Retaining the "village BA": The 80-year-old player who once went door-to-door to ask for sponsorship fees now refuses to sponsor for the purity of the game

Two days before the match, two hostels near the Taipan Village stadium were fully booked.

At 7:30 p.m. on the 25th, the finals of the first "Beautiful Village" basketball league in Guizhou Province opened in Taipan Village. Restaurateurs who live in the county and downtown areas have also returned, and they are going to open during the competition.

It's not the first time that Taipan Village has been so lively. In August 2022, a video of people in Taipan Village playing basketball all night went viral online. At that time, some villagers even took leave, quit their jobs and returned to their hometowns to play games. That time, Yao Ming publicly praised the basketball atmosphere in the village, and Taipan Village was also dubbed "China's 'Village BA' Holy Land".

Now, inheriting basketball culture and maintaining Internet popularity has become a new test for Taipan Village. "Village BA can only be surnamed 'Village'." This is the consensus reached by village cadres and villagers.

Match scene picture/Jiupai News Yang Zhen

[1] Kick-off time

The game started at 19:30 on the 25th. At 9 o'clock, there was already a sparse crowd flowing in the direction of the stadium. At 15:30, four middle-aged and elderly men were bored when they occupied their seats, and simply set up a chess board in the audience. One of the white-haired and flat-headed old men opened a white plastic bag and shared the melon seeds he brought with his chess players. At 17 o'clock, two and a half hours before the official start of the game, the stands were already full of black-pressed heads.

Zhang De, the first secretary of Taipan Village, told Jiupai News that in order to ensure the safety and comfort of the game, Taipan Village specially renovated the stadium, and after adding the grandstand steps, the stadium's audience capacity changed from more than 10,000 to more than 20,000.

The stands were full of concrete stairs, and spectators bought mats and sat on the floor. An old man selling sponge mats shouted at passers-by.

"The location is still not enough", the villagers who arrived late complained anxiously. People are still squeezing into the gaps in the stands, one, two, three, four, "No position, can't get in!" I don't know who shouted, and the moving crowd turned around silently, looking for the next gap.

"Stand taller and see better!" A vendor dragged a red plastic high chair and barged into the crowd shouting. A few young guys moved the ladder and jumped up. An old man did not dare to stand high, so he raised his mobile phone and watched the "live broadcast" through the mobile phone camera.

At around 7 p.m., the launch ceremony of the competition began. A viewer dialed a video call to share the excitement with friends, but the signal was too poor and the video quickly hung up. The man didn't seem to notice, his phone still held high, his eyes resting on the game in the distance.

The on-site host began to warm up, and the audience silently lengthened the tail and said "Hey-". Several bloggers supported portable tripods and interacted with the audience from time to time. Several drones scattered over the pitch, rising and falling, red and green lights flashing alternately.

No. 4 took the rebound, a long pass, the player who received the ball did not grasp it steadily, the ball bounced out again, the opposing player got the ball, a fast attack, a side pass, a layup.

The stands, which originally shouted "Qian Dongnan, come on" and "Tongren, come on", were instantly quiet, and the audience held their breath, only listening to a sharp "bang", and the ball went in!

"Hmm~" A huge exclamation broke out in the black-pressed stands instantly, and the spectators standing in the back row squeezed forward again, and a woman shouted "Don't squeeze, I'm going to fall".

Taipan Village is 28 kilometers away from Kaili City, Qiandongnan Autonomous Prefecture, and has 259 households with a total of 1,245 people, of which 92% are Miao. The course is located between cols and surrounded by lush green mountains. From Taijiang County, drive along National Highway 320 to Taipan, turn, go uphill, continue uphill, the houses gradually disappear, and the mountains are in sight. In spring, golden hook pears, rape flowers, and peach blossoms bloom in the mountains.

At present, the main road in Taipan Village can only allow one large truck to pass. The street is not long, it takes about 10 minutes to walk. Large and small hostels and restaurants are lined with restaurants. After the stadium became popular, many new facades were opened.

The game at the end of March is the first basketball game in Taipan Village in 2023. Usually, the innkeeper can run the restaurant, convenience store and inn on her own, but as the game approaches, she plans to find someone to help. She also gradually got used to this rhythm. Originally, there were 4 hotels in the village, but after the stadium became popular in 2022, there were several more in the village.

"Where are you from?" Seeing the raw faces, the bosses sometimes couldn't help but be curious and stopped to ask.

Villagers standing on high benches watching the game map/Jiupai News Chen Dongyan

If you enter "Taipan Village" on the search engine, keywords such as "village BA" and "basketball" will immediately pop up. A navigation software marked the basketball court in Taipan Village as a "village BA holy place."

