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.
Chinese Crossbow
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