The "escape plan" of the acrobatic boy
China News Weekly reporter/Yang Zhijie
Published in the 997th issue of China News Weekly, 201.5.31
More than a week has passed since the "collective exodus incident". In mid-May, 15-year-old Huazi returned to school.
He was wearing a new red and yellow junior high school uniform, and took three exams, English, history, and politics. He couldn't do many questions.
Before the exam, the teacher deliberately comforted him, "Do as much as you can, and take your time if you can't."
On May 1, the four Wuqiao acrobatic teenagers "led by him" collectively ran away during their performance in Chengdu.
Among the four, Huazi is the oldest at 15 years old, his younger brother Qiangzi is 12 years old, Xiaoxin is 14 years old, and the youngest Xiaohao is only 11 years old.
They were sent to Chengdu from Wuqiao, Hebei for a commercial performance in late April, and they encountered a Chengdu agent Cao Tao who frightened them.
The children told the media that Cao Tao did not give them breakfast, practiced until late at night, and punished the four of them for doing 500 push-ups for performing errors, and even insulted them many times.
The unbearable children chose to escape.
On May 7, all the four were found, and they were taken back to their hometown in Guizhou by their parents.
Currently, Huazi is arranged by Zhuyuan Township, Bijie City, Guizhou Province to study in the first grade in a local middle school. His younger brother and Xiaohao are returning to primary school, and Xiaoxin is taken to Guiyang by his mother.
The four of them are not willing to go back to learn acrobatics. Apart from the hard training, Hua Zi told China News Weekly that he was even more afraid of going out to perform in the future, "meeting the second and third Boss Cao."
The exodus of acrobatic teenagers caused heated discussions. Young actor Xing Fei, who was born in acrobatics, posted a post on Weibo, calling on the society to pay attention to the situation of acrobatic teenagers.
She recalled that she was often physically punished when she practiced since she was a child. "I will never forget the taste of high heels kicking on my tailbone."
The ancient trade of acrobatics has also been brought out and re-examined.
The training models of some traditional businesses have been wandering in the gray area of the protection of minors.
After pressing the mudra, the child was taken away
Bijie is mountainous, Huazi’s home is on a half-hill slope, and a platform is cut across the slope to build 4 bungalows.
Huazi and his younger brother live in one room, the elder sister and younger sister live in one, and his father sleeps in another room. The outermost room is the kitchen.
There is no outer wall in the yard, the front is a half slope, and the main road in the village is going down.
Huazi speaks in a low voice and will answer every question in the interview. A township cadre who has been in contact with Huazi many times also noticed, "This kid is more shy, obedient, and doesn't refute you."
But on the other hand, Huazi and his younger brother ran away from home many times, and they were notoriously "problematic teenagers" in the village.
Father Wang Feng discovered that the eldest son "has a very good personality and a good temper, and will not cause trouble, but he left after studying for a few days. The teacher asked him if he wanted to go to school, and he said so, but after a few days Just left again".
For the past four to five years, every few months, he would take his brother away from home.
The longest one was found by the police station after four months.
Every time he ran away, there was no sign. Once, when Wang Feng was washing clothes at home, he watched Huazi take his younger brother away. He just reacted and chased him out, but no one was seen.
More often, Wang Feng is not at home.
His wife has been away for many years. He lives alone with four children. The two divorced last year, and the wedding photos in the room have not been removed.
On weekdays, he drove people to pull goods and worked as cement workers. If anyone in the surrounding towns and villages had a happy event, he would go there and play the lusheng.
Too much energy has been spent on livelihoods, and he has not really asked why his son runs away frequently.
Hua Zi remembers that he first ran away from home when he was 10 years old.
At that time, his mother was working outside. He heard that it was in Bijie, not far from Zhuyuan Township, so he took his younger brother to find his mother.
The two did not know the road, and did not know how far they had traveled along the road. They were finally brought back by the police.
