Guo Baomu has been doing physical exercise for the last 14 years in the Ritan Park, Beijing, every morning. (Photo by Nanda Lal Tiwari)
Yi, er, san, si… an old man's voice is heard loudly amidst a synchronous clapping every morning at 8 in the Ritan Park, near Beijing's Jiaguomen, where the ancient temple of the sun is located. The old man is in the center of a big group of people, young and old. He is 84, a retired bus driver, and he has been doing this job of physical exercise drill for 14 years, and that's all for free!
For Guo Baomu, the octogenarian, this job has not been so easy. He gets up at 3 am, prepares food for himself and then arrives at the park at 5 am after cycling for half an hour. He also brings gym equipment so that interested people can use it. He teaches new comers about exercise items as well. He also does different physical exercises himself including weightlifting, set up, bending, wheeling and so on.
What motivated you to do this? I asked him the other day.
"After I retired from the job, I started suffering from aches in fingers, back pain and so on. Then I also heard a high-ranking government official talking about the need of making people healthy with physical exercise. And I thought, as our country China is growing stronger, we people also need to stay strong and healthy. For this, the surest way is regular physical exercise. And I started coming here and encouraging people do it in group."
"How many people used to be in your group in the beginning and how many are there now?"
"There were four or five people then, but we are around a thousand people now. I feel happy to see people doing physical exercise in group. It gives a sense of community as well," he said.
He also talked about health benefits of the exercise.
