Ding Erwei, an armless young man in Linqu, Shandong Province, was 8 years old, with missing arms and a disabled zhijian, and became popular on the Internet with the video of "a good mouth". On December 20, a Reporter from Beiqing-Beijing Headline contacted Ding Erwei to trace his life trajectory and self-improvement past.
An accident in his childhood, his life changed
Ding Erwei, who was missing both arms, picked up the brush with his mouth, squirmed his lower lips twice, and skillfully adjusted his muscles to find the best force point between his lips and teeth and the pen shaft. Then he slowly bent down, and the four big words of the book flowing in the clouds, the thick moral carrier, followed by the empty cuffs swaying slightly with his movements. A decent calligraphy work with a brush, presented in the picture.
The Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter contacted this young man who attracted a lot of attention and speculation, he is Ding Erwei.
In 1982, Ding Erwei was born in an ordinary rural family in Liushan Town, Linqu County, Shandong Province, and he and his brother were twins, so they were called "Erwei" because they were the second oldest. At a young age, he was lively and active, and the ponds on the edge of the village, the fields everywhere, and the strange mounds were all the places where he played. In a poor but happy family, Erwei experienced the joys of childhood until he was eight years old, when he reached out to the transformer in the village because of his naughtiness and curiosity, and then lost his arms forever.
When Erwei woke up, his arms were charred, and he lay on the bed staring at the walls and ceilings he had never seen before.
Ding Erwei recalled that his mother cooked a bowl of noodles to feed him that day, and he said that he would eat it himself, but when he was ready to reach for the bowl, he knew that he could no longer extend his hands. Erwei, who had lived in the hospital for half a year, even needed his mother's assistance to dress and eat, and at that time he was at a loss for the future.
In the face of this change, he and his family did not know how to deal with it, and the school and teachers did not know how to continue to teach this child who could not write. So his mother returned home with Erwei, who had no school to accept him, and used his small savings to buy him a few geese in the market. Erwei, who left the campus, waved a long stick with the only remaining remnant of his right arm and became the "goose commander". But in between the geese, he always recalled the bits and pieces of the class over and over again, thinking about the words that could no longer be written.
With a strong nature, he thought that he must not let go of geese for a lifetime, and he must do what others can do. Therefore, Erwei put the goose while exercising how to dress and eat without arms, how to wash his face and brush his teeth with his feet. He also wrote over and over again with his feet between the branches of the goose in the open space on the hillside. The initial words were crooked and difficult to recognize the shape, so he carefully adjusted the strength and posture of his feet little by little, allowing the small branches to make the toes cocoon.
He insists on practicing the track and field field, and he wants to do things that others can't do
As soon as the school started the next year, Ding Erwei ran into the school, and at this time, he was already proficient in twenty words, and he even wrote better than many normal children. In the face of Ding Erwei, who was writing with a pencil between his feet and a pleading face, the teacher finally nodded his head and promised to give him a chance.
After being allowed to return to school, Erwei faced many inconveniences in life, ordinary desks and chairs he could not use, he could only bring his own maza and fertilizer bags, spread the fertilizer bags on the ground as a table, and people sat on the matzas and wrote with their feet.
Erwei always has to spend more time and energy on the homework that others can complete in an hour, but even so, from the first grade to the fifth grade, he still won the first place every year, and even won the national first-class "Eagle Medal" at the age of 13.
After entering junior high school, he first heard that there was a sports event for the disabled. He felt that this might be an opportunity for himself, at least to let himself eat without asking the family for money, so he immediately signed up for the sports team to practice athletics.
When asked why he chose athletics over other sports, he told the Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter: "Athletics is running, for me I don't need any talent, as long as I am willing to endure hardships." ”
The same team trained as able-bodied cadets, who initially trailed his teammates far behind and could surpass him a few laps even in the penultimate position. But he chose to keep running and kept running. As he ran, the beads of sweat fell without wiping them with his hands, so he tried to turn his head sideways and rub the sweat from his eyelashes on his shoulders. Malnourished, muscle fatigued, he gritted his teeth and forcibly suppressed his physical discomfort and continued to move forward. Not only that, but he often runs to and from home and school two or three miles apart, running hard when his teammates are training, and running overtime when his teammates are resting, stepping on a running track of the overgrown playground. He said: "They can do as they please, but I can't, this is my only chance." ”
Slowly, he drew closer and closer to the penultimate, and the gap between the penultimate and him gradually shortened, and finally one day, he was side by side with the first place running in the front. Until 1999, he participated in a sports event held in Weifang City and won three gold medals. In the winter, he was selected for the provincial team training, and in the fifth Paralympic Games in Shanghai in 2000 he broke three national records and won three second places. In this regard, he said: "I just want to be strong, that is, I want to do things that others can't do."
Relying on performances to make ends meet, he has been able to support himself
On April 12, 2004, when Ding Erwei was preparing for the Fifth National Paralympic Games, Zhang Haidi gave him a new book she created, "Dreams in a Wheelchair", which made him very encouraged. At that year's Games, he won the Sportsmanship Award.
Later, Ding Erwei also won the world para championship, the first place in the 1500 meters of the National Para Games, and the first place in the national paralympic athletics championships.
In 2009, he came to Hebei Heng'aiYan Zhao Art Troupe as the head of the business group, a performance group composed of deaf and blind actors.
He said he could earn four or five thousand yuan a month, enough to support his family. Ding Erwei, who has no arms, does not feel that he lacks anything in his life, and he is not willing to concede defeat to a healthy person. He also uses his feet to surf the Internet, write, play table tennis, embroider cross stitch, etc., and even play trumpets with his feet.
In 2018, he saw a foreign brother like him who lost his arms on the Internet, Krisse, playing the French horn with his foot pressed on the piston, and he thought "I can do it too", so he began to learn the trumpet.
Because the trumpet requires a lot of flexibility, it is very difficult even with the hand. Ding Erwei must try, he said that one toe press is simple, with the first and second toe press is also simple, the most difficult is actually how to use the first and third toe to press the air hole at the same time. In his initial learning process, it was inevitable that he would encounter toe cramps and frequent mispronunciations, but he persevered. In the end, under the hard practice, he successfully played beautiful and fluent music.
When asked what is your favorite piece when playing trumpet? He replied without hesitation that it was "Farewell.". Because this song is beautiful and beautiful, it is one of the first works he studied, and it is also because the creator, Master Hongyi, is versatile and proficient in calligraphy, art, music, and poetry. In fact, since 2009, Ding Erwei has been obsessed with calligraphy, often with a brush in his mouth, practicing words one by one, and even going around learning from teachers. Over the past 12 years, his calligraphy has been in a similar way, and he is often invited to perform calligraphy. He also became an Internet celebrity.
Ding Erwei looked forward to becoming a person like Master Hongyi, and he was working in this direction.
Text/Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter Dong Zhenjie Intern Liu Caoyuan