In the past four to five years, Huazi realized that her mother left them at home and no longer wanted to find her, but it became a habit to run away from home. “It feels like going out is fun.”
Many times, he and his brother wandered in the mountains. They had no money. They picked fruits and ate when they were hungry. They also made a living by picking up rubbish.
The two sons made Wang Feng anxious, but these children were the key recruiting goals of the Acrobatic Troupe.
An acrobatics troupe practitioner in Wuqiao told China News Weekly that acrobatics training is too hard. Almost all children in Wuqiao no longer engage in acrobatics. The difficulty in enrolling students has been a dilemma faced by the entire industry in recent years.
Acrobatic troupes often go to the surrounding poor villages and towns, and even travel thousands of miles to the southwestern provinces or places with connections to recruit students.
An enrollment notice on the website of a local acrobatics troupe in Wuqiao even clearly mentioned that the admissions for left-behind children who are tired of school, truant, and drop out, problematic teenagers and poor children, let them "have a skill and become self-reliant after integrating into the society."
According to a teacher in charge of teaching in Wuqiao County Vocational Education Center, the enrollment of acrobatic troupe "has a certain social value."
Most of the children recruited by the acrobatic troupe come from single parents or divorced families, and some are even orphans.
"Some scholars feel sorry for their children when they see the news, but the current situation is that the acrobatic troupe picks up the children, cultivates acrobatic skills, takes care of food and housing, and the parents lighten the burden. If you don’t manage to study for a few years, your children will be able to do so. Earning money can alleviate the poverty of the family. As far as the family situation of these children is concerned, this is a way out for them."
In mid-to-late June 2020, Gao Wenjun, head of the variety and acrobatic circus in Wuqiao County, Hebei, drove a teacher to Zhuyuan Township, Guizhou Province.
He found a local acquaintance as a guarantor and enrolled students under the names of "Wuqiao Vocational Education Variety and Acrobatic Circus Training Center" and "Wuqiao Vocational Education Variety and Acrobatic Circus Training Center".
It is understood that in Gao Wenjun's acrobatic troupe, half of the children are from Guizhou, and the remaining half are from Henan and Yunnan.
Guizhou is an "ideal" birthplace.
A local person told China News Weekly that there are at least two children in each family here. Young parents often go out to work, leaving the elderly and children in the village.
Only some children can change their destiny by going to school, and more children repeat the destiny of their parents' generation, working in the mountains or going out to work.
The guarantor took Gao Wenjun to find Wang Feng and suggested that "If the children are disobedient, they can go to this school to study." He said that he had visited the school in Hebei and the conditions were good.
Feng Wang remembered that Mr. Gao introduced that “children can learn martial arts and acrobatics, and they will provide food and shelter, and they will be allocated after graduation”.
But he didn't agree at first, "I don't know Gao Wenjun."
A few days later, the three came to lobby again, and the 11-year-old Qiangzi cried and said that he wanted to sign up.
Wang Feng couldn't stop him, because he believed the guarantor, he signed the "Free Student Contract" with Gao Wenjun. After pressing his fingerprint, Qiangzi was taken away.
Gao Wenjun also went to another village in Zhuyuan Township.
Zheng Qin's family has three children. The guarantor came to her and told her and her husband, "This is a state-run school. The children used to learn dance and acrobatics, and cultural classes, including food and accommodation. If you like, you can go, or if you don’t. Forget it." Zheng Qin had never read a book, didn't know acrobatics, and even thought it was dancing.
For her, sending her children to learn dance is a luxury.
The village where she lives is entrenched on a mountain, and the child learns to dance and has to be sent to the nearest county seat of Dafang County and drive for nearly an hour.
Moreover, she and her husband have to do odd jobs on weekends, and there is no time and no money.
In the end, the boss was reluctant to leave home to go to a far northern city, but his 10-year-old second son, Xiaohao, was moved.
The guarantor read them the terms of the contract. Zheng Qin disagreed. The child was too young and she wanted to stay with her, but her husband insisted on signing the contract.
