"The strength of the winding stem should be uniform, the force is too large, and the line is easy to break." This is the bouquet of awards for the Beijing Winter Paralympic Games, the flowers of rongyao, and Guo Yuanyuan never imagined that she would be closely connected with the Olympic Games in this way.
14 years ago, the Beijing Olympic Games, the "gold and jade" medal stunned the world, and now the Beijing Winter Olympics awards bouquet, is even more ingenious. Discard the traditional fresh cut flowers, and use the intangible cultural heritage "Haipai velvet thread weaving technique" crocheted velvet flower bouquet.
For the past two months, Yuanyuan has spent more than a dozen hours a day weaving the tiny calyxes on the bouquet, all done in a wheelchair.
Just last Monday, in the final quality inspection stage, at the Hope Home for Spinal Cord Injured people in Beijing, a "unified action" between Yuanyuan and her injured friends made reporters wonder why they should use the neck or other soft parts of the body to clamp the bouquet grip. "Everyone has calluses on their hands, and the sense of touch has become less sensitive." Yuanyuan said.
There is another reason that makes people move. Athletes without upper limbs, she said, will do the same after winning the bouquet, to ensure that the copper wire is not exposed, in case it hurts the disabled athletes.
In the production of bouquets, the left one in the middle is Guo Yuanyuan
"We are weavers"
The "Velvet Flower" is really special. The seven flower types of roses, moons, bell orchids, hydrangeas, laurel, olives and cosmos, all woven by hand, carry the temperature of the fingers, and make the symbols of friendship, tenacity, happiness, unity, victory and peace even heavier.
However, the seemingly ordinary flower pieces not only have a large number of needles, but also contain a variety of changes in stitching methods, such as long needles, lock needles, and extraction needles. At first, the reporter also tried the first step of crocheting small yellow flowers, but within a few minutes, the thread was a mess. "You can't do it without patience." Yuanyuan has been sitting in a wheelchair for 37 years, and she was born with spinal cord injury, usually she is quite cheerful, but she still uses "competition" to describe the whole process of making velvet flowers. Because a small osmanthus flower with a diameter of less than centimeters is nearly a hundred stitches, Yuanyuan will have to practice for three or four days.
And these three or four days are not the 8 hours that we ordinary people commute to work.
500 bouquets of awards, containing 79,474 petals and 12,560 leaves, must be interlinked at every step. In order not to delay time as much as possible, due to the incontinence of the second stool, the whole process of changing diapers in the toilet last time takes half an hour, so Yuanyuan rarely drinks water during the day and saves time to catch up with the progress.
On the day of the interview, it was the Lapa Festival, and she did not move a mouthful of Lapa Porridge.
Yuanyuan's rubbings
Zhang Jing, a staff member of the Hope Home for Spinal Cord Injury in Beijing's Dongcheng District, is also a teacher who teaches Yuanyuan acupuncture, and in her place, the reporter saw another side of Yuanyuan. She put the bouquet on the printer to make rubbings, compared with the school, often in the early morning still passing pictures to the teacher practice pictures, repeatedly asking whether the size was compliant. "They learn things faster than able-bodied people, because they are particularly down-to-earth in their hearts and not impetuous."
Once, Zhang Jing found that Yuanyuan only did dozens of small yellow flowers in two days, thinking that the progress was slow, but in fact, Yuanyuan silently did hundreds of them at home, and the rest she felt inappropriate was not reported. When the reporter asked Yuanyuan "how much hard work to make more pieces", she did not answer, just smiled, and then put the copper wire into the center of the yellow osmanthus flower, and took the green wool thread and wrapped it up, while the thumb of the needle had long been cracked, accumulating a hard cocoon shell.
Zhang Jing said that they often ridiculed themselves as "weaver girls", "weavers" with Chinese style. The standard and size of the bouquet are printed in the heart, hoping that each flower can be "bloomed" just right, so that the athlete gets in his hand and reaps the same "no regrets" as the medal.
Awards bouquet
"Will they like it?"
After modeling and bundling, the bouquet weighs 1 pound, and the bouquet ribbon is the blue color system of the Beijing Winter Olympics, reflecting the elements of ice and snow sports. When knitting is too tired, the wounded friends often hold up these bouquets and secretly expand their imaginations, "Will they like it?" Zhang Jing said that this is a kind of adjustment when everyone is tired.
She also imagined that if she were a reporter on the spot, she would first ask the athletes how they felt about the bouquet, and would they think that they would throw the flowers under the stage like throwing a jersey?
However, bitterness and sweetness always go hand in hand.
With 500 bouquets of flowers, a total of more than 6.38 million stitches, compared with ordinary people, spinal cord injury sufferers have to overcome more obstacles in the bouquet making process.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, the injured friends are scattered to work in various districts of Beijing, and most of them rely on wheelchairs to move, so at first Zhang Jing's knitting class was directly set up in an outdoor square or park. "You can't even imagine that scene," she said, adding that in a corner of the square, several people were in a circle in wheelchairs, and many people watched, thinking that we were just a personal amateur knitting competition.
