Chinanews.com, Xinyu, February 17th: The unicycle team in Jiangxi's thousand-year-old village: the "source of happiness" for left-behind children
Author Li Yunhan Chen Yuxia Gong Meiling
In Baimei Village, Ouli Town, Fairy Lake District, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, there is a unicycle team consisting of more than 20 left-behind children. The oldest is 13 years old and the youngest is only 6 years old. They are both team members and "little masters" ".
They are active in the activity squares, ancestral halls, parks and fields in the village, becoming a beautiful landscape of Baimei Village.
During the holiday, in the activity square in the village, the unicycle sports team formed by the villagers was rehearsing the "Big Dreamer" program, grabbing the "tail" of the winter vacation and showing "riding skills".
The "reciprocal exchanges", "three people turning a windmill" and "big disc" walking through each other hand in hand... The children's performance attracted the enthusiastic onlookers of the surrounding villagers and caused bursts of applause.
The oldest of them is 13 years old and the youngest is only 6 years old. They are both team members and "little masters".
Photo by Gong Meiling
Although most of them are left-behind children, the team members are famous teachers.
Baimei Village is an ancient village with a history of 1,600 years. It used to be the place where historians and writers of the Eastern Jin Dynasty lived in seclusion. In 2019, it was listed as the fifth batch of traditional Chinese villages with more than 4,000 people in the village.
In 2015, Xi Wei from Xiexi Village, Tianxin Town, Shanggao County, Yichun City, came to Baimei to worship his ancestors. With his deep affection for his clan, Xi Wei came up with the idea of popularizing unicycle sports in Baimei Village.
Baimei Village cultural propagandist Xi Liangliang told reporters that the local area has always attached great importance to cultural and sports education. Soon, with the support of the village committee, a unicycle team consisting of more than ten children from Baimei Primary School was established. Chen Chongqin, the Guinness record holder, served as a guide, training children on unicycle riding skills for free.
This public welfare fitness activity was also supported by local caring people, and provided the team members with the purchase cost of unicycles, performance clothing, protective gear, etc.
In 2018, Xi Wei and Chen Chongqin left Baimei Village one after another, but the left-behind children's unicycle team was not disbanded.
Every winter and summer vacation, the village committee organizes village children to carry out intensive training. The team members are not only team members who work together, but also teachers who help each other.
In the past 7 years, hundreds of village children in Baimei Village have received unicycle training. Most of the first batch of unicycle team members have become high school students.
They are active in the activity squares, ancestral halls, parks and fields in the village, becoming a beautiful landscape of Baimei Village.
Photo by Gong Meiling
Xiao Yiping is 13 years old this year. He is a first-year student of the High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University in Xinyu and the captain of the unicycle team.
Although he is not tall, he is a "little teacher" with two years of teaching experience and four students.
He told reporters that his parents worked in the urban area all the year round, and he started to practice unicycle at the age of 8. After learning to step on the wheel with both feet, he began to take "apprentices".
"A unicycle makes my life more fulfilling. My parents are very at ease knowing that I practice a unicycle." Xiao Yiping said.
"The unicycle team provides children with a healthy and positive way of entertainment and fitness. At the same time, it also seeks a beneficial outlet for extracurricular activities after the burden of extracurricular work in primary and secondary schools, and enhances everyone's physical quality." Xi Liangliang said, with the With the change in the number of personnel, these little teachers also improved the movements and shapes in the original performance, and the unicycle team also brought more gratifying changes to the children.
"Playing with mobile phones is less, and exercising more; less introverted and withdrawn, more cheerful and extroverted; parents of migrant workers are less worried and more at ease." Xi Liangliang told reporters that now this group is left behind The unicycle team composed of children has become a cultural card of Baimei Village.
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