Within two hours, Zheng Qin watched her husband get into Gao Wenjun's car and sent her son to Hebei.
Huazi, who stayed at home, ran away twice.
He once suggested that he wanted to drop out of school to learn to repair a car. Wang Feng found a master for him, and within two months he ran away.
Last September, Huazi came home and heard that his younger brother was doing well in Hebei, so he offered to learn acrobatics.
"I told him that after giving you a week to think carefully, I will support whatever you want to do," Wang Feng told China News Weekly.
A week later, Wang Feng received a positive reply from his son, and he called Gao Wenjun.
Before long, Gao Wenjun came to Zhuyuan Township again and took Huazi to Wuqiao County to learn acrobatics.
Practicing for 7 months to "pulling people"
Wuqiao County is located in the southeast of Hebei Province, at the junction of two provinces (Hebei, Shandong) and three cities (Cangzhou, Hengshui, Dezhou). It takes nearly three days to drive to Zhuyuan Township.
The local area has been barren since ancient times. People practice acrobatics and go out in the slack time. It is known as the "hometown of acrobatics" and "Wuqiao Acrobatics" has been included in the first national intangible cultural heritage representative list.
Today, acrobatics is still an important way for locals to make a living.
The relevant person in charge of Wuqiao County Cultural Tourism Bureau told China News Weekly that there are more than 300,000 people in Wuqiao County. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 30,000 people engaged in acrobatic cultural tourism and 97 acrobatic troupes.
In the local area, there is not much difference between running an acrobatic troupe and a small restaurant. It is a livelihood.
Most acrobatic troupes are self-employed, training and training apprentices in their own venues.
Near the local 4A scenic spot "Acrobatics World", you can see eight or nine stores of acrobatics troupes. In some stores, a few children are practicing basic skills in the living room.
More acrobatics troupes are scattered in the villages and towns around the county seat. The variety and acrobatics circus of the Gao Wenjun involved is located in Iron Town, a dozen kilometers away from the world of acrobatics.
On May 18, "China News Weekly" came to the Variety Acrobatics Circus. From the outside, it was just an ordinary family in the countryside, except that the faded "Wuqiao Acrobatics School" dark red sticker was still on the outer wall facing the street. Through the window, you can see a big practice room.
At this time, there was no one in the room.
At the end of September last year, Huazi was first brought here, and they called it "hometown".
On holidays, thirty or forty students of the acrobatic troupe train in their hometowns.
They usually practice acrobatics in the Wuqiao County Vocational and Technical Education Center (hereinafter referred to as the Vocational Education Center) in the county seat, and have two Chinese classes on Sunday morning and afternoon.
Every day at 5:30, the children get up to practice basic skills.
At first, Huazi saw other people standing upside down against the wall, and found it difficult.
But it didn't take long before he came into contact with the first program "Pumping People" and realized that it is not easy to learn acrobatics.
Huazi is old and tall, and can only be used as a "pedestal". He lay on the ground and raised his legs to support a person stepping on it.
The teacher asked a child to stand up to find balance, first insisted on 10 minutes, the time slowly increased.
Every time Huazi got up, all his clothes were soaked.
What worries him even more is the poor cooperation. The child above fell down and hit Huazi, or fell to the ground and injured himself.
Huazi studied in the acrobatics troupe for 7 months. Except for a two-day break during the Spring Festival, he and other children were training every day and went to bed around 8pm.
During the two days off during the Spring Festival, the children sat chatting in the courtyard and house of their hometown, and could not go out.
When Gao Wenjun enrolled students, he promised to take them to visit the park and see the scenery, but when everyone arrived, they found that they could not go anywhere.
Huazi has practiced "Ping Ren" for 7 months, and his younger brothers Qiangzi, Xiaoxin, and Xiaohao are also practicing cooperative programs.
The four practiced fast. As the "May 1st" Golden Week was approaching, Gao Wenjun decided to let them perform in Chengdu. They called it an "internship."
