wind comes, it rises; when the wind surges, it spins; when the wind is swift, it yields; when the wind is gentle, it follows; when the wind departs, it falls. Neither hurried nor slow, hurried and slow by turns.

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Editorial Note (Checked 2026-09-01)

The complete 2019 note appears above. It turns a chance observation into reflections on wind, freedom, and form, then deliberately seeks “Flying Kites” in Rustling Reed Flowers as a point of comparison. Its intense, exaggerated, rhythmic voice remains intact. The new material below only separates verifiable evidence, literary association, and the ethics of observation that should be made explicit today; it does not give the earlier “I” a new experience or invented motive.

What the Archive and Image Establish

The archive contains this text, one 890×555 PNG illustration, and its WordPress media URL. The visible image shows a white plastic bag above a beach under heavy cloud, but the file carries no creator, source, location, capture date, or licence information. It remains as the original post illustration. It must not be presented as documentary evidence of the event at the “academic corridor,” nor used to infer a photographer or permission status.

The Edition of Rustling Reed Flowers and “Flying Kites” Remains Unidentified

The original note gives no author, editor, publisher, publication year, edition, ISBN, or page number for Rustling Reed Flowers. The archive retains no cover, copyright page, contents, or first page of “Flying Kites.” Public searches surface retail data for a book with the same title, but that is not enough to prove which edition was read or who wrote the included piece. This post therefore adds no name or publication data.

The sentence saying that the author's hometown kites were more beautiful than Weifang's remains a 2019 reader summary, not a substitute for a quotation from the work. If the physical copy is found, photograph its copyright page, contents, and the work's first page before checking the title, credit, pages, and wording. Until then, mark them “unverified.”

Boundaries of the Classical Allusions

Wording in the 2019 note	Verifiable textual connection	What it does not establish
“扶摇而上，有九万里吗？”	The Zhuangzi, “Free and Easy Wandering,” contains `抟扶摇而上者九万里`; the note reshapes it as a question	It does not make the bag an exact counterpart to the Peng or assign the passage one necessary interpretation
“御风而行”	The same chapter contains `列子御风而行`	A shared short phrase does not mean the whole paragraph retells the Zhuangzi
“法于自然”	Its diction is close to `道法自然` in chapter 25 of the Daodejing, but it is not the same sentence	Without a citation, it cannot establish a deliberate quotation of a particular edition or commentary
“不役于形”	It resembles a reversal of `既自以心为形役` in Tao Yuanming's “Returning Home”	It can be recorded as a possible verbal echo, not confirmed provenance or intent
“太极,” “阴阳,” and “道”	These are broad terms spanning many texts and traditions	The words alone identify no single classic, school, or philosophical claim

The later wind sequence beginning 风来其起之…… can be read as the note's own cadence. Unless a definite source is found, it should not be repackaged as a quotation from an ancient text.

A Reusable Close-Reading Method

Record Four Layers

Observation: what could be perceived at the time—object, movement, place, and time—without filling in details absent from the note or image.
Metaphor: ballet, martial arts, and taiji are ways the reader gives shape to motion, not properties inherent in the object.
Textual connection: provide a title and page or classical phrase, and label it as a quotation, adaptation, or association.
Value judgment: freedom, beauty, and lack of freedom are interpretations. State what observation or text prompts each one and allow another reading.

This keeps the note's imagination alive without reporting metaphor as fact.

Questions for Rereading

How does the repeated “it” temporarily give a discarded object something like agency?
Are “borrowing the wind” and “dissolving the wind” complementary, contradictory, or two views of one movement?
Why does the note judge a tethered kite unfree but a bag governed by wind free?
Between “the author's kite” and “the bag in my eyes,” is the comparison about objects, memory, craft, or the observer's feeling?
How would the beauty change if the bag's eventual landing and continued existence as litter entered the frame?

These questions analyze the surviving note. They do not pose as plot details or authorial intent from “Flying Kites.”

Ethics of Observation and Safety Boundaries

Appreciating an Image Does Not Endorse Littering

A windblown plastic bag can prompt a genuine aesthetic response. That does not justify discarding it or suggest releasing plastic to photograph or recreate the scene. A sea-turtle protection guide from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service explains that sea turtles and other animals may eat or become entangled in marine trash, and that sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish. A fuller reading can retain both judgments: the movement was affecting when observed, and the object remains litter requiring proper disposal after it lands.

Clean Up Only When It Is Safe, Lawful, and Reachable

Check the surroundings first. Do not chase a bag into a carriageway, running water, steep ground, a closed area, or an electrical installation. North Northamptonshire Council's community litter-picking guidance says not to walk in the road and to avoid ditches and running water. If recognizable litter is safely reachable from a permitted path, follow local rules and use gloves or a picker before placing it in the correct container. Unknown liquids, sharp or medical waste, heavy objects, and items in hazardous locations should be left for the venue, municipal, highway, or utility authority.

“Pick it up” is not an instruction to take a personal risk. Wind, traffic, water, site access, and local rules differ. If it is unsafe, stop, record the location, and report it.

If You Are Actually Flying a Kite

Use an open, permitted site and first check weather, people, roads, water edges, buildings, and overhead lines. A Weihai municipal-government power-safety notice advises staying away from electrical infrastructure; if a kite catches on a line, do not pull it by hand and contact the electricity provider. Aviation and venue rules vary. For example, the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department's kite rules specify limits involving aerodrome distance, height, and distance from vehicles, vessels, and structures. Check the current rules where you are; do not treat those example measurements as universal.

Pre-Publication Check

Are the original note, image, and later editorial material clearly separated?
Does every book title, work title, author, edition, and quotation have inspectable evidence?
Are classical phrases labelled as originals, adaptations, or merely possible associations?
Is the image described only from what is visible, without inventing its photographer, place, date, or licence?
Is aesthetic description separated from littering, environmental consequences, and cleanup responsibility?
Do cleanup and kite-flying suggestions defer to local rules and place personal safety before retrieving an object?