You’re Wrong About Chinese Sports Students’ ‘Toughness’

You’ve probably seen the stories. The kid who got stabbed eleven times, had his entire blood replaced, and was asking for a cigarette a week later. The giant who got hit by a van, flew into a tree, broke it, stood up, and said, “I’m fine, let the driver go.” The football player who bled from a severed femoral artery for four hours before dying—and people called that a testament to his physique.

These tales from Chinese middle schools circulate online like urban legends. They’re shared with a mix of awe and dark humor. We laugh at the absurdity. We shake our heads at the sheer will to survive. But we’re missing the real story.

We call it toughness. It’s actually luck plus a culture that romanticizes dangerous risk-taking.

Let’s start with the kid who died. He was stabbed in the thigh—one clean hit to the femoral artery. Blood sprayed across the wall. His classmates dragged him to the school clinic, which couldn’t handle it. The ambulance took ages to arrive, with only a driver. He held on for over four hours—from 8:20 p.m. until midnight. That’s extraordinary. His body fought for every minute. And he still died.

Now compare that to the “Taidy”—a charming, compulsive soccer player who fooled around with the wrong girl and got knifed eleven times by her admirers. Eleven stab wounds. His intestines were perforated. In winter, his blood-soaked cotton trousers froze. Doctors said there was no hope. His mother begged on her knees. They replaced every drop of his blood. A week out of the ICU, he was asking for a smoke.

Or the shot-putter—190 cm, 200 pounds in middle school. He could throw a snowball to the fifth floor and once shattered the principal’s glasses. He borrowed a 50cc scooter, got hit by a van, flew through the air, snapped a tree trunk, and then got up, brushed off the dirt, and let the terrified driver go because he was worried about damaging the borrowed scooter.

Here’s the tension we refuse to see: the same “toughness” that allows a body to survive eleven stab wounds is the same body that can die from one.

The romanticized narrative says these kids are built different—superhuman resilience born from physical training and “tough” school culture. But look closer. The surviving stabbing victim had luck on his side: the wounds missed vital organs, the hospital had blood, the doctors tried anyway. The dying victim had none: one artery, slow response, no miracle. The shot-putter walked away because he braced himself—and the collision’s physics happened to be forgiving.

We love these stories because they make youth feel invincible. They turn near-death into a badge of honor. “Eleven knives? Barely scratched me.” “Four hours bleeding? Still a record.” It’s a folklore that hides the randomness of survival behind a mask of strength.

And the culture that created these stories? It’s the same culture that normalizes risk. Why did the soccer player keep hooking up with risky partners? Why did the shot-putter ride a scooter he could barely control? Why did the stabbing victim’s school take forever to call an ambulance? Because toughness is rewarded—until it isn’t.

We celebrate the survivors and forget the dead. That’s the real danger.

Every time you share one of these jaw-dropping survival tales without the caveat of luck, you’re feeding a myth. You’re telling young athletes that bleeding for four hours is a mark of honor, not a sign that emergency response failed. You’re telling them that walking away from a car wreck is willpower, not physics.

I’m not saying we should stop admiring resilience. But we need to stop pretending it’s a superpower. The truth is less heroic and more unsettling: the line between invincibility and death is paper-thin, and it’s mostly random.

So the next time someone tells you about the kid who survived eleven stab wounds, ask them how many didn’t. And then wonder why we’re still telling the first story.