Being Bingbing, Belgium style

WUHAN (CHN) - A spell of drizzle begins as two Belgian athletes saunter into the 7th CISM Military World Summer Games (CWG) Official Merchanise Store at the Athletes Village. It’s half past two, and not many people are milling about the store. Those ambling through the passageways of the shop are breaking their stride roughly every second step, thanks to the hundreds thousands of Bingbings lying around.

The mascot of the ongoing 7th CISM CWG, Bingbing, whose name means ‘soldier’ in Chinese, comes in various sizes and attires. Some of the Bingbings on sale at the merchandise outlet are in the traditional Chinese red jacket or the military uniform, while others are either sporting the swimming goggles or holding a football, basketball, table tennis paddle, or the Wuhan 2019 Torch aloft.

A staff in the store points to the three Bingbings that, according to her, are the most sought after items among all Bingbing products. “Here is a Bingbing cosplaying the dragon,” she says, “and the other two cosplaying the pink pig and the astronaut. So far, we have sold most Bingbings of this variety. It’s a huge hit among our customers here at the Athletes Village.”

The Bingbing that draws the Belgian pair's attention, though, is in its standard Wuhan 2019 mascot attire: a white T-shirt with a V-neck lined with red stripes that converge into a medal-size red star. The biggest one of them all at the store, this life-size Bingbing had been sitting idly on a bench a few metres down the entrance of the store, with its head kept aside on the adjacent table, until the two Belgians walked in.

Corporal Bart Borghs, part of the Belgian Army’s track-and-field contingent, paces up to the bench, picks the head of the mascot up, and tries it on. After getting a feel of it, Borghs and his compatriot painstakingly start pulling out the pieces of paper that had been stuffed into the body suit of the mascot to keep it from wilting.

The drizzle outside, meanwhile, turns into a downpour. Two Chinese fencers who had posed with same Bingbing body suit a few minutes earlier for selfies, return to take shelter. A four-member group of taekwondo players from Saudi Arabia, too, makes their way in. Soon, the athletes, along with a number of venue staff and volunteers, gather around Borghs, as the Belgian takes centrestage with what he calls, “the impromptu Bingbing-becoming drill.”

“Bingbing is cute, and he seems to be a happy creature,” says Alsamih Fahad Samin N, a Saudi taekwondo player who is participating in his second straight CISM CWG, while watching Borghs become Bingbing. “Initially I was not sure if it’s a dragon or a shark, but he brings a feel-good feel to the CISM Games. And that’s why he is so popular among us athletes, I think. But I am yet to figure if he indeed is a dragon or a shark.”

Bingbing, in fact, is modelled after the Chinese sturgeon, an old species of fish that is known to have migrated to the Yangtze River Basin and lives in the shallow sea outside the estuary of the river. According to milsport.one, Bingbing represents “Wuhan’s hospitality and [is] easily accepted and loved by people around the world. Its sunny and confident smile together with the modelling of open arms and moving forward symbolizes that China is willing to share friendship and promote peace with friends from all over the world in a more open, inclusive and hospitable approach.”

In venue supervisor Zhan Qing’s view, the demand for Bingbing merchandise, from stuffed toys to key chains, Bingbing pins and brooches to fridge magnets and double-sided embroidery screen, aptly summaries the connection the Games’ most popular visual component has been able to establish with their foremost stakeholders.

“We sell nearly 2,000 products every day at the Wuhan 2019 merchandise store, out of which nearly 1,100-1,200 are products which have Bingbing on them are a miniature of Bingbing itself,” says Qing. ”And if you see the range of products our patrons are buying here, it will perhaps show that we are being able to the needs of athletes from so many diverse countries. Our guests -- most of them athletes -- at the Village are buying stickers worth of 10 Chinese Yuan and the hand puppets for less than a 100 Yuan, along with T-shirts and the most expensive item available for purchase - the commemorative coins made from pure gold and silver, with various sports pictographs engraved on them. They come for 5,800 Yuan, and we’ve sold around five of them so far.”

Twenty-one-year-old Wu Han, part of the on-site team staff of the Wuhan Intangible Cultural Heritage that is affiliated to the Wuhan Tourism Development Investment Co. Ltd, says one of the most popular Bingbing products have already been sold out, and despite requests from customers to make another batch available for purchase, there would be none.

“Because these medal plates were meant to be limited edition,” says Han. “All our items are manufactured at a factory in the Jiang'an District of Wuhan, and then stacked up in the Warehouse the Athletes Village. We had only seven of those plates, each costing 998 Yuan. Each plate had coin-size medals arranged on them in four rows of seven each, with the Yellow Crane Tower on the left, a flying crane in the top right corner, and other depictions of the Yangtze River Bridge and the Yangtze River. Bingbing’s presence on those miniature medals made them all the more coveted.”

As for the Belgian pair's time at the store, Corporal Borghs takes the lead, being what he describes as “the in-house Belgian Bingbing”. He prances about the merchandise store striking amusing postures near the signature wall in the far end of the shop, obliging excited onlookers, including several volunteers, Athletes Village staff, and his Belgian team-mate, by posing with them for photographs.

“The suit is meant to be used that way, isn’t it?,” quips Corporal Borghs, who is due to compete in the marathon on October 27, the final day of the 7th CISM CWG, having participated in triathlon at the Mungyeong 2015 CWG. “The suit was just lying around, and I felt, ‘Well, someone should be in that suit, and I think I could be that someone.'”

And how did it feel like being Bingbing?

“Look, this is going to be my first marathon at the CISM Games, and Bingbing is the mascot of our Games, the biggest event for military sportspeople. Us Belgians have been here for about two and a half weeks now, so it’s good to be in someone else’s skin for a change to shake off the pre-race jitters (laughs). I think the suit weighs about 8-10kgs, and it was a bit warm in there, but now that I have been Bingbing, I feel stronger than before. I am ready to race. It made me feel so popular!”

In a perfect example of the CISM spreading, as its motto reads, “Friendship through sport”, Borghs might have found a friend for life in Wuhan… only if he willing to haul back to Belgium some 10 additional kilograms of luggage.

Or perhaps, he could take the easier -- and lighter route: just be Bingbing himself!

(Source: CISM Media and Communication Department – Journalist and pictures: Ms. Annesha Gosh)