"There is a miscellaneous play in the street of the city gate, advocating the gathering of young people, or using guns and swords, bullets or sticks, and fists and feet and hands are all kinds of plays. ”
During the Qing Dynasty, an official who sent an envoy to the Qing court from Korea once wrote a book called "Yan Xinglu", which recounted many things he saw and heard in the land of China, and one of them was about traditional Chinese acrobatics.
When it comes to the quintessence of the country, the first thing that comes to most people's minds is Peking Opera and mahjong, in fact, acrobatics is also a very important part of traditional Chinese culture, whether it is the court nobles, or the streets and alleys, there are acrobatic people.
Acrobatics is a kind of performing art based on physical fitness and skill, and it is recorded in the "First Preface to the Annals of Ruan Shangshu": "Gongyuan knows the Sui and Tang dynasties, and acrobatics is Ren Yin." "Acrobatics has a history of about 2,000 years in traditional Chinese culture, and because it has been passed down from generation to generation, the current acrobatics can also be called a new look from the past, and now there are many specialized acrobatic troupes in the mainland.
In the art of acrobatics, there is a person's name that is like thunder, and there is almost no acrobatic artist who does not know his name, he is Mr. Wang Baohe, who has the title of "Ghost Hand King".
The "Eight Monsters" family
The art of acrobatics has been very popular since ancient times, whether it is ordinary people or official nobles, one of their usual entertainment is to watch the unique and magical performances of acrobats.
In the capital, there is a group of artists who perform very strange and eccentric performances, they have completely surpassed ordinary acrobatic skills, and almost complete some actions that ordinary people cannot complete in a way that destroys their bodies, so they have a special name "Eight Monsters".
Uniqueness often attracts more attention and attention. The "Eight Monsters" have worked hard to develop their skills, and they are naturally unwilling to use them only for their own lives, and they often pass on their skills to future generations, so this generation has been passed down from generation to generation, and gradually the "Eight Monsters" have become a family of inheritance, and each generation has taken it as their responsibility to be able to learn the skills of their predecessors and become acrobatics.
As the old saying goes: "Three teachings and nine streams." "And the acrobat is the last of the nine streams, although he has strange skills, but when performing in the streets and alleys, he still depends on the mood of the onlookers, if the performance is good, he will be rewarded more, and if the performance is smashed, he may not receive anything at the end of the day.
It is precisely because of the low social status that although the "Eight Monsters" have been passed down from generation to generation, they have gradually been diluted in the torrent of history, scattered and separated, and they cannot make up the eight families.
And the "Ghost Hand King" Wang Baohe that I want to talk about today is the descendant of the Wang family, one of the "Eight Monsters" family that still exists.
Childhood was hard
In 1944, Wang Baohe was born in the Wang family in Wuqiao County, which doomed him to a completely different fate from others. As one of the surviving "Eight Monsters" family, the Wang family is famous in the local area.
Wang Baohe's grandfather Wang Yulin was once called the "King of Unloading", and unloading refers to the contraction of the body through extremely soft bone joints, so as to achieve that no matter what kind of rope and chain can not lock this "one of the eight monsters of Beijing".
As one of the descendants of the "Eight Monsters", Wang Yulin taught his son Wang Fushou his skills after he was born. This kind of unloading kung fu needs to be practiced from an early age, and in order to pursue the flexible displacement of bones, it is necessary to endure a lot of hardships when practicing, so Wang Fushou had a very difficult childhood.
Born in such a family, it seems that the descendants have lost other possibilities to make a living, and can only live by the skills left by their ancestors from generation to generation.
After the birth of his grandson Wang Baohe, Wang Yulin put all his attention on his grandson. When Wang Baohe was 6 years old, Wang Yulin began to train him. In order to make the body soft and flexible enough, Wang Baohe is often soaked in a medicine barrel, and even has to be deliberately pressured by his grandfather to cause fractures, because children's bones are softer than those of larger people, and it is more conducive to maintaining the softness of the body by keeping the fracture state often.
