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Better life gives peasants new outlook Putting his prosperous sock wholesale business aside, Zhu Junjie from ZhejiangProvince came here competing at the 5th National Games of Peasants. Zhejiang was sent packing after the second phase in men's basketball tournament, yet Zhu said he had had so much fun playingbasketball no matter at these Games or in his spare time. "How to make money is no longer my headache any more and I liketo spend it on doing sport," Zhu said. "Playing basketball after aday's work has become indispensable to my life and my friends." It was not the case for Chinese peasants a dozen years ago, when they had to struggle to make a living. After he failed to enter university in late eighties, Lin Jie returned home, Dingjia village located in Chenggu county of Shaanxi province, to work in the field. At first, he kept the hobby of morning jogging as in high school but fellow villagers labeled him strange because of "his wasting energy on running for nothing". Lin gradually stopped his morning jogging but he always felt something missing in his life. Zhu totally understood what kind of pressure Lin was dealing with as he was also a typical peasant cultivating farmland year after year in the past. "We didnot know the necessity of taking exercise at all in the past when the peasants put all their minds on how to make ends meet," he said. As things have been turning better for the peasants, they couldfinally shift some attention to workout and were soon to be benefited from it. Lin is not picked on for taking exercise now. On the contrary, he has been selected to organize sports event in the village. In well-off rural areas in Guangdong, Shanghai and Jiangsu, some of more expensive sports such as tennis, swimming and shuffle-board have become more popular among the peasants. According to statistics, forty percent of rural population in Guangdong take regular exercises. Working the field is no longer the sole occupation for the 900 million peasants in China as part of them flood in cities looking for jobs. Whatever jobs they take, they believe fitness can help them do better. Some affluent peasants even choose sports as a way of life. Jiang Hongxing from Zhejiang, a basketball team leader at theseGames, spends almost all his time in amateur competition while hiswife is in charge of his business. "There was a time I could not fill myself full but now I have to worry about losing weight," Jiang said. "I barely had time to do sports in the past and now I want to make up for it." The cream of the peasant athletes have reached the top level ofthe world sports. Eye-disabled Wang Qiulian from Jiangxi took the bronze in women's 52kg judo at the Paralympic Games in Athens this year while Xing Huina, a Shandong peasant, emerged the surprise winner of women's 10,000m at the Olympic Games. Chinese sports association of peasants president Chen Yaobang said he was not surprised by peasants' new found love in sports. "It is inevitable for peasants to choose taking physical exercises for a better life after they can make a lot more money than before," he said. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the net income per capita of the peasants in the first six months thisyear reached 1345 yuan and the gross output value of agriculture amounted to 1,228.5 billion yuan while the numbers were 602 yuan and 422.8 billion yuan respectively for a whole year in 1989. "The development of sports not only marks the progress of the society and the human culture but also embodies the comprehensive strength of a country," Chinese vice premier Hui Liangyu said at the opening ceremony of the Peasants Games.
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