In the acrobatics world of my country, there is a saying that there are "two hometowns of acrobatics in the north and south". The northern hometown is the well-known Wuqiao Village in Wuqiao County, Hebei Province, and the southern hometown is the Dongbeizhuang Village in Yuecun Township, Puyang City, Henan Province, which is "hidden in the boudoir and unknown to the world". Both villages were named "Hometown of Chinese Acrobatics" by the Chinese Acrobatics Association. In order to get to know the "true face" of the southern hometown of acrobatics, we visited Dongbeizhuang Village in early September. The local comrades who accompanied us told us that there are more than 2,700 people in Dongbeizhuang Village, of which more than 410 people are engaged in acrobatics performances all year round. There are also some villagers who farm at home during the busy farming season and perform in other places during the slack farming season. Everyone in the village, young and old, loves acrobatics, learns acrobatics, and practices acrobatics, and everyone can show off some skills. After driving for more than an hour, we arrived at Dongbeizhuang Village, which is surrounded by clear streams, flat fields, connected paths, and shaded by green trees. On a field at the entrance of the village, there stood a tall gymnastics pole; in some farmers' courtyards, there were large vats, stone rollers, and old carriage wheels for practicing qigong. In the fields, several young men used their shoulders and heads to lift hoe and shovel handles and played with poles; several girls broke off some corn cobs and threw them to play juggling; on a piece of sand, a group of five or six-year-old children were doing somersaults, some were standing upside down, and some were playing "na ding" on chairs and stools. On a construction site, two farmers did not move bricks, but instead threw and caught them, with bricks flying in the air. In the village committee office, when acrobatics were mentioned, all the village cadres were beaming with joy. The village accountant Liu Cunyi felt that talking about it was not enough, so he walked into the yard, jumped up and grabbed the small hanging on the pole and played with it for a few times. The 73-year-old female artist Qiao Yulian, who was watching from the side, also became interested and asked someone to lay a mat and bring a large vat weighing more than 80 kilograms. She lay on the mat, not only did she use her feet to make the vat turn like a revolving lantern, but she also made two people stand on the vat, which made us stunned. In Dongbeizhuang Village, acrobatics have been integrated into people's lives, production, fitness and entertainment. The villagers have a jingle: "The hoe is used as a prop, the fields are the venue, the yard and the house are used for games, men, women and children practice skills, welcoming and sending off are used as etiquette, and acrobatics are used to travel around the country." Dongbeizhuang is worthy of being the hometown of acrobatics. The acrobatics in Dongbeizhuang Village have a long history and emerged in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. At that time, this place was located in the old course of the Yellow River, with flying sand and salt, frequent disasters, and war and chaos, making the lives of farmers miserable. In order to make a living, many villagers learned tricks such as "walking", "flying" and "two ancient eyes" from the street performers, carrying loads and pushing carts, and performing solo in villages and towns for a living. In the process of "playing tricks", the people of Dongbeizhuang Village constantly explored, innovated, learned and absorbed the strengths of other artists, enriched the content of "tricks" and gradually formed their own acrobatic art. By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the acrobatics here had entered its heyday. During the Qianlong period, the village had formed 13 acrobatic classes to perform in other places. The artists performed beautiful and thrilling acrobatic programs such as handstands, belly balancing, plate spinning, and high poles, which were amazing. They are still traditional acrobatic programs that people like to watch. At that time, the most famous was the Liu family class, and the class owner was Liu Er. Liu Er had a unique skill, which was to throw a flower spear straight up and down several feet high. When it fell, the iron spear head passed through the eyebrows and went straight to the ground along the bridge of the nose. Except for him, almost no one could perform this program, which was called "Liu Er Flower Spear". At the end of the Qing Dynasty, 80% of the villagers in Dongbeizhuang Village were engaged in acrobatics, and three acrobatic families, Qiao, Liu, and Li, emerged. It was Qiao Qiqing, the third-generation descendant of the Qiao Family, who really made the acrobatics of Dongbei Village known throughout the country and the world. Qiao Qiqing was smart, capable, skilled, and kind. He absorbed the essence of acrobatics from Dongbei Village and Wuqiao Village, integrated