With nowhere else to go, he fights
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I recently met Derek, a Chinese youth from Guangdong province who has a vision. He wants to be an MMA champion.
Life has shoved him into a corner, and he’s laying everything on the line — possibly even his life — to break out.
Derek is 15 years old.
He asked me not to use his Chinese name, but he shared his story. He grew up in an orphanage, abandoned as an infant. He doesn’t know if his parents are alive or dead, and he doesn’t care. He’s on his own now, and sees the mixed martial arts cage as a gateway to the respect that has eluded him so far in life.
At the orphanage, and later in school, he was frequently bullied and shamed. He chafes at the memory and spews out an admirable stream of profanity in English. He picked up the language on his own, mostly
This Day, That Year
Item from Aug 23, 1987, in China Daily: Though technology exports are a new business in China, they have great potential.
In the last two years, technology exports have been gaining momentum.
Over the past decades China’s share in high-tech exports worldwide has increased dramatically.
Undergoing an industrial upgrade boom, the nation is by watching movies.
Eventually he learned to fight.
When I met him, Derek had won eight straight matches in the cage. He feels power growing within, both physical strength and strength of mind. “What are you looking for?” I asked. He answered: “Infinity.”
He wants to rise. He wants to go to school. He wants to love and be loved. Right now, though, a couple hundred yuan in his pocket feels like a fortune. A full belly is a rarity. He has barely enough to eat — and to fight.
He is laser-focused on his dream, working out five hours a day so he can enter an octagon in a dimly lit private club for a chance to win enough prize money to heal, and then fight again. He might get bloodied. He might bloody his opponent. Either way, it’s punishing, dangerous work, if you can call it that.
Youngsters like Derek who have nowhere else to go are easy marks for exploitation. They fight for survival.
Derek lives alone. A week capable of exporting more high-tech or value-added products to the global market.
Last year, China accounted for 29 percent of global hightech exports, while the number was only 2 percent in 1995, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce.
A series of policies supporting the industrial upgrade led to the impressive growth. ago, he scraped up everything he had for an entry fee of 500 yuan ($75). The winner would be paid 4,000 yuan.
Derek, who weighs 61 kilograms, was paired against a 19-year-old who was 17 kg heavier — a dangerous mismatch. Four years of development matters.
Three minutes per round for 10 rounds, if you can last that long.
Derek unleashed his energy, and the other guy’s nose and lip paid the price, bleeding profusely after three rounds. Then came Round 4. The bigger fellow attacked ferociously, taking Derek to the mat and pounding his head with both fists. “I lost control of my body,” Derek
In 2015, the country unveiled the Made in China 2025 strategy, a road map to the future for the manufacturing industry.
China has already exported its high-speed rail products to many countries and by 2020, China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, the country’s railway vehicle manufacturer, plans to establish 11 branches told me. “Dizzy.”
And then he blacked out. When he woke up, still lying on the mat, the place had emptied out. Someone at the bar was laughing at him, telling him to get up and go home.
A concussion can be deadly, but Derek brushed it off: “He was so fast. He was better than me. So I must be faster.”
Chinese authorities are taking a close look at orphan fighters. In Chengdu, Sichuan province, for example, they are investigating the Enbo MMA Club, which has trained hundreds of boys as young as 8. All of them want to be champions, though the odds are heavily stacked against them. If desperate children are used for profit, that should end.
With some help, there may be hope for a better future.
Contact the writer at randy@chinadaily.com.cn
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throughout the world, further targeting key markets including Europe, North America, Russia and Central Asian countries.
The country’s global emergence in technology is just beginning.