All success in the world has a price. Wang Yulin was a strict teacher, and once Wang Baohe did not practice well, Wang Yulin would beat and scold him, and he was not even allowed to eat.
The repeated physical pain inflicted on such an immature child day after day is particularly cruel. While other children were happily playing and eating popsicles, Wang Baohe could only eagerly glance at the bright sunshine outside the window, and then continued to practice his movements.
Amazing technology
Under the strict requirements of his grandfather Wang Yulin, Wang Baohe also learned all of Wang Yulin's unique skills, in addition to unloading the rope, there are also "deep throat needle technique", "water meteor" and "flying fork", etc., he began to live like his grandfather and father, on the flyover.
As the crowd gathered on the flyover to applaud Wang Baohe's marvelous acrobatic performance, the past and the present seemed to coincide at this moment, without any change.
By chance, in 1999, Wang Baohe was invited to perform in Hong Kong, which caused a sensation in Hong Kong for a while, and even Tung Chee-hwa, the richest man in Hong Kong at the time, wrote an eight-character praise for Wang Baohe: "Three immortals return to the cave, and five fingers are strange." ”
Among these eight words, the so-called "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" is the name of a miraculous skill, and the props are only three bowls and two small balls. Wang Baohe put the three bowls upside down on the table, and he only needed to point to the small ball in the bowl he was pointing to.
This technique sounds almost incredible, how can the ball be transformed into a bowl that is upside down on the table out of thin air? But Wang Baohe not only did it, but also did it with ease, and some people even suspected that there was an element of fraud in it at the time. In this regard, CCTV also specially invited Mr. Wang Baohe and asked him to perform "Three Immortals Return to the Cave" under three cameras, which is bound to grasp the flaws.
Under the almost 360-degree shooting of the three cameras, Wang Baohe did not panic at all and completed his performance perfectly. In the recorded video, even if it is slowed down several times, it is still impossible to find any fraudulent ingredients, but Wang Baohe relies on his flexible hands to put the ball into the bowl with a very fast technique. At the time of filming, Wang Baohe was 76 years old, but his methods were still like lightning speed, without any dragging.
After this verification, no one dared to question Wang Baohe's skills, and even he was awarded the title of "Inheritor of World Intangible Cultural Heritage" by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage.
Refuse to accept apprentices
Today, in the acrobatic industry, Mr. Wang Baohe can be called the most skilled person, although he is old, he is still energetic, and often attends performances, but after so many years, he has never accepted any apprentices, nor has he taught his skills to anyone. As one of the heirs of the "Eight Monsters" family, he doesn't seem to plan to pass on his skills, why is this?
Someone once asked Wang Baohe like this, but he just said lightly: "Times are different. "It was and is true that the acrobatic artists who used to dot the alleys are no longer there, but can still be seen in the acrobatic troupes.
Perhaps for Wang Baohe, all the fame and praise now can't withstand the hardships and pains of learning acrobatics in his childhood, and he no longer hopes that any child will have such an unhappy childhood.
Wang Baohe no longer intends to accept apprentices, and his skills will be completely lost with his death one day, perhaps regretting that an important part of traditional Chinese culture has finally been left in the dust of history, but he can't help but sigh that Mr. Wang Baohe is so benevolent and kind, he can no longer bear to hurt the original innocent child, let another innocent person live the painful days he once suffered.
Brief summary:
In "Yan Xinglu", acrobatics is said to be "the record of the lantern drama of the mountain and the water and the long pavilion". This culture, which occupies a place in Chinese culture, has gradually revealed a different face with the changes of the times.
Relying on his own skills, Mr. Wang Baohe has reached a very high status in the acrobatic art industry, and has also received a lifetime of applause and admiration.
It would be a pity if such a charming culture was lost in history, Chinese traditional culture has been nurtured for 5,000 years, it is so deep and varied, I hope that more and more people will pay attention to traditional culture in the future, and do not let these pearls finally be buried in the dust and never see their brilliance again.