You might think of martial arts movies when you see people performing graceful moves down the river, all standing on a bamboo strip, but actually it is a form of intangible cultural heritage: bamboo drifting.
Over 2,000 years ago, the high—quality wood, nanmu, in Guizhou was in great demand by the royal court more than 2,000 kilometers to the north. With no better transportation, people had to stand on one log to drift down the river. Later, local people began to compete along the way and the game of wood drifting was born. In the QingDynasty, wood drifting became bamboo drifting because of bamboo's lower price. Due to the skills it takes for one to master this act, bamboo drifting was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list this year.
Yang Liu, a 24-year-old inheritor of bamboo drifting, learned it at 7. "Usually, the bamboo under your feet is about 9 meters long, and the bamboo in your hands is about 5 meters. If the length or diameter of the bamboo is not long enough, it will not float. Keeping our feet firmly positioned on the narrow bamboo pole is the key, so we should fight against the current by constantly changing the angle. I lost my balance and fell in the water many times while practicing. Once I fell, I gave it another try until I knew how to handle the most difficult part." she said.
The love for the ancient skill keeps Yang going. In the past 17 years, she has drifted all year round, in winter cold and summer heat. As hanfu culture has been on the rise, Yang started wearing hanfu while performing, creating a more beautiful feel. In 2020, Yang began to post her videos on social media. "I'm extremely proud to get responses from viewers that bamboo drifting makes the line between what is possible and impossible unclear. It's my mission to keep it alive and known to more people," Yang Liu told China Daily.