It was less than a year since they were exposed to acrobatics.
A retired acrobatics practitioner from Wu Qiao told China News Weekly that going out to perform has little to do with the length of study time. "Some people have studied for more than a year without a turn for internships. Some people can get in touch for a few months. Go out. As long as you can practice something, you have to go out to perform and consolidate. You can't do things behind closed doors. You can finally become an actor after going back and forth several times."
"Should we run?"
On April 20, Gao Wenjun took his four children to Chengdu by car and arrived two days later.
He handed the child over to the management of Cao Tao, the person in charge of Chengdu Wind Wings Culture Media Co., Ltd., and lived with Cao Tao and his wife in their home in Chenghua District.
On April 23, Gao Wenjun left Chengdu.
According to Wuqiao's official investigation, from April 23 to May 1, the four teenagers were arranged by Cao Tao to participate in 10 performances, each for about 20 minutes.
Huazi remembered that they had gone to hotels, KTVs, celebrations or ceremonial occasions. On the most day, they switched to three places in a row.
The reason that prompted the four to run away from home was Cao Tao's management style.
If there is no morning performance, they get up around 8 o'clock, and even if they return home at 11 o'clock in the evening, the four of them will still practice until 1 o'clock in the morning, review the program, and do physical fitness training.
Hua Zi told China News Weekly that for more than a week in Chengdu, Boss Cao never gave them breakfast. On the day of the most transitions, the four of them did not eat anything from morning to night.
"So in the third scene, Xiaoxin made a mistake. The kid above fell off. After the performance, Boss Cao scolded him backstage." Someone explained that he made a mistake because he was too hungry, but Boss Cao's curse did not match. Did not stop.
Huazi remembered that that night, they ate the leftover lunch of others.
On the morning of May 1, Xiaoxin got up late, was late for the assembly, and was scolded by Boss Cao on the way.
When he returned home in the afternoon, Xiaoxin secretly said to Huazi, "Should we run?" The other two also gathered around, no one opposed.
But Huazi hesitated throughout the afternoon. He didn't like Boss Cao either, but the four of them only had 200 yuan in cash, which was not enough.
At 8 o'clock in the evening on May 1, Cao Tao went out for a drink, leaving the four with his son and daughter at home and asked them to continue practicing.
"Later, Boss Cao seemed to have forgotten to bring something. He came up and saw that we hadn't practiced, so he cursed again."
This made Huazi determined to escape, and Xiaoxin once again proposed to escape, and the three agreed.
Before long, they opened the door and ran out.
At first, the four of them walked along a big road.
Some people are worried that the goal is too big and propose to split into two teams.
At Xiaoxin's request, the older Huazi and Xiaoxin, and the younger brother Qiangzi and Xiaohao, each took 100 yuan. "Xiaoxin thinks that my brother and I have experience in running away and can lead the team separately."
At an intersection, the two teams parted ways.
Huazi said that it didn't take long before he regretted separating from his younger brother.
But in this unfamiliar city, the other two friends are like raindrops falling into the water, and it has long been difficult to find a trace.
Members of the Dachuan rescue team who assisted in finding the children once told the Beijing News that through monitoring, they saw Qiangzi and Xiaohao awake that night, rushing for more than 10 kilometers to the southwest, and walked to the shopping mall near Chengdu South Railway Station. .
During the day, they ran and played in the mall, and when they were tired, they slept on their stomachs. In the afternoon, they came out of the mall, bought an ice cream, took one bite per person, and continued to the south.
Huazi and Xiaoxin took the bus to the vicinity of Shuangliu Airport and found a park to rest that night.
Xiaoxin thought about walking back to Guizhou, but didn't know the road. They wandered on the road and went to sleep in the park at night. All the money was used to buy water and bread.
On the fifth day, after all the money on their bodies was spent, the two of Huazi began to dig through the trash on the roadside to find food.
