Visiting the Athletes Village of the First Youth League: Offering nearly a thousand delicacies and intangible cultural heritage experiences, it is highly praised
Author Huang Lingyan Yu Jing
The First National Student (Youth) Games (hereinafter referred to as the Youth League) is about to open. China News Service reporters visited the Youth League Athletes Village in Nanning, Guangxi on the 4th. This comprehensive non-competition venue that integrates multiple service functions is a spiritual home for students and young friends to communicate with each other, learn from each other, and enhance friendship.
The Youth Association Athletes Village is adjacent to the Guangxi Sports Center, the main venue for the event. It covers an area of 338 acres and has a total construction area of approximately 680,000 square meters. It has built 30 athlete apartment buildings, which can meet the accommodation needs of more than 10,000 people at the same time.
Food is the most important thing for the people. The restaurant in the Athletes Village is spacious and bright, and can accommodate 3,850 people dining at the same time. It provides a total of 973 delicacies from eight major cuisines. It adopts the form of auxiliary and buffet. It is open from 6 to 24 hours every day and serves meals continuously for 18 hours, ensuring that the meal cannot be punctual due to competition. Hot meals are always available for sports teams returning to dining. Each dish in the restaurant will be labeled with information such as calories and protein, fat, carbohydrate content.
The open stall area of the restaurant offers traditional Guangxi craft dishes such as lemon duck, showcasing local characteristics. Zhang Ruien, a tennis player from Jinan, Shandong Province, told reporters that he had just arrived at the Athletes Village the night before and went to the restaurant to taste some local rice noodle snacks in Guangxi, which tasted very good.
In addition, a birthday corner is set up in the Athletes Village restaurant. The staff provided birthday cakes, longevity noodles, etc. according to reservations, and sang happy birthday to the athletes to celebrate. According to reports, birthday cakes are usually decorated with fruits and do not add cream. This is because the decoration process requires higher hygienic environment, and it is also due to the healthy diet of athletes.
The Athletes Village of this Youth League also has a leisure and commercial area to meet the diverse leisure and entertainment needs of young athletes. Among them, the intangible cultural heritage experience area attracts many athletes to participate in handicraft projects such as paper-cutting, Yong opera facial makeup painting, “painting with dots of rice”, fabric hydrangea, and sachet weaving during competitions and training breaks.
“This is too difficult!” Several weightlifters are concentrating on experiencing the traditional folk art of Guangxi – “Dian rice to create a painting”, using “grain” raw materials to paste the pattern of the dolphin, the mascot of this Youth League, one by one. They told reporters that they usually train in the afternoon in the athletes’ village, and can do things they are interested in during their free time in the morning. Not only can they learn new knowledge by experiencing intangible cultural heritage projects, but they can also relax and relieve stress.
Zhou Liling, a staff member of the Athletes Village Accommodation Service Center, said that as the opening of the Youth League approaches, the Athletes Village is gradually experiencing a peak occupancy. To this end, the staff checked the material inventory, prepared and supplied food and drinking water; at the same time, they did daily cleaning of the apartment rooms, timely maintenance of various facilities, and tried their best to provide high-quality accommodation environment for the athletes.
The first Youth Conference is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Education, the State Sports General Administration, and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and is hosted by the People’s Government of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The opening ceremony will be held in Nanning on the evening of November 5. (over)