"Now when people hear 'village BA', they know about Taijiang." Comments from a local driver.

In 2022, Taipan Village held a basketball game for the "Eat New Festival", according to media reports, when the stands were full, spectators appeared upstairs, on the mountain, on trees, and many spectators stood on benches and borrowed aluminum ladders to watch the game.

Taipan Village can explode because of basketball, which Zhang De, the secretary of the village branch, did not expect. Although the basketball culture here has lasted for more than 80 years, it is enough to prove that it has local roots, until 7 years ago, the courts in Taipan Village had only concrete floors and wooden baskets.

With Taipan Avenue as the middle line, to the east is the current Internet Red Stadium, and to the west is the old stadium. The old course is no longer in use, and its rough concrete floor and mossy steps are still the same as before. Relying on the faded white tiles on the ground and the wooden basketball hoops cut off at both ends, you can vaguely recognize that a basketball game was played here.

Villagers used to play ball when they weren't busy and dry grain when they were busy. The ground of the pitch was originally yellow mud, and a kick was "gray everywhere". If it is rainy, as soon as the rain stops, the players will use their feet to step on the muddy ground with the water, and then sweep away the water droplets on the surface to continue the game. Later, the economy was a little more prosperous, and the village paved cement layer by layer.

Lu Dajiang, the second-generation player of Taipan Village, learned to play here. According to a number of villagers, there are currently 6 generations of players in Taipan Village. In the eyes of junior players, "the second generation of players is the most powerful and has the greatest impact on future generations."

Lu Dajiang is 80 years old this year, with long eyebrows, white beard and black hair, round eyes, dark skin, and sonorous and powerful when speaking. Talking about the games he played in his 20s, he excitedly drew with his index finger.

When he was about 6 years old, he came into contact with homemade yarn balls, later rubber balls, "Bayi balls". "Bayi Ball" was produced in the army at that time, the quality was good, and a few people who loved to play ball pooled together enough for 6 yuan to buy one. At that time, the village teacher was paid about 7 yuan a month.

What he is most proud of is that the friends he met through playing as a teenager still have contact and even date the ball.

Yang Xiuzhong, 74, is his golfer. After finishing farm work, Yang Xiuzhong wore a pair of rubbery shoes stained with mud to Lu Dajiang's house to chat. Yang Xiuzhong said that his children and grandchildren can play basketball, and his granddaughter, who majored in physical education at a university in Guizhou, now goes to the county town to teach children to play basketball.

In the hearts of old players, Taipan Village is the "central birthplace" of the nearby Shiliba Township basketball game. In the past, the village held a fair once a week, and the second-generation players wanted to play friendly matches with other villages, so they put up posters at the market.

The funds for the event are collected by the players from house to door, 10 yuan, 50 yuan, "there is no one who does not pay for it." Yang Xiuzhong said with his head held high. The prize of the competition is a pennant, which is torn off a white cloth, dyed red, and embroidered with the words "first place". To ensure fairness, the players decided that the organisers would not participate in the official tournament and would only play a friendly match with the champions after the end. "Fame spreads quickly, and if you don't do it well, everyone will know."

Every time they organized a game, they wrote down the rules on a blank piece of paper with a brush and posted them on the court, "No fights, no molesting women, if you find out, expelled from the game, never allowed to come again." ”

Later, other villages also began to organize basketball competitions, inviting Taipan Village to participate. Several players walked the mountain road together, often for half a day, 20 or 30 kilometers closer to a little farther, 40 or 50 kilometers farther away, "in some villages, you have to climb the slope to get there." Lu Dajiang said: "At that time, you only wanted to play, and these were not things. ”

Village matches, a dozen for at least 7 days, from morning to night, until dawn. The village also encourages everyone to participate, and in the past, when the group activity was held, 10 centimeters were awarded for a day's work, and the players who went out to play on behalf of Taipan Village would also have 10 centimeters a day.

Now, the second-generation players have passed away one by one, and Lu Dajiang wants to organize another game. More and more young people in the village go to Guangdong to work, and only on the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar will they rush back from other places to play competitions. After speaking, he suddenly paused, tilted his head, tilted his body slightly, stared directly at the door with his eyes and said, "Well, now running a 'village BA' is also a kind of inheritance." ”

Taipan Village Old Stadium. Photo: Jiupai News Chen Dongyan

[3] Keep the excitement

How to make the basketball culture in the village truly pass on through the "village BA" has become a new proposition for Taipan Village to face. The village has a large number of visitors, the scale of the event is large, and electricity, network signaling, sanitation, traffic safety, etc. all have to be reconsidered.

