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Family hands down ancestors' treasured cultural traditions Three years ago, when Niu Yilin was 8, she and some
friends joined a free course of instruction in a traditional martial art
in her home village in Anhui province. Since then, most of her friends have quit the course, but Niu said
she decided to continue it, not just for the physical but, more
important, the psychological benefits it offers. As she performs flips, twists and tumbles, beads of sweat dot her
forehead, and she is always ready to follow guidance from her
instructor. Niu, who comes from Xinger village in Feidong county of Hefei, the
provincial capital, is considered a left-behind child, as her parents
work in the city and only return home for weekends. However, she is
luckier than most of her friends, whose parents work in cities far from
home. Niu and a dozen other students from local primary and middle schools
practice wushu, or martial arts, in and outside a rented
brick-and-tile, one-story house in the village, which has a population
of about 3,000. As the students are instructed, a group of villagers, most of them
elderly, gather outside the house and peer through a dirty window. One elderly woman places a baby boy on the window ledge and tells
him, "When you are older, I will let you join these practice sessions." Niu Shouzhu, one of the instructors, who is in his 60s, said, "The course welcomes all local children and is free." More than a century ago, Niu Yilin's ancestors developed hongquan,
or Hong boxing, a renowned martial art form, mainly using their own
styles. Niu Hehou, 77, a major inheritor of Niu-style boxing, said, "It was
developed late in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when local people
thought they needed to protect themselves from gangsters." Request for help Located on the north shore of Chaohu Lake, the fifth-largest
freshwater lake in China, Changlinhe township, which governs Xinger,
used to be an important business center visited by numerous ships
sailing the Yangtze River. Niu Hehou said, "Local businesses, which were often threatened by
pirates and gangsters in the early 20th century, often asked for help
from Niu Hongchuan, the second-generation master of Niu-style boxing,
who popularized the skills among local villagers." Learning these skills from an uncle during childhood, Niu Hehou said
he continued to pursue this form of boxing as a hobby when he taught
Chinese grammar at a local middle school before retiring in 2005. After his retirement, he went to live with his son in Hunan province. "I returned home to Xinger in 2012, when I decided to do something
to pass on cultural heritage," said Niu Hehou, who founded and headed
the Feidong Niu-style Hong Boxing Association in 2015. Three years earlier, at Xinger Primary School, he started to raise
awareness of cultural heritage, with support from Zhang Jie, the
school's principal at the time. "We started to teach Niu-style boxing during the school's compulsory
physical education classes," said Niu Hehou, adding that such an
arrangement was a totally new experience for the school. "After the foundation of New China, martial arts seemed to disappear
from primary and middle schools for quite a while, as some people
thought the practitioners would become aggressive and cause trouble," he
said. Government support Niu Hehou's initiative to popularize his ancestors' heritage
coincided with policy changes introduced by the central authorities. In August, 2010, the Ministry of Education and the General
Administration of Sport jointly released a guideline to popularize
martial arts education in primary and middle schools, starting in the
fall semester that year. The guideline stated that martial arts were a treasured part of
traditional Chinese culture and would play an active role in improving
the physical and psychological health of young students. At a news conference in 2012, the General Administration of Sport
said implementation of the guideline had been successful, Xinhua News
Agency reported. The administration and the ministry would further
promote martial arts education in rural schools, the report said. Xinhua quoted Gao Xiaojun, former president of the Chinese Wushu
Association, as saying that martial arts education in school is
irreplaceable, as it serves both physical exercise and cultural
education purposes. In May, 2012, Niu Hehou succeeded in getting Niu-style Hong boxing
listed as county-level and municipal-level intangible cultural heritage.
