Safety concerns
Hu feels lucky that he was less than one meter away from falling off a slope. If he had been going any faster, he could have fallen about eight meters, which almost certainly would have led to death.
But not everyone is as lucky, including the 10-year-old boy who fell off the slope in Thaiwoo Ski Resort and died. His father later wrote that the ski resort failed to install safety nets along the slope, leading to his son's death.
Whether safety nets should be installed at ski resorts has been a matter of debate in China. "Safety nets are not standard practice at high-end ski resorts abroad. In the US for example, ski resorts are on real mountains, so it is impossible to fence those slopes," said Liu Renhui, an expert of winter sports at Shenyang Sport University.
Wu Bin, head of the Carving Ski Group and a ski lover, also finds it unnecessary to install too many safety nets. "In large ski resorts in Chongli like Wanlong and the Dolomini Mountain Resort, safety nets really spoil the scenery. Trees are natural barriers, and safety nets ruin the sport's affinity for nature," he said.
But the reality in China, where novice skiers and first-timers still make up the majority of people on the slopes, is that safety nets are almost a necessity, as well as other adaptations on slope design. "Intermediate runs in China are usually equivalent to beginner runs abroad," Wei said. Other adaptations include enlarging the area for skiers to slow down.
Safety and rescue services at Chinese ski resorts are also lagging behind their foreign counterparts. Liu said that when he led a group of skiers training in Hintertux, Austria, a skier crashed into an instructor and both were stranded. In less than 20 minutes, however, rescuers in a patrolling helicopter spotted them; they were soon sent to a local hospital.
While patrol and rescue teams are mandatory for Chinese ski resorts, there still lacks a universal standard for their work. In the Thaiwoo accident, where the 10-year-old boy died, his father complained that the rescue team might have inflicted secondary damage on the child as they moved him onto an inflated bed. According to a surveillance video, the child was still alive when he was spotted by the rescue team, but died after he was sent to the ambulance.
Experts say China ought to introduce other methods to track the safety of local skiers. In North America and Europe, more and more ski resorts are using RFID technology to improve client experiences and keep track of their skiers' safety, which makes search and rescue efforts easier.
Neglected instructors
Apart from the lack of safety measures, the ever-growing number of beginners, who lack safety awareness, has also made skiing a more dangerous sport in China than in other countries.
"If you want to drive, you need to study the traffic rules first. But everyone can just go skiing at ski resorts. It's like allowing those who can't drive to suddenly hit the road," Liu said.
However, Chinese ski instructors are often neglected. Ski coaches in China must obtain a qualification issued by the country's Ministry of Human Resources and General Administration of Sport, which allows them to work for ski resorts.
But they do not have to be an expert to pass the test and receive a certificate. All it takes is a few days of lessons. As a result, many coaches are far from capable teachers. It is not uncommon to see a coach do nothing other than push and pull his student, or simply offer a helping hand when a learner loses balance and falls to the ground.
Zhang Yan, the founder of Magic Ski School, once conducted a survey at several ski resorts on the outskirts of Beijing, finding that only 10 percent of local skiers were willing to pay for an instructor. "Most people think it's too expensive and that they won't learn much from those coaches," Zhang told China Newsweek.
Unlike Switzerland and Canada, where ski season sometimes lasts as long as half a year, even in northern Chinese cities, the season is much shorter, usually lasting only three months throughout the winter.
Zhang Litao, general manager of Beijing Fulong Ski Resort, said most ski schools are affiliated with or directly run by ski resorts. When snow season ends in March, instructors simply terminate their contracts and return home, leaving the resorts to recruit new instructors the following year. This results in uncertainties in the quality of Chinese ski coaching.
Authorities are now paying closer attention to instructors' teaching standards and their level of expertise. According to Li Xiaoming, chairman of the Beijing Ski Association, the organization's main work over the past year has been to push forward a training and rating system for ski instructors. New standards will soon be issued.
Some ski resorts have also been attempting to offer stable, year-round work to their instructors. Magic Ski School, for example, is training its instructors to also teach outdoor survival skills and sailing skills so that they can teach something else after the ski season ends. "This will help resorts retain their coaches," Zhang said.
