"The Chinese Dream is Forged by Sweat"
On February 13, 2017, the winning entries of the 60th World Press Photo Competition (Dutch Competition) were announced in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and were shot by Chinese photographer Wang Tiejun The gymnastics girl's "Chinese Dream is Forged with Sweat" won the second prize in the daily life category.
“It’s gymnastics again!” Chinese netizens who learned the news exclaimed in unison. Indeed, Chinese sports themes have won the Dutch Games Award 11 times, of which seven are about Chinese gymnastics.
In the context of Western media, Chinese athletes have formed an inherent "stereotype", and images of them training hard have become a "weapon" to "demonize" Chinese sports.
The category that Wang Tiejun originally signed up for was a sports group photo, but the Dutch competition jury not only adjusted his entry category, but also selected a single photo from the group photo for selection, as if to say: This is This is the daily life of Chinese children.
In 2002, Chinese photographer Jia Guorong won the third prize in the sports category for his work "Chinese Gymnastics Championship".
The photos are rich in emotion and can impress the judges even more
The Chinese name of Wang Tiejun's work is "Sweat Makes the Chinese Dream" and the English name is Sweat Makes Champions. The content of the work is about Xuzhou Children's Sports School. Four gymnastics dolls lean against the wall and do 30 minutes of toe pressure training.
Judging from the black and white tones of the picture and the expressions of the characters, several girls all showed sad expressions.
Photographer Wang Tiejun is the vice chairman and secretary-general of the Xuzhou Photographers Association. In his opinion, although this award-winning work was an accidental work, "the award was expected."
In an interview with Tencent, he believed that the photos he took were rich in emotion and could impress the judges more.
Qiu Yan's work "Li Xiaoshuang Gymnastics School" won the third prize in the sports thematic group photo category in 2005.
Wang Tiejun said that his winning work was taken in July 2016. He spent a week shooting at Xuzhou Children's Gymnastics School. This winning work is just one of his 10 submissions.
Gymnastics has been associated with China since the emergence of sports pictures in the Dutch Games.
In 1983, French photographer G rard Rancinan won the first prize in the sports story category with the theme of "Gymnasts Preparing for the Olympics". This was the first time that a Chinese face appeared in a Dutch sports work. .
At present, there are 4 Chinese photographers who have won the Dutch Games Award for their gymnastics themes.
Chu Yongzhi's "Warm-up" won the second prize in the Sports Action category of the Dutch Competition in 2013.
American children get good grades because they enjoy gymnastics?
After Wang Tiejun won the award, some netizens believed that this was a work that deliberately catered to the tastes of Western media.
The traditional sports talent training model, coupled with the cruelty of competitive sports, can easily cause Western media to misunderstand Chinese competitive sports. This has even become their "stereotype" of Chinese sports.
In 2016, the British "Daily Mail" published a set of photos about Chinese gymnastics on social media with the title "This is how China won Olympic gold medals."
Chinese gymnastics girls photographed by British media.
This set of pictures shows the daily training scenes of Chinese children. Among them, a 6-year-old girl practicing gymnastics was hanging on the bar with her knees straightened, while the coach beside her wiped the tears from her eyes.
This set of pictures immediately caused an uproar in the country. An article titled "The existence of gymnastics girls is a shame and wound in our society" even stated, "China's competitive sports are completely a It’s a gamble in life that’s harder than winning the Mark Six Lottery.”
But then, Zou Kai from the Olympic Gymnastics “Hardware Network” said in an interview with The Paper that training in any sport is difficult and involves risks. , Moreover, Chinese gymnastics is no longer what people imagined.
“Actually, most people don’t know much about gymnastics in our country. Now all sports are humane. In the past, they may have been groping and took many detours.
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Later, the "Worker Daily" directly questioned this, "American children achieve results because they love and enjoy gymnastics. When our athletes win gold medals, they are anti-human and are gold medal machines." Excuse me, is there such a truth in the world? ”
They think: This is the daily life of Chinese children
As for the Dutch Olympic Games’ enthusiasm for Chinese gymnastics, teacher Ren Yue from Renmin University of China gave an explanation.
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He once wrote in an article: Chasing hot topics and looking for cognitive familiarity actually reflects the limitations of the Dutch competition.
“For Western judges. , the rise of Chinese sports has been repeatedly reported by the media, thus becoming one of the stereotypes in their understanding of China. Among the many Chinese themes, some themes that are of interest to locals may be ignored, while hot topics become works that are highly recognizable to Western judges. ”
In Ren Yue’s view, the judges of the Dutch competition have to browse a large number of works in a short time, and there is no time to conduct in-depth research and discussion. “Therefore, the winning works of the Dutch competition are only one side of the world, and they are even more important.” It may be an aspect that is emphasized over and over again. ”
Photographer Chen Ronghui, who won the Dutch Journalism Award in 2015, also expressed similar views on the award for this work.
He believes that from the perspective of composition and technique, There is nothing wrong with the photo. In terms of content, it is indeed the type that Western judges like. And this detail further illustrates the problem:
The category that Wang Tiejun originally signed up for was a sports group photo, but the Dutch competition failed. The jury not only adjusted his entry category, but also selected a single photo from the group photo for selection.
In Chen Ronghui’s view, the reason why the judges did this meant that the photo did not belong to the sports category. It’s about daily life. “They may think that this is the daily life of Chinese children. ”
However, Chen Ronghui also said that the prejudice of the Dutch Championship is not only against China, but a common phenomenon. Look through the Dutch Championship award-winning works, such as Brazilian female boxers and other similar award-winning sports. Pictures abound.
Regarding this symbolic misunderstanding, Chen Ronghui said, "This is their flaw, but by participating in the competition, you actually recognize their rules of the game. ”
Interestingly, as another symbol of China, the giant panda is also highly sought after in the Dutch competition.
“I found that photos taken by foreigners of Chinese giant pandas often win awards. Dutch tournament award, why hasn’t this attracted attention in China? "Chen Ronghui said.