A casualty accident a few days ago still shakes the entire network.
At the opening ceremony of a cultural tourism festival in a certain place, an acrobat, fell from a height of more than 10 meters.
And this scene happened to be clearly photographed by the tourists watching the performance.
The video went viral on the Internet, some people scolded the performance company behind the actor for being vicious, and some suspected that the performance partner was deliberately retaliating.
But few people pay attention to the fact that the most frightening thing in this whole accident is a sentence from the performance commentary:
"All my friends come to see that they don't have any protections, and we want to act real."
Nowadays, in this year, there are still people who use "no protective measures" as a dangerous performance gimmick?
Perhaps this kind of folk acrobatics has developed so far, and only "enough curiosity" can be relied on to attract attention.
It's not that I don't eat minced meat, but I don't see that human life is really so despicable.
Don't acrobats deserve attention?
Today, I want to talk about them.
The pain of flesh and blood
"Every second after more than three minutes of handstand will be as painful and long as an hour."
Handstand, also known as "taking the top", is one of the four basic skills necessary for acrobats.
Someone once went to an acrobatic training school and asked children what they feared the most?
I thought that the answer was nothing more than difficult actions such as "tightrope walking" and "flying trapeze", but the children's answers were surprisingly unified - handstands.
Source: TVBS
This action is the beginning of almost all acrobats' exposure to this trade.
But how can a person who walks upright endure a long handstand, light dizziness and tinnitus, and even cause spinal curvature and vision loss for a long time.
The basic skill is their rice bowl, and one more second of perseverance means an extra layer of food security.
Source: "Echo Loud"
Handstand is already difficult, and what acrobats really want to learn is the "collapsed waist top" and "ingots top" derived from this.
Standing the legs reflexively above the head, the entire spine is compressed and folded, and behind the calm expression is the ten-year grind of the children.
Source: Jiangsu Acrobatic Troupe
"Each handstand, hold both hands upside down for an hour, then half an hour with the left hand and half an hour with the right hand. Almost the entire morning was spent backwards. ”
"When I get off the bench after practice, I often don't even walk."
The body transcends the limits of distortion, and the physical strength breaks through the limits of endurance. For them, these have long been commonplace.
Source: Qilu.com
"Can't stand it, let's run."
Finally, one day, Xiao Xiang couldn't bear it anymore - taking advantage of the night, he fled, along with three other friends who fled the acrobatic school with him.
The four children, who were under the age of 15, brought a total of 200 yuan, but they wandered for a whole week.
With no phone or watch, they couldn't tell the direction or sense the time.
As for where to run, there is only one principle - the farther away from the agent who brought them to the show, the better, and it is better to run from Chengdu back to their hometown in Guizhou.
If you are sleepy, you will sleep in the park or on the roof for a while, and continue to run when you wake up; Drink water when you're hungry, and if you're really hungry, buy the cheapest bagged bread to fill your hunger.
Within a few days, the money on their bodies was spent, and it was not that they did not think about calling "for help".
But they are more afraid than helpless people without money, and if they call, they will be sent back to the cave-like school.
By the time the police found them, they had lost their backpacks, their clothes were dirty, their faces were covered with mosquito bags, and their legs were bumped.
Why run away?
Perhaps everyone, including their parents and teachers, knows it all too well.
This profession is really too hard, and the life of the acrobatic school is even more difficult.
"Students in other classes in the school can eat whatever they want with a meal card. Acrobatic classes do not work, the teacher eats whatever he hits. ”
"Breakfast is usually steamed buns, pickles and an egg, rice and two stir-fried vegetarian dishes at noon, and the same as at noon."
"I can eat enough, but I just don't fight hunger, and I only occasionally have a stir-fried meat with garlic on weekends."
Children who are still developing, where is this enough food?
What's more, the daily training is a torture that people can endure.
Children have to get up on time at 5:30 every day to practice, sit-ups, flip their heads, stand upside down, and practice until 7 o'clock before eating breakfast.
After eating, they continued to practice, handstands, kicks, ice ballet, high-intensity training consumed their energy, and finally stayed up until the lunch break, only two hours.
In the afternoon, a long and harsh training session awaited them.
Every day, it's so tight that it's almost breathless.
And the long training has also left traces on them.
The joints were ground out of calluses, dark and rough all over the palms; The head turned over a lot, and the scalp rubbed against the ground was bald.
Source: Tencent News
Here, the cry is the background sound.
There were cries from the practice room, and one or two suppressed sobs in the dormitory in the middle of the night.
