Chinese veteran skateboarders Che Lin (left) and Han Minjie (right) with owners of the Berrics, a private indoor skatepark, when they first visited the Los Angeles-based facility around a decade ago.[Photo provided to China Daily]

The 'drop in'

Desperate to know more about this exotic new sport, he asked friends who traveled abroad to bring back skateboarding magazines and recorded skateboard-related clips from films, TV programs and even cartoons.

Learning tricks with no professional instruction and the limited materials was tough. Pop the board up into the air, jump, drag the front foot forward to catch the board and then push it down by straightening legs out-by practicing again and again, he finally managed to combine these motions and conquer the "ollie", a basic maneuver that helps to land many other, more complicated, tricks.

"Unlike younger skateboarders who can get access to overwhelming information about the sport on the internet, I had to spare no effort in collecting information and I would wrack my brain to remember tips for carrying out tricky maneuvers," he says. "It was difficult, but joyful."

Han had been learning and practicing on his own until one day, he came across a fellow skater at a street corner who could perform jumps.