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Peng Quhang, 13, has finished his roller-skating journey from Hangzhou, his hometown, to Guangzhou to attend a football school.
IT took two weeks, but a 13-year-old Hangzhou boy completed his 1,500-kilometer journey to his new school in Qingyuan in Guangdong Province on a pair of roller skates.
It’s the longest trip to school Peng Quhang has ever had, but was a “meaningful and happy” trip, says the boy, who arrived at his new middle school, Evergrand Real Madrid Football School, last Wednesday.
The Hangzhou boy, accompanied by his father, fulfilled his dream and is to commence a new life of study and football in a strange city far away from his hometown.
“I thought it would just be a far journey, but after traveling I noticed that it is such a pleasure when a person really pursues his or her own dream,” the junior Peng wrote in his dairy.
The dream, he says, did not start with arduous skating, but from his wish of being involved in a football school.
He decided on it when he was studying as a freshman in Hangzhou Jianlan Middle School.
Rather than following the usual route of going to the best schools to find the best job, Peng would rather take a risk in order to realize his football dream.
His father, Peng Shuiming, agreed. The senior Peng has often been dubbed in stories as “Hangzhou’s Tiger Father,” in comparison to Amy Chua, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”
The father has trained his 13-year-old son to have surprisingly comprehensive interests including roller skating, football, badminton, swimming and table tennis, and to earn more than 100 certificates of merit, trophies and medals for sports, music, art and literature.
Also, the tiger father says, his boy performs well in school.
However, the senior Peng insists that he is not the same as Chua, since “I never force my son to do things he’s unwilling to do.”
The Father and son agree that it was the junior Peng’s idea to go to the football school and to skate all the way there.
“The teenage years are the best period for practicing football, and I don’t want to miss a good opportunity to be trained by coaches from Real Madrid,” the junior Peng says.
Although some discouraged his idea because Chinese football has been through many scandals lately, the boy insists that “there must be someone who develops China’s football despite its bad rap, plus football is attractive to me.”
The elder Peng, who is a freelance writer, says, “I support him because I know he can.”
The son began roller skating when he was only five years old, and from kindergarten he went to school on roller skates. When he was 10 he started to participate in roller-skate marathons, which are 42 kilometers in length.
Their trip to Guangdong started from Hangzhou and passed through Quzhou in Zhejiang Province, and then Shangrao, Yingtan and Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province, and to Shaoguan and then Qingyuan in Guangdong Province.
They picked flat routes and took many shortcuts with the help of a map app on a smartphone.
The father intended to ride a bicycle, but he found it difficult to keep up with his son’s skating speed of 25km per hour, so he drove an SUV, following his son.
In July, the father trained his son for long-distance skating. On August 8, they departed from Hangzhou Stadium.
Given the scorching weather, they spent only four hours on average on skating every day, so they made 100km per day. Even on bad roads, the teen did not fall.
“He prepared for his dream and realized it, which is the meaning of life, and even if he failed, he wouldn’t regret having tried,” the father says, adding he was satisfied with his son.
On August 21, they reached the school and were welcomed by the principal and students.
“I want to tell adults, do not belittle your children because their ability may exceed your expectations,” the boy said as he concluded the journey.
Long-distance skating, cycling and hiking have become fashionable among some youths. During summer vacation, young boys and girls took up the challenge.
Two weeks ago, a 13-year-old boy, Sun Dan, finished a bicycle trip in Hangzhou after he rode along the 1,700-kilometer Grand Canal of China from Beijing with his father.
The Beijing boy, who loves history, rode his bicycle for 20 days along the canal, which was built starting in the 5th century. He says he picked the route also because the roads are almost flat, perfect for a long-distance cycling beginner.
Last month, an 18-year-old young man bicycled more than 2,200 kilometers from Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province, to the Tibet Autonomous Region alone.
And 23-year-old Zhong Jieli, who was accepted by Southwest University as a postgraduate in Chongqing Municipality, took his bike from Harbin in China’s northeast Heilongjiang Province to Chongqing, a trip of 36 days.
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