Green Observation
Wang Pei was born in 1999 and is now a trainee teacher with a deputy senior professional and technical title. At a young age, she "enjoyed" the treatment of "celebrities on the wall": the competition photos were hung on the wall of the corridor of the China training base of the WorldSkills Beauty Program.
Wang Pei at the award ceremony in Finland. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
In 2022, she won the championship of the beauty project of the WorldSkills Competition in Finland, achieving a breakthrough of zero gold medals for the Chinese team. After winning the championship, her father said that "I almost wiped out a world champion that year" - Wang Pei chose to study beauty in a vocational college after the college entrance examination, but her family was against it, "I hope she will work hard to be admitted to the undergraduate program".
Photographs on the wall capture the "highlights" of these contestants from vocational colleges: some of them paint on models, some massage their faces, and some of them draped in national flags to celebrate their awards. One of the group photos documented the state's recognition of them as they walked into Zhongnanhai, Beijing.
Vocational school students represent China
Participate in world competitions
The WorldSkills Competition is the highest level of the world's vocational skills competition, organized by the WorldSkills Organization, held every two years, known as the "WorldSkills Olympiad".
Qin Hui participated in the makeup module of the 2nd Vocational Skills Competition of the People's Republic of China. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
In September this year, the 47th WorldSkills Competition will be held in Lyon, France. On April 3, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced the list of Chinese players for the 47th WorldSkills Competition, showing that 68 players "will represent China in 59 competitions", of which the contestant of the "beauty project" is Qin Hui, a student of Chongqing Urban Management Vocational College.
From a first-year student in a vocational college to a player representing the country to participate in the industry's top competitions, Qin Hui's selection and training run through the three years of study in the school. When she first entered the university, she heard her seniors share the stories and honors of the competition, and Qin Hui and many of her classmates were moved. At that time, the recruiting teacher received a thick stack of registration forms. After screening, the coaching team left 10 resumes.
After the first round of professional theory written exams, 4 people were eliminated. The following month focused on learning facial care techniques and imitating operations, and two more were eliminated after the exam. The remaining 4 students went to Beijing to participate in corporate practice for more than 7 months, one student found it difficult to adapt to the new environment, and the other student found that he did not like the beauty service industry in practice, so he chose to give up, and finally only Qin Hui and two others remained.
After returning to the Chongqing base from Beijing, Qin Hui began more than two years of intensive study and training. Every morning at 7 a.m., they participate in physical training, zama walking, push-ups, hand exercises, 9 a.m. to practice the main skills, and in the evening to review and train skills that do not require models, such as painting.
Beauty is divided into medical beauty and life beauty, and what they do belongs to the latter. The beauty program of the WorldSkills Competition includes 7 sections, including advanced skin care, body care, hair removal, painted nail art, makeup, eyelash extension, and hand and foot care. The official competition has a total of 4 days, which has certain requirements for the height and physical fitness of the players, and is also a test of the perseverance and will of the players.
Liu Jiajia, the coach of the base, said: "If the player is very thin, as soon as the hand is stretched out, it has already made the referee feel that he may not have the strength and cannot do the project well."
"The training is intense and there are very few breaks during the holidays. Qin Hui bluntly said that in the process of training, she actually wanted to give up many times, and when everyone was playing, she was "training with a smile", and sometimes she would fall into anxiety: "I'm not the best one, I've worked hard for so long, what if the last contestant is not me?"
But in practice, Qin Hui has to get rid of this emotion. The competition simulates the service scene facing customers, which requires a good attitude and affinity. "If you serve a customer fiercely, the customer will also be irritated. She said that carrying negative emotions can affect the quality of beauty.
Zeng Zhu, head of the operation section of the Academic Affairs Office of Chongqing Vocational College of Urban Management, has been assisting the base for a long time. She said that since the players have to participate in 12 to 14 hours of training every day, the school is worried that the students preparing for the competition will not have a good rest, so they have arranged separate accommodation for them, providing sufficient logistics for the students so that the players can concentrate on preparing for the competition.
Wang Pei has been preparing for the competition for more than 400 days, and has also had an experience similar to Qin Hui: the training room, canteen, and dormitory are three o'clock and one line, and practicing until 10 o'clock in the evening is commonplace.
"There are so many different competitions in the competition, and how to handle the 'temporary challenges' one after another with ease is the key to victory. As Qin Hui's senior, Wang Pei shared her experience of winning the championship in the 2022 WorldSkills Competition Special Competition.
A month before Wang Pei participated in the finals, the organizing committee of the competition announced the title of "sports massage". Sports massage is a kind of rehabilitation massage for athletes and other groups, but it is relatively new to Chinese athletes. In foreign countries, marathon, tennis and other sports enthusiasts often go to beauty shops to relax and massage, while in China, this is generally the business scope of massage physiotherapy shops.
