XINING, Northwest China, Jan.19 (Xinhua) -- Eight-year-old Li Jiarong never expected that one day she would be able to learn tennis on her own doorstep. What surprised her even more was that her coach was from outside of China.
"Rachel, you didn't follow through. Give me 10 push-ups," said Joshua Robinson. It would be difficult to guess that Robinson is a foreigner if you only listen to him speaking Mandarin.
Every afternoon after school, at the local tennis court in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County, located in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, many children like Li Jiarong are exposed to tennis under the leadership of coach Robinson. Huzhu is the only autonomous county of the Tu ethnic group in China.
"The coach is usually strict, but also humorous. I prefer tennis to piano," Li Jiarong said. After nearly an hour and a half of training, Li's cheeks were red and her forehead beaded with sweat. Robinson repeatedly stresses the essentials of each movement, and the children do their best to keep up.
Robinson, 37, from Wisconsin of the United States, graduated from the University of Milwaukee with a major in Chinese in 2013. He began playing tennis at the age of 12 and was also keen on baseball, American football, swimming and other sports since an early age. Influenced by his mother, Robinson had always wanted to visit China. In 2009, he came to China, studied Chinese and worked as a private teacher in Beijing.
"In the autumn of 2013, I came to Qinghai for the first time. I was deeply impressed by the blue sky, white clouds and snowy mountains. I was even more surprised to find the same clay court as the French open in such a remote county," Robinson said. After that, he returned to Beijing to work as a personal tennis coach. The job was easy and lucrative, but he always wanted to do more.
"I want to teach more kids to play tennis, but there is no shortage of good coaches in big cities," he said.
In 2017, Robinson decided to start his new career in Qinghai. "The children here are still unfamiliar with tennis, even many of them have not come into contact with it. I went to a couple schools and only recruited two children." Robinson said that although he was a little depressed, he devoted himself to teaching both tennis and English.
In the spring of 2018, Robinson had nearly 20 students, but most of them were there to learn English.
"Teaching both English and tennis can attract more parents and children, but I just want to teach tennis well. Later, I decided not to teach English, and many children gave up," he said.
With students of varying levels of skills, Joshua has set up beginner and advanced classes, with the oldest student being 13 years old and the youngest being only 4 years old. In order to broaden the children's worldviews, he often takes the children to Xi'an, Lanzhou, Chengdu and other cities to play amateur competitions on weekends.
Every summer and winter vacation, Robinson holds intensive camps. Many children from Chongqing, Beijing, Hunan, Guangdong and other cities come to play tennis with the local children.
"With the improvement of education policies, more and more Chinese parents are now aware of the importance of sports, which can help their children go to a better school and make their future more possible. Instead of being poor in math, culture, and English, then the kids learn sports," Robinson said.
Today, Robinson's team includes coaches from Tu, Tibetan and other ethnic minorities, which he thinks is interesting due to their different cultural backgrounds.
"Now, many of them still farm. During the busy farming season, several coaches will go home to dig potatoes and help their families with farm work," Robinson said, adding that he hopes to train more local coaches in the future so that tennis can be promoted in Qinghai and even more remote areas.
Robinson said that in recent years, Qinghai has held international sports events, and more and more people have learned of Qinghai through sports. There are more and more fitness venues in Huzhu County and the enthusiasm of the local people for sports is also increasing.
"Learning tennis can not only enhance children's physique and agility, but also enable children to face difficulties and deal with pressure from school. I hope some of them will open new opportunities because of the hard work they put into tennis," he concluded, as he returned to his training schedule.