According to their work efficiency, the injured friends usually take a certain amount of wool home to knit, and in this way, small flower pieces are continuously made in the hands of more than 100 participants, and then summarized into the Hope Home for Spinal Cord Injured People in Dongcheng District.
Compared to other groups of people with disabilities, everyone has their own difficulties in production.
Many of the injured friends with spinal cord injuries suffered spinal cord damage due to acquired factors such as car accidents and high-altitude falls, but this did not affect the production of bouquets. Some injured friends concentrate on the wheelchair during the day, but the family is not there, and there is no way to turn over for a long time, so in order to prevent pressure sores from being immobile for a long time, they simply lie on the bed and knit.
Some injured friends need help from others or with the help of urinary catheters, and they have not delayed the rush. "Although everyone weaves differently, they all do their job as best they can, and I don't see that I can do 700 (branches) but only 300 (branches)." Yuanyuan said.
Many disabled families are also involved
Among the more than 150 disabled people who participated in the bouquet production, many young people, some even suffered injuries in the best years of their lives. Disability brings them, in addition to the psychological blow, more realistically, it brings a financial burden to the family, "if we can't find a job opportunity, we can only 'eat the old' at home." Yuanyuan said that they also hope that through the opportunity to make velvet flowers, with the help of the Winter Olympics, more people can pay attention to this group and more injured friends have more employment opportunities.
This is also the reason why there is an extra blue cosmos in the bouquet of the Winter Paralympic Games.
Compared with the award bouquet of 6 kinds of flowers at the Beijing Winter Olympics, this cosmos was added under the advice of the staff of the Hope House. Tang Zhanxin, head of the Hope Home for Spinal Cord Injured People in Dongcheng District, Beijing, said that the flower language of cosmos is to grow without fear and hard work in difficulties, which is very in line with the spirit of the disabled. "We hope that the Winter Paralympic Games will be able to express the spirit of self-improvement of our disabled people on the basis of the spirit of unity and friendship."
Other cultural and creative products made by the injured friends
The "Craftsman Spirit" of the Disabled
"The 'Awards Bouquet' project team formed by Hengyuanxiang, a sponsor of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, the Women's Federation and the Disabled Persons' Federation, was hand-crocheted through the intangible cultural heritage technique - Haipai velvet thread weaving. Zhang Haidi, chairman of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, believes that the Paralympic Bouquet should have the participation of disabled people. Recalling the scene when he received the task, Liu Xiaoyun still felt particularly surprised.
As the champion of the two-time vocational skills hook knitting competition for the disabled, Liu Xiaoyun is the technical consultant of the production of velvet flowers. During the Beijing Summer Olympics, she gave souvenirs to athletes and was a veritable "double Olympic craftsman", "2008 was a tricolor face." So when I made velvet flowers this time, the experience at that time was used, and I took a lot of detours. ”
In the history of the Olympic Games, the bouquet and medals have often been important supporting roles with extremely high appearances. "Traditional Chinese skills" and "Chinese spirits" are what Liu Xiaoyun most wants to pass on through this bouquet of velvet flowers with Chinese flavor.
For more than two months, from the weaving of every flower piece, flower holder and leaf, to the assembly of every branch and every bouquet of flowers, behind the condensation is the hard work of more than 150 disabled people. During this time, due to excessive fatigue, Liu Xiaoyun's injured leg was "as heavy as a pillar", and when she was young, she was disabled due to an accident, and she could understand the significance of this "flower of velvet" to the disabled. It is not only a ceremony for the winter Paralympic Games, but also a "gift of appreciation" for the "flower makers" who are also disabled, expressing ingenuity and containing glory.
Hope Home for Spinal Cord Injury patients in Dongcheng District, Beijing, second from the right is Liu Xiaoyun
1509 laurel branches, 503 osmanthus branches, 1006 olive branches, 503 bell orchid branches, 1006 hydrangeas, 503 moon flowers, 503 gerberas, behind each string of numbers, there is also the inheritance of skills.
Zhang Jing, the teacher who teaches Yuanyuan crochet, is Liu Xiaoyun's daughter. Driven by her mother, she originally studied law and came to Hope House as a volunteer in 2019. Now that the bouquet has been fully delivered, Liu Xiaoyun will sit in front of the computer with her daughter to see everyone's evaluation of the bouquet, "Ordinary people are closer to the Connection with the Winter Olympics, and everyone's evaluation is particularly good." She typed slowly, but would let her daughter help reply to netizens on the bullet screen: Each flower is unique, and each beam has our temperature.
More netizens liked, as well as their craftsmanship spirit, Liu Xiaoyun felt that this is just a window to show the world the ability and value of the disabled. In recent years, the China Disabled Persons' Federation has set up a special exhibition hall to sell those exquisite small objects from the hands of the disabled in many domestic and foreign competitions, which are quite popular.
This time, the Winter Olympics are gradually approaching, and the warmth and kindness on the "Flowers of Velvet" are waiting for visitors from all directions.
Source: CCTV