After the topic was announced, the coaching team consulted a number of traditional Chinese medicine experts in Beijing and Chongqing, and combined with Swedish and Thai techniques, they designed a set of sports massage techniques that combine Chinese and Western styles and have Tai Chi characteristics.
On the field, Wang Pei's skills attracted many spectators and got the highest score in the audience. She told reporters: "Chinese traditional culture is the biggest help for me to win the championship. ”
The "business of beauty" is not simple
Since 2016, Chongqing Urban Management Vocational College has become the China training base for the beauty program of the 4th WorldSkills Competition. There are still 5 months before this year's WorldSkills Competition, and during the training of the players, the reporter visited the training base many times, and the players are training intensively.
The setting inside the base basically simulates the real competition scene: white is the main color, cosmetics and beauty products are imported from Hungary according to the competition specifications, the beauty bed can be adjusted and folded, there are ultrasonic and steam instruments next to the beauty bed, and the demarcation line of the station is drawn on the ground, all of which are arranged to restore the scene of the competition as much as possible during training.
According to coach Liu Jiajia, during the official competition, other contestants made mistakes such as bleeding from nail clippings and falling items. When training the players, the coach also exercises the players' adaptability through "digging pit" training, such as adjusting the placement of instruments and equipment, and adjusting the combination of projects.
In addition to training, players will also participate in The International Tournament to gain competition experience. Wang Peng, the leader of the Chinese expert group of the beauty project, introduced that there are more than 120 scoring points in the competition, including technical specifications, professional image, safety and hygiene, saving consumables, etc., for example, the steps of simple facial care include makeup removal, face cleaning, exfoliation, blackhead removal, skin analysis and customer consultation, etc., "This requires the contestants to have a clear mind, form self-management habits in ordinary times, manage tools, and do a good job in time planning."
Take eyelash implantation as an example, the competition is scored from the aspects of preparation, disinfection and hygiene, safe operation, customer maintenance, etc., and the technical score is to see whether it is "firmly glued", whether it fits the shape of the customer's eyes, whether there is adhesive, falling off, asymmetry, etc.
Due to the competition abroad, the player's spoken English is also a point of examination. Qin Hui, who is preparing for the competition, said that they will prepare some common words to communicate with customers, such as self-introduction and beauty program introduction.
There will be a 30% change in the content of each competition. For example, in view of the current pressure on people's lives and the high demand for health care projects, it will also involve traditional meridian dredging, scraping and moxibustion, Wang Peng said that some foreign judges have proposed to test China's "stick massage", which is actually a tendon stick, which also requires the contestants not only to learn new knowledge, but also to find and inherit from traditional culture.
The competition has brought significant changes to beauty education in China. WorldSkills was founded in 1950. In October 2010, Continental joined WorldSkills as the 53rd member of the organization. It was not until 2017 that the mainland formed a team to participate in the beauty project of the WorldSkills Competition for the first time.
"There have been no formal beauty competitions in China for a long time, only makeup and nail competitions, domestic competitions are half a day, and international competitions are four days. Wang Peng said. She has been in the beauty industry for nearly 30 years, and when domestic players were preparing to participate in the beauty competition, they did not know what the competition would be. She found the coach of the Singapore champion of the WorldSkills Competition Beauty Program through industry resources, and found out the content of the competition.
In addition to the WorldSkills Competition, the school encourages and promotes students to compete in domestic and foreign competitions such as the National Vocational Skills Competition for the Hairdressing and Beauty Industry, the Vocational Skills Competition of the People's Republic of China, and the "Belt and Road" International Skills Competition.
"Promoting teaching by competition and learning by competition" has brought confidence to Chongqing Urban Management Vocational College. The content learned in the competition and the interaction between teaching practice at home and abroad not only improved the professional level of the school, but also trained the contestants to become experts.
In front of the display frame in the base, there are various trophies of Wang Pei and others, as well as the brands of the national technical experts and skill master studios. From here, there are many champions and runners-up of beauty projects in skills competitions, as well as national technical experts.
Wang Peng said that the theme of beauty is always service and technology, what changes are instruments, cosmetic ingredients, etc., traditional beauty salons focus on investment, decoration is magnificent, but now there are more and more young people in the field of beauty consumption, they prefer a clean and modern environment, and the customer's time is very tight, lie down to do a beauty, hoping to have a timely effect.
As a post-00 generation, Qin Hui also found that not only women love beauty in the young group, but also in the contact with the beauty industry, and now the male beauty group is also increasing, "Everyone is not so satisfied with themselves, and they want to adjust it to achieve a state that they are satisfied with, which is nothing bad about it, it is a process of making themselves beautiful."
