By Sportswriter Wu Junkuan
QUANZHOU, Southeast China, Oct. 28 (Chinese media) -- Shaohui, a poor village in
China's Fujian Province on the west coast of Taiwan Straits 30 years ago, now
boasts four light basketball courts and four outdoor body-building areas as the
average annual income of some 3,600 villagers reaches 9,000 yuan (about 1,300
U.S. dollars).
The 50-year-old villager Hong Woyi told Chinese media on Tuesday that the on-going
National Peasants' Games in Quanzhou reminds him the importance of doing
exercises.
"As the life becomes better and better, I get more weights due to lack of
field working. Suffering from hypertension and glycemia, I even think I am not a
real peasant," Hong said.
Now, Hong practices Taiji, a special form of the Chinese martial arts,
every morning and then does exercises in an outdoor body-building area near a
lighting basketball court.
Thirty years ago, the scene was totally different. The villagers struggled
day and night in their lean field, hoping to make ends meet.
"At that time, there were no sports facilities in the whole village, and
the field work was in a sense the only 'sport' for us. We were even nicknamed
'mud legs' because of the long-time field work," said Hong, who is now wearing a
pair of decent leather shoes and working in an air-conditioned office.
Hong said,"The village has two basketball teams -- a workers team and a
juniors team. Both teams regularly take part in friendly tournaments with teams
from neighboring villages. And thetrophy and award are all sponsored by village
factories."
The Shaohui village is near Jinjiang, an affiliated town to Quanzhou city.
Quanzhou, which is hosting the largest-ever Chinese National Peasants' Games,
has become a sports equipment production base in China.
Shaohui is just an epitome of the peasants' life and the development of
sports in China's rural areas. According to the Jinjiang Sports and Culture
Administration, there are more than 800 lighting basketball courts scattering
over 300 villages around the town and the outdoor body-building areas exist in
every single village. The Jinjiang Peasants' Sports Association was also
established last year to guide grass-roots sports development.
Yang Chunyan, a dragon-boating athlete in the Peasants' Games said, "In
recent years, all kinds of private enterprises sprang up in Chinese rural areas.
Many of my fellow villagers have already worked in these enterprises, and some
even hunt jobs in cities. We do not need to work in the field all the time, but
we still need exercise to keep fit."
In the cycling events of the ongoing Peasants' Games, most audience went to
watch the game by motorbike. Although China is called the "Bike Kingdom" because
of its enormous bike output and possession rate, many peasants now consider bike
riding as a recreation, other than popular means of transportation any more.
According to Wang Fulai, the secretary general of Chinese National
Peasants' Sports Association, every China's province, autonomous region or
municipality has its own Peasants' Sports Association now. More than 20,000
towns in China have established sports organizations, which is leading to a
systematic network.
"After the sixth National Games of Peasants, we will send some athletes to
compete and perform in grass-roots areas. And we believe the Chinese peasants'
interests and enthusiasm for sports will be further increased by this move,"
said a determined Wang.
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