Children dare not slack for a quarter of an hour, and they are not even allowed to develop pride after completing difficult movements.
"You can't be proud, pride will retreat."
It hurts, it hurts so much.
Every second of high-risk action display on the stage comes from this daily physical torture, from the mental pressure of self-denial.
At what should have been a brilliant age, under the polish of sweat, their childhood looked a little heavy.
Death of the soul
If it's just physical suffering, it can still survive.
What is terrible is the spiritual blow imposed by the outside, the renunciation after self-denial.
This acrobatic school, which does not charge tuition, covers accommodation, and also promises to allocate a job with a monthly salary of 4,000 after completion.
Is there such a good thing? But this is not a public good after all.
In the mouths of the four children who escaped, you can vaguely glimpse the sadness of the acrobatic trade:
"The better people act, the worse you act", Xiao Xiang didn't know that this was the first time he heard the teacher's scolding.
Whether it's a bad move or a mistake, what awaits him is always a stinky swear and 500 push-ups.
Even if the performance is very successful, the children rarely get a word of praise, and at most they get an apple from the teacher as a reward.
Image source laboratory: Guyu laboratory
This group of children who left their homeland early are independent and sensitive.
Even if the performance is wrong, the audience applauds with encouragement, they only regard it as a mockery.
In this environment, they are clearly aware of their role, so they are careful and cautious in everything.
But how can the young man be willing to be a caged bird on display and a tool person at the mercy?
Xiao Xiang had seen with his own eyes that the day before, he had scolded his lazy teacher, and collected money and counted money backstage at the performance.
This scene severely stimulated the teenagers, who only felt that their dignity was being trampled on fiercely, and were treated by the school as a cheap commodity that would make money.
In the early years, acrobatics was also called "tricks", like dramas and tricks, belonging to the bottom class, and was a means used by poor people to make a living.
Source: Guyu Laboratory
Today, the same is true of the children in these acrobatic schools, most of whom are left-behind children.
Either there is no one at home to care about and want to find a way out; Either the grades are not good, and you can only learn one craft to eat.
Even in Wuqiao, Hebei, the "hometown of acrobatics", learning acrobatics is only a last resort for a few families.
Because they know all too well what it means to face once they get into acrobatics:
Some people perform for 20 minutes at a time, tossing and turning, and get a pitiful salary;
Some people are over half a hundred years old and still carry a 400-pound vat, but when they get off the stage, their waists hurt so much that they can't stand up straight;
There were also people who performed kicking stools, were dazzled by stage lights, and there were several performance accidents where stools were smashed on their bodies.
Walking on a steel wire suspended from above, who is not naturally afraid?
They really dare not be afraid, and they must complete this short performance with all their spirits.
Once there is a problem, there will be no salary at best, and liquidated damages may be paid according to the contract.
Source: Guyu Laboratory
Sadly, acrobats perform with their heads up and train with pain in their hands, and it is difficult to exchange for an equal answer.
In the center of the stage, in the spotlight, no one cares about their efforts, and no one looks up at them, only treating them as caged fighting beasts and clowns for people to make fun of.
As they age, they are deprived of strong physical functions and are no longer suitable for the profession.
It's not that they didn't think about changing careers, but only difficulties greeted them.
Some people go to the factory to work as screw workers, but the accumulated back injuries make them unable to do the kind of mechanical repeated assembly work. Some people want to be security guards, but they are disliked by the other party and they have not studied for a day.
It turned out that behind those gorgeous and smooth movements, there was such and such suffering that was not seen.
For them, the pain that reaches the soul may be stronger than the scars of the body.
Ink is divided into five colors, people have good and bad, but they should not be divided into three, six and nine.
Escape the spotlight
After such high-intensity, high-risk training, what exactly do acrobats get in exchange?
Over the years, acrobatic performances have gradually faded from people's sight.
Many acrobats who love and desire to stand on a bigger stage do not want to give up their hard-earned skills, but what is unfolded in front of them is indeed a stormy future.
Brother Lin walked the tightrope and walked for a full 20 years.
Later, he went home and went back to his hometown to sell fried skewers.
He said that in the past few years, there have been few performances at all; He also said that he had personally witnessed the dissolution of small acrobatic groups; He also said that he was old, and if he didn't practice for a while, he was so rusty that he couldn't complete the performance anymore.
He seemed to be very sad, and he seemed to be running away.
Source: IC Photo
Like Brother Lin, there are not a few who have left their acrobatic acting career.