martial arts, qigong, gymnastics, equestrianism, magic, and animal training, and created many novel programs such as large and small martial arts, double wind piercing ears, sea chopping, thousand-jin strongman, and juggling. He updated and enriched the content of acrobatics, designed new costumes for actors, and established a new Qiao Family professional acrobatics class mainly composed of children from Dongbei Village. Since then, the acrobatics of the Qiao Family and Dongbei Village have become increasingly popular in northern my country. Not only did they often go to Beijing to perform in the palace, but they were also assigned by the Qing government many times to cooperate with diplomatic activities. They have performed in more than 20 countries including Korea, Japan, Russia, the Philippines, and India. Abroad, they not only performed exquisite acrobatics and were warmly welcomed by the audience, but also dared to fight against the forces of one and safeguarded the dignity of the country. During a performance in Japan, some Japanese made unreasonable troubles with their props and programs, wantonly belittled the actors' personalities, and insulted the Chinese. Qiao Qiqing was furious and immediately sued these Japanese to the government. In court, he was upright, made an impassioned speech, and argued with reason, forcing those unreasonable Japanese to admit their mistakes and apologize. This move caused a sensation in the Qing Dynasty. After the acrobatic troupe returned to China, the Qing government held a grand welcome ceremony for them and praised them as an acrobatic group with "courage and backbone". From then on, people called acrobatic art "backbone art". Empress Dowager Cixi also specially gave Qiao Qiqing two "Longevity Dragon Lanterns" and a porcelain pot, which became a good story in the acrobatic world. After the founding of New China, especially after the reform and opening up, generations of acrobatic artists in Dongbeizhuang Village began to go out of their homes and tour all over the country and abroad. The Qiao Family Troupe in Dongbeizhuang was reorganized into the Puyang County and Puyang City Acrobatic Troupes, and the Li Family Troupe was reorganized into the Anyang Acrobatic Troupe. Acrobatic troupes in Sichuan, Chongqing, Shanxi, Gansu, Tibet, Xi'an and other places were also initially formed with artists from Dongbei Village as the team. The cadres in the village calculated that after liberation, the village has sent more than 400 acrobatic talents to 27 provinces, cities, autonomous regions and troops across the country, of which 37 served as troupe leaders, and even more served as chief coaches and directors. In recent years, acrobatic elites such as Qiao Zhongyuan, the sixth-generation successor of the Qiao Family Troupe, have also served as acrobatic coaches in the United States, Japan and other countries. According to incomplete statistics, since 1993 alone, actors from Dongbei Village have won 38 awards in international acrobatic competitions, winning glory for the country and honor for their hometown. The national television station of Austria, the "World Art Capital", has sent reporters here twice to interview and made a "Dongbei Village Acrobatics Album", which was widely broadcast in the country and other European countries. The people of Dongbei Village know that society is developing and the times are advancing. Only by keeping pace with the times, combining traditional art with modern art, and constantly bringing forth new ideas, can acrobatics have vitality. In order to inherit, develop and promote acrobatic art, in recent years, with the strong support and help of the Chinese Acrobatic Association, the Henan Acrobatic Association and the superior leaders, the village has established the Dongbei Village Acrobatic Association and the Dongbei Village Acrobatic Artists Association, and built an acrobatic hall, an outdoor performance venue, and an acrobatic art exhibition hall. This year, a formal acrobatic school was established, and currently there are more than 80 students in the school. Acrobats from Dongbei Village who work in other places have not forgotten their "roots" and use various forms to convey new acrobatic information to the village and introduce new acrobatic skills. 29 business backbones who worked in famous acrobatic troupes in other places and were rated as national first-class acrobats voluntarily returned to their hometown after retirement to help develop the acrobatic industry. Some of them served as technical consultants for the village acrobatic groups, and some served as coaches in the acrobatic school. In 2000, the Red Star Circus of Dongbeizhuang Village won nine trophies in the first Folk Art Festival Acrobatic Elite Competition held in Henan Province. Among them, the re-arranged traditional acrobatic programs "Flying Man" and "Stepping on the Big Vat" were amazing and won gold medals. Dongbeizhuang, the hometown of Chinese acrobatics, is a place where acrobatic art is evergreen and the flower of acrobatics will bloom more brightly.