Going with the flow

Luo Qing, a 26-year-old member of the team, started learning when he was in primary school.

"It was really exciting and fun to watch people drifting, so I slowly learned how to do it," he says.

Learning wasn't easy as he wasn't a good swimmer. "I couldn't even stand on the bamboo, let alone balance. I fell into the water a lot at first," he adds.

Support from his family encouraged Luo to persist. "My parents were quite supportive, and they encouraged me to learn in my spare time."

Peng taught him for free. "Peng was very responsible, he taught us how to stand on the bamboo, how to make it move, and how to balance our attitude toward the sport," he says.

"It takes a lot of time to learn if you really want to be good at standing on a bamboo stem, so you need to be very patient."

After practicing for more than a decade, Luo now performs for tourists in Datong, which has become a popular destination for its many examples of intangible cultural heritage and tourist offerings.

Datong was traditionally an important river port for trading between the provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan.

Thanks to its plentiful supply of bamboo, it is also famous for bamboo weaving, which is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage in Guizhou.

"We do not earn much from performing for tourists, we do it because we love it, and we want to demonstrate our intangible cultural heritage to the outside world," Luo says.

After years of involvement, he has decided to encourage his daughter to learn single bamboo drifting when she grows older.

"Like my parents when I was young, I would like my daughter to learn. After all, single bamboo drifting is the legacy of our ancestors," he says.

Contact the writer at qiuquanlin@chinadaily.com.cn