In 2017, it was listed at provincial level. Practice sessions The Feidong Niu-style Hong Boxing Association, whose members are
mostly from the Niu family, introduced the sport to Xinger Primary
School's physical education classes in 2012. The students enjoyed it immensely, but as they needed to be taught a
wide range of sports during PE classes, they had little time to
practice, Niu Hehou said. In 2013, he led a group of instructors in teaching Niu-style Hong boxing to children in the village after school. Wang Nana, the mother of Niu Yilin, who has attended practice
sessions three times a week for the past three years, said: "Rural
students hardly have any choices to pursue extracurricular interests,
unlike their urban counterparts. The instructors not only offer such an
opportunity, but provide it for free, so their efforts are really
appreciated." Yang Haiyan, from Xinger, who lives in Hefei with her husband and
8-year-old son, said: "Even in the city, we have struggled to find a
place for our boy to learn traditional martial arts." Yang added that
she sends him back to the village to attend the course during weekends. Courses for taekwondo, the martial arts form that originated in
Korea, have become popular in Chinese cities, but such instruction is
often expensive, Yang said. Watching her son practicing his boxing, she said she was glad that he had insisted for 18 months on learning the skills. Niu Shouzhu, former assistant to Niu Hehou and current president of
the Feidong Niu-style Hong Boxing Association, said, "With two or three
instructors, we teach about a dozen students during school semesters and
more than 20 during vacations." The students not only learn to perform martial arts with their
fists, but also with implements such as wooden swords and knives. The
users' names are written or carved on the implements, which have been
passed on several times over the years and are made by Niu Hefa, 76, one
of the instructors, who has carpentry skills and enjoys teaching the
children. "It is my responsibility to pass on this heritage. We elderly men
are virtually the only people who have acquired Niu-style boxing skills.
If we don't do anything, the heritage will soon be lost," said Niu
Hefa, who is single. Niu Shouzhu said, "As many of the villagers had moved to the city,
some houses were left vacant, so we rented our first one as a practice
venue in 2013 and moved to the second last year." In 2011, the Children's Palace was established at Central Primary
School in Changlinhe township as a venue offering more choices for
students to develop their extracurricular arts and sports interests.
There is no such venue at Xinger Primary School. In 2015, when the association was founded, Zhang Jie transferred to
Changlinhe Primary School and Niu-style boxing was launched at the
Children's Palace. Students are offered classes twice a week. To date, some 500 students from the school have benefited from the
classes, said Zhang, now the school principal, adding that about
one-seventh of the school's students are considered left-behind
children. Niu Hehou said some of the students' parents and grandparents think
that learning martial arts can be beneficial in helping the children
defend themselves in dangerous situations. Skills difficulty After quitting as president of the association last year, Niu Hehou
has focused on campus promotional work, while Niu Shouzhu and Niu Hefa
have continued to organize instruction sessions. "Starting from the third grade, most of the students take instruction for just three years," Niu Hehou said. After leaving local primary schools, students mostly go to the
county town to attend middle schools, as their parents think these
institutions offer a better education. "So it is difficult for the students to pass on all the skills
locally," said Niu Hehou, adding that such efforts are still worth
pursuing. He said he is now not so worried about the students' safety, as all
the instruction sessions are held indoors and on campus, rather than in
the village. Niu Shouzhu said he ensures the students who visit him for
instruction are safe. "We need to be very careful about this, even
though the kids are mostly accompanied by adult family members," he
said. Other villagers want to send their children to him, but it could be
difficult for elderly family members to collect them after practice
sessions, Niu Shouzhu said. Niu Hefa, who lives alone more than 1 kilometer from the practice
venue, is concerned about his own safety. As he teaches boxing in the
evening, he is reluctant to ride a bicycle or electric motorbike in the
dark. "I would struggle if I had a fall these days," he said, adding that he provides his services for free. Niu Shouzhu said, "As we teach for free, all expenses should be covered by the association." The association's funding mostly comes from a limited number of
donations from kind-hearted villagers, he said. In addition, it received
about 10,000 yuan ($1,560) annually from the government as a reward for
its efforts in promoting intangible cultural heritage. Waving a 20-kilogram performance weapon at his home, Niu Hehou said,
"As long as we live, we will continue our efforts to benefit the
children and maintain our ancestors' traditions."
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