No I don't mean those giant kites either. The kites that people fly in Brasil are about 20" tall, with a tail that can be over 20' long. Made of 3 bamboo sticks and silk paper.
These kites can fly very far with very little wind, are fully maneuverable (left and right turns and full dives)
The main thing with kite flying there was to add a very fine coat of powdered glass on the line and literally battle other kites and cut the line. If you're good at it, you can dive after the cut, and capture the kite and that becomes your kite.
Its as if there's a "code" to kite flying. If a cut kite floats down, you can see a ton of kids running down the street after it. Whoever touches/grabs the kite or line first, keeps it. In the years I lived there, I've never seen anyone disobey the code and try to take a kite away from someone who caught it.
I had a friend there who would fly every weekend, and when he cut a really nice kite, he'd give me the can (you wind the line on a can) and took off in his car after it.
Good times.