At 7 o'clock in the morning on May 3, Zheng Qin received a call from the police and learned that her son had been lost in Chengdu.
She didn't even understand how Xiaohao went to Sichuan when he went to school in Hebei.
She mobilized her family to drive to Chengdu, posted missing persons notices everywhere, followed surveillance, and looked for her son in various parks.
On the evening of May 6, Huazi and Xiaoxin were walking in a square and were found by two plainclothes policemen.
On the afternoon of May 7, Xiaohao and Qiangzi were found near a park.
Zheng Qin recalled that when he saw his son, he seemed to have just walked out of the garbage dump, covered in red envelopes stung by mosquitoes.
The contemporary dilemma of traditional businesses
It was not until after the incident that several parents in Guizhou knew that the acrobatics training center with which they signed the contract was not a school, but a private acrobatics troupe.
According to relevant state regulations, the acrobatics troupe can recruit professional artists under the age of 16 with the consent of the minor’s parents or other guardians, but the minor’s physical and mental health and the right to receive compulsory education must be guaranteed.
However, most acrobatics troupes are operated by individuals, recruit apprentices, and train at home based on the experience handed down from generation to generation. Few people attach importance to cultural education.
On November 2, 2019, under the background of the country's encouragement to develop vocational education, Wuqiao County established the Acrobatics Vocational Education Alliance (hereinafter referred to as the Acrobatics Alliance) and formulated the "Wuqiao Acrobatics Vocational The Articles of Association of Education stipulates that the Wuqiao County Vocational Education Center and the private acrobatics school group conduct school-enterprise cooperation.
In the Acrobatics Union, the Acrobatic Troupe recruits acrobatic apprentices on its own, and is fully responsible for the daily management of board and lodging, professional course teaching and practical training, etc. The Vocational Education Center is responsible for student status and cultural course teaching, and register for qualified acrobatic apprentices.
Both parties do not charge any fees for the recruited students.
There are three cooperation modes between the two parties, namely, each school group in the alliance sends students to the vocational education center for unified training and unified internship training; teaching and training are organized by the vocational education center, internship training is organized by the school group itself; cultural classes are organized by vocational education The center "sends teachers to the countryside", and each school group organizes internship training on its own.
It is understood that there are only 10 local acrobatic troupes that have joined the Acrobatic Union. Gao Wenjun’s acrobatic troupe voluntarily applied to join and chose the second mode of cooperation.
The school he mentioned when enrolling students was the Vocational Education Center. The Vocational Education Center provided a special dormitory and teaching space for the acrobatics troupe and gave them cultural classes.
According to the teacher of the above-mentioned vocational education center, children who learn acrobatics are quite special and have poor foundation. If they take cultural classes strictly according to the standard of normal primary and secondary schools, "it will be too difficult for them."
Some children of 12-year-old normal school age should go to junior high school, but they can't understand the lessons of junior high school to them.
Therefore, for the students of the Acrobatics League, the school uses the third grade as the dividing line, and the children with poor foundations take courses below the third grade, learning pinyin, teaching Arabic numbers, and addition and subtraction.
Students with good foundations take courses above grade three, teaching reading, writing, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and fractions.
There is a public basic class every evening, including life skills, acrobatics, sports, dance, etc., and cultural classes on Saturdays and Sundays.
However, Hua Zi’s description differed from the teacher’s. He told the media that there were only two classes in the morning and afternoon every Sunday to learn Chinese, and he practiced acrobatics the rest of the time.
Among the four teenagers who left, except for the late Huazi who did not register for school, the other three are the first students registered in 2020. They went out for the first time, and there was a big problem.
"For the group leader, in this incident, he did not supervise the safety of the children in place. When he went out to perform, the group leader was the guardian and was not accompanied throughout." The relevant person in charge of the Wuqiao County Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism told China News Weekly. "Pointed out.
On May 18, a reporter from China News Weekly met Gao Wenjun in Tiecheng Town. He was nearly 60 years old. He looked upset when he saw the reporter.
