On Sundays and holidays the students go home. Since they live in the city where they were recruited, it is easy to get home by bus or bicycle.

Compensation

In China the pattem is to find a niche, and occupy it comfortably for life. This is not very different from the pattern elsewhere in Asia, where there is little emphasis on "doing your own thing", and career change is almost unheard of.

The acrobats get the same minimum wage that any Chinese worker gets. Until they are married and leave the dorm they receive free room and board. Some move out at marriage, but many marry troupe members and continue to board in apartments for married members. There are special bonuses for costumes and for special food supplements. Most troupes have their own doctors, and the acrobats typify the general excellent health of the Chinese population. The most obvious compensation is the fact that the acrobats are appreciated by the system that supports them.

Skill development

There is plenty of time. Teachers don't need to push. They demonstrate and observe. They are respected for their knowledge and capability. What they say goes. Every step in a complex routine is carefully planned and discussed. The routine is then learned step by step until it is perfect. New moves are added to a routine only after they are perfected. Once a group is together they will be a team forever, so skill development is a long-range project.

Each person initially specializes in one area or piece of apparatus. Everyone, however, learns basic juggling, tumbling and balance during group workouts. A typical troupe may have instructors in balance, aerial work, object manipulation (diabolo, devil stick, etc.), magic, spring board, foot juggling and hand juggling. These instructors generally were with the troupe when it was organized in the early or mid-1950s, are in their 40s or 50s today, and perform rarely. They may have trained and now manage three circuses -- a senior troupe formed in the early '60s, a junior unit formed in the early 70s and a student troupe formed in the mid-70s, with members down through 9 and 10­year-olds.

 

The junior and student units are generally quite skilled. They started younger, and didn't have to deal with the upheavals of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which interrupted the careers of many of the senior troupers.

Different troupes are famous for different skills:  Shanghai for diabolos, Shenyang for devil sticks, Wuhan for spinning plates and Nanking for juggling clubs and balls. However, some juggling can be found in every troupe.

Each troupe makes its own juggling props. However, many of the objects which are manipulated are either common household items or are adaptations of common objects. The only apparatus manufactured on a large scale for domestic use and export is the diabolo. For performance purposes the Chinese manufacture a diabolo which is about twice as large as the export model. It howls like a banshee when spun.

Most impressive to the Chinese were my IJA Newsletters with pictures of Western jugglers. Good Chinese acrobats can play with five or seven rings, ala Ignatov. However, shots of Albert Lucas doing nine rings on ice, with a ball balanced on a mouthstick and a tenth ring on one leg caused quite a stir.