Ethic Games Bringing People Together in Henan

For Sun Kai, the pursuit of his college dream continues and brings more challenges.

The 29-year-old aerobics teacher of Zhengzhou Sias University is leading Henan's ethnic aerobics team to compete in the 11th National Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities in Henan's Zhengzhou only four years after he himself was a competitor.

"I am honored but responsible,” said Sun, a member of the Hui ethnic group, who coaches a team of high school- and university-aged Uygur, Kazakh, Hui athletes together with Han students.

"I was selected to coach and represent my province because of my experience four years ago."

Ethnic aerobics combines traditional and ethnic dancing elements and sport aerobics. An ethnic aerobics athlete should be both power-based and artistic in their movements.

Each team features 16 performers with at least four male members. Teams perform a technical routine and a free routine for three minutes and 30 seconds each.

The sport was first adopted as an official competition in the Inner Mongolia Games, where Sun competed representing the host as a post-graduate student of Inner Mongolia Normal University. His team came in second.

Now coaching a team from different ethnic groups, Sun is looking to incorporate all the different traditions in their routines.

"We performed a lot of Inner Mongolian elements last time and now we are performing more Uygur," he said after a dress reherseal. "Because we have eight Uygur students and for me the Uygur movements are more expressive in the upper body."

That is how the sport training major coach tries to distinguish ethnic aerobics from ethnic dancing in appearance. "It is a sport so you need to show your strength and power, so we let the upper body do artistic and the limbs show strength."

He’s popular with his students. Nana Rouzi, a third grade high school Uygur student from Zhengzhou No.7 Middle School, said she is becoming stronger both physically and mentally thanks to aerobics training.

"I learned some dancing when I was small in Xinjiang but ethnic aerobics is quite different. My legs pained during the first days after much practice. Now I am much better with that and can understand what the sport is."

Like Nana, most of her fellow members are beginners both in sport and dancing. Sun selected ten students from Nana's school to join another eight from his university to prepare for the games. Nana and her schoolmates took a brief summer holiday and then came back to train and compete for Henan.

"I feel frustrated and homesick when my training is not good," Nana said, "My coach knows how to pump me up and my family is proud of me for what I am doing."

Henan, the most populous province in China, boasts all 55 ethnic groups in its nearly 100 million people. Some local high schools admit ethnic students from the western part of the country.

Sun is not the only one to turn to Henan residents like Nana.

Cui Wenhao, a senior physical education student of Sias University, said he and other elder members can take care of their younger teammates when the coach is not available. "We try to help them when they don't know how to do it right so the team can improve quickly," said Cui, a Han student.

For Cui, his ethnic fellow teammates seemed disconnected and far from reach at the beginning. "We did not talk at first. Now we are so close that we exchange childhood and hometown anecdotes."

Sun said his Ugyur students told him they could see the Tianshan Mountain at home featuring different colors within a day and later they showed him through WeChat video call when talking with their families.