(Photo: CGTN)
For the past three years, fighters from China and Japan have come together for an annual boxing tournament. In March this year, Chinese super-flyweight Zhang Fangyong faced his strongest challenger, Ryuto Maekawa, in Shanghai. Zhang won the bout, adding another title to his impressive list of triumphs which include the first WBA China Youth Bantamweight champion that he won in 2017.
His success in the ring has been hard-won, and yet life continues to be a struggle. From a young age, Zhang was determined to escape his humble beginnings in the mountains of southwest China. Born in a small village a five-to-six-hour drive from central Chongqing, he was brought up by his grandparents after his mother and father left to start a noodle business.
When he was 13, he quit school and joined his parents in the city, where he spent two years making noodles with them. At the age of 15, he took up wrestling. But he had little success, and his coach advised him to try boxing instead. Eventually, he moved to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, where he turned professional. However, he quickly discovered that boxing alone wouldn't earn him enough money to live on.
In order to make ends meet, he found a job delivering takeaway food. It brings in up to 9,000 yuan a month. It's a modest income, yet it exceeds by far what he earns from boxing. He confesses that his combined appearance fees from the ten or so bouts he has fought since 2014 amount to less than 20,000 yuan.
Zhang faces a dilemma: delivering food takes up time he'd prefer to devote to training; yet concentrating on training full-time would deprive him of the financial means to survive. So, he has to find a balance. Describing the situation he finds himself in, he says: "For grassroots athletes like me, I think the biggest challenges don't come from our opponents, but from life."
Over the years, many of his fellow boxers have succumbed to life's challenges and given up the sport. Zhang admits that he is often on the verge of following suit, but the passion for boxing still burns within him. And he still dreams of one day becoming world champion. However, he's 26 this year, and time is running out. The choice he faces is stark: “I'm at a crossroads," he says, "on whether to give up or carry on training."