Xinhua
Staff Reporter
2015-08-18
A performance at the closing ceremony of the ethnic games in Ordos, Inner Mongolia. (Photo/CNS)
China’s ethnic games concluded on Monday, wrapping up the nine-day competition and folk-style sports demonstration in Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Some 6,240 athletes from all 56 recognized ethnic groups in China competed or performed in nearly 200 traditional sporting events with 188 first prizes, 472 second prizes and 496 third prizes being awarded instead of medals, which put cultural exchanges and mutual understanding ahead of the results of the events.
The 34 delegations allowed an exclusive experience to spectators with their unique ethnic-style traditional sports. The tournament is much like a fashion show and traditional culture exhibition than sports competition.
Ma Yanlin of the Miao ethnic group in Guizhou province dressed in a Miao traditional costume to attend a culture exchange program in the middle of the games. She wore a one-meter-high hat and magnificent traditional dress which was decorated with many silver accessories and other ornaments.
“Not quite like the other sports events, the ethnic games are much more a culture feat and traditional festival to me,” said the 22-year-old, whose silver accessories combined for a weight of more than seven kilograms, swinging and jingling like a music instrument.
With its 62-year history, the quadrennial games served as a get-together party for the country’s 56 ethnic groups and has played a key role in keeping multiple traditional sports alive.
In November 1953, nearly 400 athletes from China’s (then recognized) 13 ethnic groups participated in the inaugural ethnic games in Tianjin, taking part in competitions such as weightlifting, boxing, wrestling and a couple of traditional sports.
The first ethnic games lasted five days and attracted a total of 120,000 spectators. It was also the first ever multiple-sport event in the world’s most populous country.
Some 29 years passed however before the event took place again, this time in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, in 1982, where 55 ethnic groups participated, excluding the ethnic Han Chinese majority.
Since 1991, the ethnic games have become a quadrennial event, featuring ethnic sports and characteristics of the country’s ethnic minorities, who account for almost 9% of the country’s total population of 1.3 billion people.
The ethnic games offers an opportunity for people from China’s rural and border areas to present their specialties as well. In 2007, Tibetan athlete Dahi traveled on a train for the first time in his life after being selected by the Gansu delegation to attend the eighth ethnic games in Guangzhou, one of the largest and most prosperous provinces in China.
The Tibetan herdsman, born on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, barely slept during his 36-hour trip because he didn’t want to miss any of the scenery along the way.
Traditional sports can be expressions of both skill and joy. Thanks to the games, many ethnic traditions can be preserved even if they no longer play a major role in day-to-day life.
Single bamboo drifting, which originated in Guizhou province and once served as a local transportation method, was introduced to the games as a title event four years ago. Athletes need to stand on a seven-meter-long bamboo pole and use a much thinner bamboo in hands as an oar to glide on water.
There are 17 title events in the games, including a dragon-boat race, stilt race, board shoe race, equestrian, swing, shuttlecock kick, Huapao (which bears similarities to rugby), ethnic martial arts, yajia (ethnic-style one-on-one tug of war), and bowl (which bears similarities to hockey).
Athletes from the majority Han ethnic group are allowed to participate in team events are allowed to make up up to one third of the squad.
The ethnic games prioritizes cultural exchanges, ethnic interaction and mutual understanding more than competition, recognizing and upholding culture differences and ethnic features.
The next ethnic games will be held in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China’s Henan province, in 2019.
