Chinese ethnic games closes 9-day ethnic get-together

The Chinese ethnic games concluded on Monday, wrapping up nine-day competition and folk style sports demonstration in Ordos of Inner Mongolia.

Some 6,240 athletes from all 56 ethnic groups of China have competed or performed in nearly 200 Chinese traditional sport events with 188 first prizes, 472 second prizes and 496 third prizes being awarded instead of medal presentation in the tournament, which put culture exchanges and mutual understandings ahead of games results.

The 34 delegations, including Taiwan, allowed an exclusive experience to spectators with their unique ethnic-style traditional sports. The tournament is much like a fashion show and tradition culture exhibition than sports competition.

Ma Yanlin from Miao ethnic group in Guizhou province dressed in Miao's traditional costume to attend a culture exchange program in the middle of the games. She wore a one-meter-high hat and magnificient ethnic dress, which is decorated with many silver accessories and other ornaments.

"Not quite like the other sports event, the ethnic games is much more a culture feat and tradition inheritance festival to me," said the 22-year-old girl, whose silver accessories combined for a weight of more than seven kilograms, swinging and colliding each other like music instrument.

With 62-year history, the quadrennial games serves as a get-together party for China's 56 ethnic groups and has been playing a key role in keeping China's multiple traditional sports alive.

Back to November 1953, nearly 400 athletes from China's 13 ethnic groups participated in China's inaugural ethnic games in Tianjin Municipality, a harbor city in North China, contesting in weightlifting, boxing, wrestling and a couple of traditional sports.

The first ethnic games lasted five days, attracting a total of 120,000 spectators. It is also the first ever multiple-sport event in the world's most populous country after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Then it had been waiting for 29 years to see the second edition in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia in 1982, with 55 ethnic groups participating, excluding ethnic Han.

Since 1991, the ethnic games has been settled as a quadrennial event, featuring ethnic sports and characteristics of China's 55 ethnic minorities, which account for less than nine percent of the country's 1.3-billion population.

The ethnic games offers chances for people from China's rural and border areas to present their specialties. In 2007, Tibetan athlete Dahi traveled on a train for the first time in his life after he had been selected to the Gansu delegation to attend the eighth edition of the ethnic games in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong, one of the most prosperous provinces in China.

The stalwart Tibetan herdsman, born on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, barely slept during his 36-hour trip because he didn't want to miss any view along the rail.

Traditional sports are both joyful and skillful. Thanks to the games, many ethnic traditions can be preserved even if they are no longer necessary for keeping daily lives running due to the modernization.

Single bamboo drifting, which originated from Guizhou province and once worked as local transportation method, was introduced to the ethnic 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 dragon-boat race, stilt race, board shoe race, equestrian, swing, shuttlecock kick, Huapao (ethnic-style rugby), ethnic martial art, yajia (ethnic-style one-on-one tug of war), bowl (ethnic-style hockey), bowing, etc.

For the first time, athletes from the Han ethnic group are allowed to participate in team events with a limit of one third in the squad.

The ethnic games prioritizes cultural exchange, ethnic interaction and mutual understanding more than competition, recognizing and upholding culture differences and ethnic features.

The next Chinese ethnic games will be held in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province, in 2019. Endi