Wang Peng said that young people who go to beauty salons to consume have many ways to receive information, sometimes more than beauticians know, and now the requirements for beauticians are not only solid theories and professional skills, but also well-informed and knowledgeable about the industry, "if beauticians do not have a broad vision, they will not be able to respond to the needs of customers."
The "gears of fate" are turning
Not only Wang Pei, but also Liu Jiajia, Feng Qianrong and other former national and world competition players after 95 have become professional teachers engaged in beauty teaching and competition guidance. Many people have won honors such as the Chongqing Youth May Fourth Medal and the Chongqing May Day Labor Medal, and have become national youth post experts and national technical experts.
Chen Lirong, director of the human resources department of Chongqing Urban Management Vocational College, said that in the direction of beauty, the school has introduced national technical experts like Wang Pei, and according to Chongqing's talent policy, they should enjoy the treatment of deputy senior professional titles.
In addition to the practical aspect, they participated in the compilation of the "Training Materials for Vocational Skill Level Recognition in the Beauty Industry", which contains theoretical specifications and practical steps, in which the demonstration pictures of the teaching materials are demonstrated by the contestants of the WorldSkills Competition.
Feng Qianrong came to Chongqing Urban Management Vocational College from the countryside 10 years ago to study, and before he came into contact with the beauty profession, he had never even used facial cleanser.
When choosing a major in the college entrance examination, Feng Qianrong had a disagreement with his family. "It's better to choose a skill-based major, and learn a craft well, at least you won't starve to death. "Feng Qianrong's idea is very simple.
Feng Qianrong wanted to learn a technique, and planned to drop out when he learned the technique. She recalls that this was also the thinking of many students at that time, and everyone generally believed that a college degree did not seem to be of much use in society, "it is better to go out to work early to earn money". Survival and employment are what they value most.
And so it is. In the second half of 2014, Feng Qianrong studied cosmetology at school. By the time she returned home for the Chinese New Year, she would already be able to take over the bridal makeup work in the village and town.
After finishing the first semester of her sophomore year, Feng Qianrong dragged her suitcase and prepared to go to Guangzhou to find her mother to do Malatang business. As she was about to leave school, Feng Qianrong received a phone call that she still believes "changed her fate."
The teacher at the school called and said, "There is a world beauty competition, do you want to participate?" Feng Qianrong said that when he was in school, he did not participate in any competitions except for the school's sports meeting. "The World Series should be of high standard, right? I haven't been exposed to it, so I might as well try it. She recalled.
That year was the preparatory stage for the mainland's participation in the beauty project of the WorldSkills Competition. In the end, Feng Qianrong's results stopped at the third place in the national selection competition of the beauty project of the 2016 WorldSkills Competition. Although she has not entered the world arena, she has been exposed to the top skills and knowledge in the industry through the experience of competition.
In 2017, Feng Qianrong went to a beauty listed company for an internship, and because of his excellent skills, he was "promoted twice in half a year and became the head of the technical group". She said that when she works in a company, she has really learned professional knowledge, has professional skills, and the services she has made are different for others at a glance.
Liu Jiajia's contact with beauty is a bit "wrong". When she applied for the major, she saw "character image design", she thought it was doing animation image design, but after arriving at school, she learned that this major is to study beauty and body, which is divided into two directions: makeup modeling and beauty.
"My family is rural, and I have never been exposed to this profession before, and I don't know about it. That's how Liu Jiajia began to study beauty.
In the process of preparing for the skills competition, Liu Jiajia felt that he could truly integrate what he had learned with his beauty skills. Born in 1998, she gradually grew into a national technical expert, the leader of the Chongqing expert group of the beauty project of the World Skills Competition, won the National May Day Labor Medal, and was successfully awarded the deputy senior professional and technical title this year.
After the competition, many companies will invite her to communicate, and the employees who have worked in the company for more than ten years "fight in the ring", in this way to strengthen the company's assessment and training of employees, and some companies invite her to be a technical consultant to participate in the guidance and planning of the project.
When Liu Jiajia went to secondary vocational schools and technical colleges for training, he found that the enrollment of beauty majors was increasing year by year, and the enrollment was full in a day or two after the enrollment information was issued. What does beauty do? Beauty and competitions? These are all questions that Liu Jiajia has been asked by students and parents. "The work does not need to be exposed to the wind and sun, and the environment is relatively simple, and now parents are willing to send their children to study. ”
Now, Liu Jiajia is full of gratitude for the profession that once "misled" her, and she also has her own views on the profession. According to Liu Jiajia, many schools are now adapting to the situation and policies, changing the name of the major to a more targeted beauty and body care major, and the proportion of makeup is not so high, so that students can choose their majors more clearly, and it also shows that beauty and body care is a "sunrise industry".
Source: Central Committee of the Communist Youth League
Statement: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author, if there is a source error or infringement of your legitimate rights and interests, you can contact us to deal with it.