Woman embroiders Olympic pouch
By Yu Nan (chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2006-10-17 10:41 Since the day that China won the bid for the 2008
Olympic Games, a country woman in Zibo, north China's Shandong Province,
began to embroider pouches in celebration of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, the
Xinhua News Agency reports Monday.
By mid-October of this year, she had made 1,880 pouches.
Hou decided to embroider a pouch per day to cheer for China's athletes on
hearing the news that China won the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. But Hou's
husband was concerned about her health, wondering if she could manage to keep up
the pace for seven years. Hou said she could do it as long as she was determined
to do so.
So far, she's done what she said she would. The first pouch was made an hour
after her decision, which was embroidered with the exact time of the special
date, "22.10, July, 13, 2001". Since then, Hou has persevered working an average
of one hour a day.
Hou's pouches memorialize Chinese champions in various previous sports
events. For example, during the 2004 Athens Olympics, she made a pouch,
embroidered with "shooting champion Du Li clinches the first gold medal for
China -August, 13, 2004" and one reading, "weightlifting champion Chen Yanqing
won the eighth gold medal-August, 1st, 2004."
At days without matches during the Athens Olympics, she sewed encouraging
slogans such as "fighting for the Olympics", and "Olympic champions". On July,
14, 2002, Hou designed a special pouch in order to celebrate the anniversary of
the successful bid for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
"I am just hoping that our athletes can achieve more in the upcoming Beijing
Games, even though they may be not aware of what I am doing for the Olympics."
|