Chinese Ethnic Games, feast of dazzling folk style

The Chinese Ethnic Games has presented dazzling folk styles inside and outside the stadiums in Ordos, Inner Mongolia at the quadrenniel get-together of 56 ethnic groups.

"I still have a dream," said Adili, a 44-year-old Uyghur after his ninth experience demonstrating the exhibition sport of tight-rope walk at the ethnic games. As the most famed high-wire daredevil of China, he showed a walk on 21-meter high wire with eyes covered. Now, he's planning a tight-rope walk across the Taiwan Strait for a distance of 4,800 meters.

"It's not only a challenge of my career, but also an opportunity to enhance the exchanges between both sides of the Taiwan Strait," added the Guinness world records holder.

In a nearby venue from Adili's performance, Enhe Baoligao from Inner Mongolia stood on his speedy horse, shot an arrow and hit the target. Another Inner Mongolia's athlete Yu Zhiguo saw his horse "Ewenki Hero" win the 5000-meter race. For events related to horse, the Mongolians just stood out, so everyone better understands why the Mongolians are called an ethnic group on horse.

Another ethnic group endearing horse is Oroqen, one of the least populated ethnicity in Northeast China. Tan Mier and Liang Jingjing of Oroqen were part of the horse race, wearing antler on hat to remind spectators of their hunting tradition.

Ma Yanlin from Miao ethnic group in Guizhou Province wore a one-meter hat and magnificient dress, which is decorated with silver accessories and other ornaments.

"The horse-shaped pendant around my hat indicates the migration history of Miao ethnic group, and the dragon-shaped bracelet stands for good luck," said the 22-year-old girl. All the silver accessories on her dress combined for a weight of more than seven kilograms, swinging and colliding each other like singing.

Speaking of singing, Tibetan archers sang and danced once their arrow hit the target. Lin Dong, one of the archers, from Linzhi of Tibet is a native of Lhoba ethnic group, which has a population of only around 3,000, the least among China's 56 ethnic groups.

Born in Nyingchi County, this is the first time for Lin to attend the ethnic games. He met archers from Taiwan and had taken photos with them, then they began to talk about the movie "Warriors of the Rainbow Seediq Bale". Surprisingly, they found a lot of things in common between the two ethnic groups they are from.

The quadrennial occasion also means something important to Asya Tursun, the torch bearer of Kyrgyz ethnic group. At the opening ceremony, the young girl dressed like a bride of Kyrgyz, wearing a 32-meter-long headgear, lighting up the cauldron with other 55 torch bearers of different ethnic groups all together.

"There's only one torch bearer from each ethnic group, so I made up my mind to wear the most beautiful clothes to let our people and culture better known," said Tursun. Endit