<I>Submitted photo</I><BR>Mrs. HyonCha Koga talks with fan maker Cho Chung-ik about his craft. Cho Chung-ik is a designated "national treasure" by the Korean people.

LONG BEACH, Wash. – The World Kite Museum celebrates the 2007 Lunar New Year by featuring a Korean kite exhibit and other Korean paper crafts Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 24 and 25. On this weekend, the museum offers a $1 discount on anyone’s admission, which includes a museum tour, the paper crafts event and making a kite.

“The Korean Kite Story,” a new exhibit at the museum, includes replicas of the unique signal kites used by Adm. Yi Sun-sin in the 1590s war with Japan. The kite decoration is a code to direct the Army and Navy. Visitors can decode messages and send messages in kite code.

Other kites in the exhibit are decorated with both the folk and fine arts of Korea. The popular game of kite fighting and its amazing use of a spinning line winder is a third Korean category. A short video of the flying technique plays regularly.

The Tae-Geuk fans from the Cho Chung-ik Fan Exhibition that was part of the 2003 centennial year of Korean immigration to the United States in Honolulu is a very special part of this Korean Paper Arts show. Mrs. HyonCha Koga will be here to answer questions and tell stories.

The making of hanji (paper made from the bark of the mulberry tree) used in the paper arts will be displayed in its various stages. Other paper crafts on exhibit involve finely decorated paper boxes and elaborate dolls.

Museum hours for the Lunar New Year weekend are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (360) 642-4020 or visit (www.worldkitemuseum.com)