Someone delivered takeaways, someone ran long distances, and some went to construction sites. There are also some people who have stepped on the tide of the times with their own skills and opened a new trend of acrobatic live broadcasting.
Hadron should be the first wave of acrobats to embark on the road of live broadcasting.
Hadron, who first stepped into the circle of goods, did not know how to attract the audience, so he could only work harder than others, performing in a small theater during the day, and starting a live broadcast when he returned home at night, barely sleeping for two hours a day.
Later, it gradually improved, and once went to Sichuan and Chongqing to perform, and the boss stopped him backstage:
"I know you're doing a live broadcast, and when you're older, let's stay in the group as a program director." I'll give you as much money as you can make doing live streaming. ”
He performs well in acrobatics, and the boss really doesn't want to release people.
Qiangzi does not understand the sadness of the loss of talents in the acrobatic industry, but when Qiangzi thinks that there is still a whole family to support, he can only smile and politely refuse the boss's retention.
Source: "E-commerce Online"
More than physical exhaustion, what is more helpless is the parents' lack of understanding, and it is a glorious thing to rely on a skill to eat in the eyes of the elderly.
Although the money is not much, it is still down-to-earth.
But now, his son has to rely on virtual networks to make money, which is really a loss-making transaction of "having this meal and not the next meal".
Source: IC Photo
Old Zhang is fifty years old, and he has been working in this industry for 40 years since he was 10 years old and exposed to acrobatics.
When he was young, he worked as a "flying man", later as a "base", and now he is the leader of an acrobatic troupe.
After becoming the team leader, Lao Zhang really saw the bitterness and tears behind the acrobatics:
In front of him are a series of practical problems such as lack of funds, the severance of commercial performances, and the disconnection of actors.
No way, in order to recruit people, the acrobatic troupe offered a tuition-free discount. Later, even if you take the initiative to put money in, you have to think about keeping people first.
This is the status quo of acrobatics, realistic and sad.
The tide of the times rushes forward, and the art of acrobatics really shouldn't be marginalized.
Who is holding on?
There are always people who ask: what is so good about such dangerous acrobatics? Isn't it okay to cancel them all?
We all seem to forget the moment when we were young in front of the TV at the Spring Festival Gala and were amazed by the acrobats on the screen.
Those shocking acrobatic performances, those acrobats full of tenacity, have inspired many people with beauty, and witnessed how many people's indomitability and tenacity in exploring their own limits.
Once upon a time, these wonderful performances were cultural treasures that our ancestors were proud of!
It is recorded that in the time of Kublai Khan, Marco Polo watched such a scene:
"The plates on the table seem to really fly through the air, and there were magicians who could make golden bottles filled with fine wine fly in the air and magically deliver them to Kublai Khan."
As the world's largest acrobatic country, China has been recorded countless such surging bridges in the long history of the international stage.
The beauty of rigidity and softness reflects the meaning of life and spiritual pursuit of human beings who unremittingly challenge themselves.
Many acrobats are also attracted by the charm of it, even if it is bitter, they are willing to persevere, just to present shocking acrobatic performances for the audience on the stage.
Those that belong to the nation will not disappear after all.
We just regret that there are so many people's bitterness hidden in the traditional industry, but no one cares.
This inevitably reminds me of the so-called "208w", skin abrasions to send a Weibo to "announce the world", even the basic literacy such as studying the script can be used as a hot spot to publicize.
They shed tears and sold misery, packaging themselves as bitter children from grassroots backgrounds, trying to pull in the distance from fans, but they were unaware of the sharp separation of wearing famous brands tens of thousands of dollars all over their bodies.
They use their superb acting skills offstage in exchange for traffic on stage, deceive the audience, and then consume the goodness of the people.
Source: "Talk Show Conference"
Today, what is worthy of our respect and focus in the spotlight?
Should those who float in their skin and have empty surfaces really squeeze out the skills that have been passed down for thousands of years?
Moreover, it is not only the acrobats who are not seen under the spotlight and so on.
For example, stuntmen, not only should their movements be neat and beautiful, but also pay attention to the imitation of body shape.
Putting in hard work but not making money, sadly living as a shadow of others all your life.
If so, who wants to make a product that is sold at a price?
Criticism is not for deconstruction, but for reconstruction.
The position is not valuable, but these people who work hard really deserve a thumbs up.
At the very least, we should understand their difficulty.
After all, only attention can really change their status quo.
May we see their hardships and tenacity, remind them to pay attention to safety, and not use "no protection" as an eye-catching gimmick as some presenters.
I really don't want to know them from such sad news next time.