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A spacial contest of endurance
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/10/13 11:50  上海英文星报

  BAMBOO was a plant Alice had rarely seen, since she had grown up in the northern part of China. Therefore, when she first visited Deqing county in East China's Zhejiang Province, which is well-known for its bamboo, Alice couldn't help dreaming about journeys through graceful bamboo forests.

  Once she found herself in a real bamboo forest, however, she was no longer in the mood to appreciate the graceful green undulation covering the mountains.

  "Alice, I'm thinking about why we had to leave the comfort of urban life and torture ourselves in this way?" Janet asked with a smile. Janet's naked arms were scratched and bleeding from trekking through the rough bamboo jungle but the pain didn't stop her progress.

  Forest experience

  Janet, Alice, Jessica and Vicky were all taking part in the cross-county competition held in Deqing county. Crossing 8 kilometres of bamboo forest was their fifth task. Before this, they had finished 5 kilometres of cross-county racing, 20 kilometres of cycle racing around the beautiful Mogan lake and two simple tasks: peeling the skins off chestnuts and making fans.

  Actually, the Deqing Cross-county Competition has been held for six years. This year, a total of 23 teams were attracted to the competition. They were divided into a professional group and a non-professional group, each with five events to complete.

  As members of a non-professional team, it was the first time Alice and the three other girls had tested their physical and mental capabilities in this competitive way. Looking at the lovely mushrooms at her feet, Alice didn't know how to respond to Janet's question, but both of them still kept forward in spite of the rugged mountain path and annoying mosquitoes. The journey seemed endless. "Is there anybody there?" A girl cried out, in the distance. "Yes, we are," Alice and Janet called back.

  This simple reply was a good way to prove that the girls were not lost. According to the competition rules, the distance between each contestant should not exceed 50 metres at any time.

  Competitive gains

  "During the process of competition, I keep the 50-metre rule in my mind," said Pan Yaoming, leader of the China Geosciences University team. "It reminds us of the importance of unity."

  In Pan's team, one of the members was a girl. "She was a strong girl. And from the beginning to the end, we tried to keep to her speed. If we forced her to keep to the men's speed, she would be tired out." This unity of spirit led to the success of Pan's team - they were the final winner among the 12 non-professional teams.

  "A team makes a whole," said Yan Dongdong from Tsinghua University. Cross-county racing in this mountainous areas was a hard challenge, according to Yan. Although he and his team members had made some preparations, the real situation was still beyond their expectations. "It was hard for every member. We had to arrange the speed and time in a scientific way to try to keep our team together as a whole."

  Yan confessed that he had thought of giving up in private, "because I couldn't see the end of the path." When recalling this, Yan smiled. Deeply influenced by the dauntless spirit of the other members, Yan held on to the end.This cross-county competitions was also an important experience to Chenfan from Shanghai Jiaotong University. He was very glad to have had this chance to make friends with young people from other places and profound friendships had been forged between them after the competition. "It also reflects well upon the vigour of China's college students," said Chen.

  In contrast to foreign students, who often engage in various outdoor sports in their childhood, most Chinese students lack experience of such events. So when Chen and his friends decided to take part in this competition, they didn't receive much support from their parents and teachers. "In these adult's eyes, our behaviour was regarded as dangerous. They thought we would be putting our lives at risk," Chen said. "We hoped for more understanding and support from our teachers and universities. What we are doing is not simply taking risks, but also exploring nature with thorough preparations, including scientific knowledge."

  Original intention

  The topic of each year's competition is varied. For past events, only professional teams have been invited to take part in the competition and the tasks were very demanding. This year, "we simplified the complicated competition routes and invited more amateurs to join, so as to popularize leisure sports among ordinary people," said Li Chungang, the vice chief judge of the Sixth Deqing Cross-county Competition.

  Deqing is doing its best to develop ecological tourism. According to Li, ecological tourism emphasizes developing the local tourist industry without damaging the environment. When the competition came to an end, all the contestants spent their nights with local villagers. "This was a way of helping local villagers better understand the importance of protecting natural resources," Li said.

  Although Alice's team was the last to arrive at the destination, the physical suffering they had experienced didn't detract from their pleasure at taking a hot shower in the huge pot of a villager - the local way to bathe. The first thing they asked when entering the small house was where the dustbin was. Vicky had carried all the team's rubbish, such as empty water bottles, in a plastic bag, over the whole journey. Just like Vicky, none of the contestants had discarded any rubbish on the route, because they knew environmental protection was more important than the competition itself.




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