At Qitaihe’s Xinjian Primary School, early short-track classes began without a proper rink. Students froze water in standard aluminium lunch boxes, carried the blocks to school and fitted them across the playground. Teachers then broke the surface overnight and poured river water between the pieces until they formed a continuous sheet. The lunch boxes and a blade fastened to a wooden board are now displayed in the school’s entrance hall. These objects explain a local training tradition through what children and teachers used, rather than through a generic story of sporting determination.
From the journal
From school rinks to specialist training in Qitaihe
Aluminium lunch boxes helped pupils build a school rink; later reports trace specialist schools, weekly lessons and indoor ice in Qitaihe.
In the same city · Qitaihe ↗An ice rink assembled at school
From school lesson to specialist practice
A 2017 China Sports Daily report described seven short-track specialist schools. Each had a subsidized rink and a weekly 80-minute required class during the ice season; school teams trained outside class, while city coaches supported recruitment and advanced instruction. In 2014, Xinjian Primary School moved to a campus with running water and a smoother playground, making rink preparation easier for staff. By 2020, indoor ice at the city sports centre was available to specialist-school teams. The sequence runs from lunchbox-built ice on a schoolyard to a formal city training network.