In a half-covered amphitheater in eastern China, 20-year-old Wang Shuangshuang locked his shoulder around a bull’s neck, clashing its horns to force it to its knees.
Chinese bullfighting, or “guanniu,” dates back over 600 years, but remains a sport little known domestically, let alone internationally.
Students like Wang sporadically sign up for competitions, but a lack of funding and exposure means few take it up as a full-time career, leaving her to face an existential struggle.
“Our heritage is now neither dead nor alive,” 72-year-old master Han Haihua told AFP in Jiaxing, a city south of Shanghai.
“To bring in talent, you need money… I’m not bragging – give me 30 or 50 kids, train them here for three years and I’ll let the whole world know about guanniu.”
Guanniu was brought to Jiaxing by Hui Muslim immigrants and evolved from a cattle skill into a popular competition.
Unlike Spanish bullfights, Chinese wrestlers do not use weapons and do not kill the animal at the end of the bout.
Instead, they grab the bull’s horns and try to bring it to the ground and earn extra points if they can jump on its back or crawl under its belly.
According to Han, in the early 2000s guanniu received a boost from Xi Jinping, then the provincial party secretary, who called for traditions such as bullfighting to be officially listed as “intangible cultural heritage”.
These days, an annual competition run by Han’s martial arts school is held at the China Bullfighting Hall amphitheater, its license plate inscribed by martial arts novelist Jin Yong.
Nine university students entered the preliminary this year, fighting bulls weighing hundreds of pounds and sporting strong, rigid horns.
“You have to go with his flow, constantly shift your shoulders to follow his resistance, close your neck and then throw him down,” Wang said.
“Strength and technique, neither can be missing.”
‘hot blooded’
Fellow competitor Xu Zhiqian, also 20, said he enjoyed testing his strength against nature.
“I think this sport is very youthful, very hot-headed,” he said.
Both Wang and Xu brought their bulls to the ground in the final of the competition, watched by several hundred people.
But Xu said he plans to work in his field of study, and while Wang said he was “considering” pursuing guanniu, he wasn’t quite sure.
Thirty-year-old Li Bo is a rare example of someone who has made a career out of it.
He joined Han’s martial arts school as a teenager, attracted by his love of kung fu movies.
Han now considers him the best guanniu practitioner in China, but Li is troubled by the lack of others following in his footsteps.
“Nobody wants to do this full-time. It makes our legacy extremely difficult,” Li said.
To stay afloat, the school organizes performances in tourist locations and runs a halal steam bun shop.
Li has also contacted the media, sold souvenirs, organized regular tours and adapted the story of guanniu for stage performances in an effort to raise her profile.
‘committed’
Master Han remembers the peak of the sport.
He still remembers the exact date in 1982 when he performed guanniu at a national ethnic minority sports meeting, and a senior government official called it “a real Chinese-style bullfight”.
In the decades that followed, the sport appeared in movies and on television, but that prominence has faded.
While Spanish bullfighting has long been a target of animal rights activists, no such public controversy has emerged over guanniu in China.
After it was included as intangible cultural heritage, the government provided free seats, allocated annual subsidies to support regular competitions and attracted sponsorships.
However, Han stressed that such support is not yet enough to foster a professional sport.
“Our cattle breeding and training facilities are all temporary facilities within the martial arts school,” Li explained.
When the AFP visited this month, the bulls were kept in the bathrooms of a nearby apartment building for the duration of the competition.
Despite the odds, Han remained defiant.
“I am committed to keeping this tradition alive,” he told AFP.
“I’m going to raise money or borrow money myself to keep it going.”
