18
ILLUSTRATIONS PETER OUMANSKI
•
NOVEMBER 2013
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
DISPATCHES
LIL’ FIGHTERS
China’s most feared
qu qu
combatant dispatches yet another victim
BY CAINNUNNS
SHANGHAI
BARELY FIVE FEET
tall, hobbled
by an old industrial accident and
decked out in an ill-fitting navy blue
Mao jacket, 74-year-old Zhang
Ying doesn’t look like a trainer of
prizefighters. But appearances
can be deceiving. The Shanghai
native has produced hundreds of
champions over a career that has
spanned six decades.
When Zhang ducks into a doorway
on a side street at the edge of
Shanghai’s commercial district, his
presence hushes the crowd inside,
which has gathered to witness a
favorite bloodsport in this region of
China. At the periphery, stewards
collect fistfuls of yuan. Bets at under-
ground matches like these routinely
run into the thousands of dollars.
The smart money is on Zhang’s
fighter, Yellow Dragon, who has won
15 bouts in a row.
It could be the result of the fish
diet Zhang’s been feeding him, or
the brutal workout regimen, but the
champion is much broader than his
opponent. There are whispers that
Zhang’s also got him hopped up on
some kind of herbal tea concoction.
Yellow Dragon, who stands about
an inch high, is one of the stars
(known as
qu qu
) of cricket fighting, a
tradition that was once the domain of
the gilded set but which is now played
out in insect markets, like this one,
across Shanghai. Each fight lasts no
longer than 10 seconds or so, but in
that time the crowd can be whipped
into a fury of screeching and finger-
pointing as combatants execute
supposed kung fu maneuvers.
Zhang’s cricket is released from his
bamboo cage, and the two foes eye
each other warily across the Formica-
topped table. The Dragon, however,
hasn’t built his reputation by playing
coy. Within seconds he is a blur of
hurricane aggression and snapping
limbs. Outmatched and outgunned,
his opponent scurries back to the far
side of the ring. He’s had enough.
“Pathetic,” spits one onlooker
in disgust.
Zhang barely responds to the
victory. He has seen it all, from the
banning of the bourgeois sport
during the Cultural Revolution, to
intermittent police crackdowns on
gambling, to its recent resurgence
and the establishment of pro leagues
across the Middle Kingdom. Few
crickets would be a match for the
Dragon, who, having dispatched
another victim, continues his march
to immortality.
“Don’t count on it,” Zhang sniffs.
“Crickets don’t live very long. He’ll be
dead within a month
.”