On March 23, two days before the official match, five China Unicom employees from Kaili installed broadband near the stadium in Taipan Village. They hugged telephone poles and said as they installed the wires, "Make this place red." At 12 noon, a villager toured the village and sounded the gong to inform the villagers to assemble at the stadium for a meeting in the afternoon. At the meeting, villagers stood in a circle on the court, village officials spoke in turn, and a leader specifically instructed villagers to "try not to drink."

The scene of the meeting in Taipan Village. Photo: Jiupai News Yang Zhen

At 10 a.m. on March 24, the village committee organized people to clean the streets, picking up cigarette butts and shredded paper on the side of the road with a snakeskin bag in their left hand and a long tongs in their right hand. There was one day left before the race. At 3:48 p.m., the entire village suddenly lost power. Learning from last year's excessive tripping of electricity, the village decided to replace it with a transformer. At about 6 p.m., a staff member and friends in charge of the live stage complained in a low voice that they had received a temporary notice that the lighting arrangement of the stage needed to be moved back, and "the work of the previous two days was all done in vain."

"Too modern, not rural!" Zhang De said. In order to ensure the authentic "village flavor", the village committee decided to remove the colorful flags originally planted around the stadium, leaving only a few sides of the entrance to the stadium.

A restaurant near the stadium also had a new signboard. This place was originally named "Village BA Fan Restaurant", and after the sign was hung out, people from the government came to talk to the boss to remove the "Village BA". Not far away, a restaurant named "Guizhou Taipan Fan Service Center Catering Department" seems to have been urgently renovated, and on the day of the game, the stairs and paint in the gate were removed and opened for business. In Taipan Village, there are many restaurants that are open on match days. A newly opened restaurant offers only four meat dishes, with vegetarian dishes prepared randomly by the back kitchen. Most of the owners of these shops do business in Kaili City and Taijiang County, and they return to the village to open every competition, and close as soon as the competition ends.

The village committee tries to avoid the negative impact of the "village BA".

Mr. Zhang remembers that the village turned down sponsorship from a well-known sports drink company. The other party took the initiative to hold an event in the name of the company in Taipan Village, and provided 600,000 yuan, half of which was used for the construction and maintenance of the village committee "village BA", and half was used for the distribution of bonuses.

Two restaurant owners also tried to get the local government to name the "village BA" trademark, but "never negotiated."

"Village BA can only be surnamed 'Village'." This is the consensus reached by village cadres and villagers. Not only can you not play the "village BA" signboard for business, but you are also absolutely not allowed to collect tickets for the competition. In this competition, the participating players must also be rural hukou.

Yang Guanqiang, a university teacher and a doctoral candidate in sports sociology at Chinese Minmin University, believes that organizing people and cultural inheritance is the reason why Taipan Village can inherit basketball. After paying attention to "village BA" at the end of 2022, he came to the village to visit and investigate. He found that most of China's current sports events are officially initiated from the top down, and that villagers like Taipan Village rely on love to organize spontaneously, and the phenomenon of "bottom-up" is relatively rare. Basketball has lower requirements for the venue, equipment, and age and gender of participants, which is conducive to spreading in the countryside.

Li Zhengkui, a township sage of Taipan Village, believes that "Taipan's popularity through the 'village BA' is both accidental and inevitable. In his eyes, Taipan Village has convenient transportation and good economic development, but natural resources are scarce, and in the 60s of the 20th century, the local basketball culture gradually entered the surrounding counties, cities and towns relying on the gathering activities of businessmen.

Now, with the explosion of "Village BA" on social platforms, Taipan Village has embarked on a bigger stage. On the introduction of attractions of a travel agency in Taijiang County, the "Village BA Net Red Stadium" has been taken as a characteristic attraction of Taipan Village, and it is promoted alongside the Miaozhai culture and mountain water resources of other townships and towns.

But a hostel owner in the village said some of the newly opened hostels had been forced to close because they had no "stable source of customers."

But how to continue the excitement of the basketball game? "We need a virtuous circle." Zhang De said that the village basketball tournament is organized by the villagers themselves to make them happy and profitable.

In any case, the game will continue. On the eve of the game, four boys wearing red scarves gathered on the basketball court, happy despite the fact that the ground was still wet after a rainy day. While playing, they slipped and fell to the ground and soon got up again. Workers gathered around the courtside, the "click" of brick knives scraping the floor. The boys didn't care about this, and soon, 2 more 7-year-old boys joined the competition.

Children from Taipan Village play basketball on the court. Photo: Jiupai News Chen Dongyan

Jiupai News Reporter Yang Zhen, Chen Dongyan, Taijiang County, Southeast Prefecture, reported from Jiupai

Edited by Zeng Jinqiu

[Source: Jiupai News]

The copyright belongs to the original author, paying tribute to the original