At present, among the more than 40 children of the acrobatic troupe, the registered students have been taken away by the vocational education center, and a few have not attended the school status, temporarily staying at home waiting for notification.
He said that he "has gotten into trouble" and is currently under investigation.
When enrolling students, Gao Wenjun signed a "free student contract" with his parents in the name of "Wuqiao Vocational Education Variety and Acrobatic Circus Training Center" and "Wuqiao Vocational Education Variety and Acrobatic Circus Training Center".
However, the investigation team found that the above-mentioned agency seal used by Gao Wenjun was not filed with the Wuqiao County Public Security Bureau, and that the name could not be found on the National Social Organization Credit Information Disclosure Platform (trial operation) and the Hebei Economic Household Registration Management System.
At present, the county public security department is investigating Gao Wenjun's alleged failure to perform safety supervision duties and privately engraving, trading seals and other issues, giving reprimands, ordering repentance, and confiscating the privately-engraved seals.
The Bureau of Culture, Broadcasting and Tourism temporarily detained the "Business Performance Permit" of the Variety Acrobatic Troupe and ordered the suspension of reforms and rectification.
The Acrobatic Troupe was also removed from the Acrobatics Alliance, and the students in the school were properly placed by the Alliance.
The school-enterprise cooperation model of the Acrobatics Alliance has also been criticized.
The official report pointed out that in the process of school-enterprise cooperation, the Vocational Education Center lacked supervision over the recruitment and management of cooperative acrobatics troupes, and there were omissions in student moral education.
Zhang Honglu, the executive vice president in charge of the overall work of the Vocational Education Center, was suspended for inspection.
After this incident, in addition to formulating a reporting system, Wuqiao Culture, Broadcasting and Tourism Bureau increased the inspection frequency of the acrobatic troupe on the basis of the original normalized inspection. One is to standardize training, and the other is to improve safety supervision during rehearsal. Follow the child at any time, increase the safety education of the supervisor, and replace the training equipment in time.
In addition, Gao Wenjun once mentioned that sending children to Chengdu is an internship, but Hua Zi has noticed that after they perform, Cao Tao will charge thousands of yuan for the performance.
The person in charge of the above-mentioned Cultural, Broadcasting and Tourism Bureau mentioned that according to regulations, students of the school can go out for internship training, but commercial performances are not allowed.
Whether Chengdu is a business performance or not needs to be defined by the local cultural and tourism department. The Wuqiao County Investigation Team is also conducting further investigations on the matter.
For traditional acrobatics, is it impossible to change the devil training mode of extreme hard training and even physical punishment?
Training should start with the dolls, but how to prevent the dolls from becoming money-making tools for commercial performances without protection?
These issues have not received enough attention within the industry.
Zheng Qin is unwilling to send her children to learn acrobatics. The 100,000 yuan penalty mentioned in the "Free Student Contract" has become her burden.
A local acrobatics practitioner in Wuqiao told China News Weekly that it is common to write liquidated damages in the contract. Some team leaders worry that their children will run away after a few years of study or be poached by other acrobatic troupes. This article mainly serves as a deterrent, and few people really want this money.
In addition, Gao Wenjun was suspected of privately engraving the official seal, and the contract signed by the two parties was also invalid.
Unlike Zheng Qin's attitude, Huazi's father, Wang Feng, does not blame Gao Wenjun.
In the second half of last year, he went to Wuqiao to see two children. He understood that learning acrobatics is very hard. He thought that there was no problem with Gao Wenjun's training method.
He does not value free, if the child likes it, someone can discipline the child and teach him a skill, even if he pays for it, he is willing.
At present, the two sons have returned to school at the local school. Wang Feng told China News Weekly that if the children want, he will still agree to send them to learn acrobatics again, but the premise is to respect the children's wishes.
(In order to protect the privacy of interviewees, both Wang Feng and Zheng Qin are pseudonyms)
China News Weekly, Issue 19, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing