China Archery

ORDOS, Inner Mongolia, Aug. 12 (Xinhua)
They all come from Nujiang, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, but represent different teams to compete here at the ongoing 10th Chinese Ethnic Games. For these shooters of ethnic Lisu, crossbow is life.
“Our group of people love crossbow, especially the men,” said Yu Siyi,coach of Team Yunnan, the favourite of the traditional crossbow shooting at the ethnic games. “We bring the crossbow along no matter where we are going to and play crossbow shooting almost every weekend.”
Taking aim, firing and competitors trying to hit the bull’s eye, the game of crossbow shooting is similar to archery, but the shooters don’t need to pull the bow while they put the arrow in a slot to fire it with a trigger.
At Nujiang, ethnic Lisu account for almost 70 percent of the 540,000 population. “There are men and women, young and old playing crossbow shooting. Boys even begin to shoot at the age of five and their crossbows are made by their parents,” said Yu.
The traditional crossbow is made of wood and the arrow is made of bamboo. Zhong Xingcai just makes crossbows for living.
“I’m good at making crossbows. I can earn 80,000 to 90,000 yuan every year,” said the craftsman competing for Team Yunnan.

The 36-year-old Zhong met his wife He Fengying at a local crossbow shooting game and the couple now have two teenage daughters.
Zhong and his wife still take part in local crossbow shooting tournaments together almost every weekend, but He Fengying represents Team Hebei at the ethnic games.
“Yunnan is the powerhouse of crossbow shooting. We have many excellent shooters,” said Yu. “We are willing to introduce our shooters to other teams, giving them chances to compete at the ethnic games.”
In Ordos, all of the six shooters of Team Hebei are from Nujiang of Yunnan and there are also Yunnan’s shooters compete for Team Ningxia, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.
Xiu Fudeng, representing Team Ningxia this time, is the chairman of the crossbow shooting association of Fugong county, Nujiang.
“We hold crossbow shooting games every Saturday. Each competitor only need to pay an entry fee of 10 yuan and one of the third shooters could get prizes,” said Xiu.
The crossbow is even the company of Lisu ethnic men after life. “When a man of our ethnic passes away, one of his crossbow will be hang on his tomb,” said Yu.

Source: xinhuanet.com