[Mike Young]

Mike Young on June 2, 2009 at 12:26 am #15819

In the second installment in this blog series I want to briefly discuss the differences in the physical culture between China and America. As might be expected from a country whose people are more aware of life balance and who largely biked or walked everywhere until recently, there is a strong awareness of the need for physical fitness in China. Although China recently overtook the U.S. as the n

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[RussZHC]

RussZHC on June 2, 2009 at 6:06 am #84323

It is an interesting idea to look at a culture through easily available footwear :coolhmm:

[Eric Broadbent]

Eric Broadbent on June 2, 2009 at 7:56 am #84327

That always bothers me about buying track shoes here. Suppose I actually wanted to try on some LJ or HJ shoes before I purchased them…no can do. I’ve had so many times during the course of my years doing track where I’ve had to send shoes back because they dont fit right or are the wrong size. Guess its not that big of a deal but thats awesome how convienent it is to get some track shoes there.

[johnstrang]

johnstrang on June 2, 2009 at 11:26 am #84336

That is interesting. I have a very good friend from China I think she is from the city Chengdu. She was a member of my badminton club at school, but made it seem like she never was given time to do sports. School was all day long and either you were to be academic or athletic and separated from one another. Its a major city in China, but I wonder if things are very different from city to city there.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on June 4, 2009 at 11:44 pm #84447

That always bothers me about buying track shoes here. Suppose I actually wanted to try on some LJ or HJ shoes before I purchased them…no can do. I’ve had so many times during the course of my years doing track where I’ve had to send shoes back because they dont fit right or are the wrong size. Guess its not that big of a deal but thats awesome how convienent it is to get some track shoes there.

I’ve only ever seen specialties shoes sold in a non-outlet setting on one occasion. It was at a mom and pop running store in California and they had javelin, shot put, long jump, and high jump shoes. I have on several occasions seen specialty track shoes lumped in with the golf shoes at Nike and Adidas outlets.

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[Mike Young]

Mike Young on June 4, 2009 at 11:48 pm #84448

That is interesting. I have a very good friend from China I think she is from the city Chengdu. She was a member of my badminton club at school, but made it seem like she never was given time to do sports. School was all day long and either you were to be academic or athletic and separated from one another. Its a major city in China, but I wonder if things are very different from city to city there.

There actually isn’t as much of a conflict as I probably let on. The physical culture in the general population is much more lifestyle oriented…healthier food, lots of walking and biking, tai chi every morning (for the older folks), calisthenic parks all over the city.

Organized sport is MUCH less so and seems to be an all-or-none deal where you are either a student or an athlete but rarely both. In fact, this is so much the case that many parents do not want their children to become athletes because unless they really make it big (i.e. Yao and Liu) they’ll likely have a hard time finding a good job when they retire from sport. I had heard that it is quite normal to have 10-12 hour school days that start at 6am in the morning.

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[RussZHC]

RussZHC on June 5, 2009 at 12:25 am #84455

Student v. athlete makes you wonder what the future holds after having seen a recent news piece that there are more and more unemployed living in the larger cities and that the agrarian part of the Chinese culture is on a steep decline…there are literally billions to feed so…it may not matter if you ARE a good student, if there is no work.

Not wanting children to be athletes unless they are at a very high level becomes a “back handed” way of culling…unless they show promise early on the parents will clamp down meaning that only the “best” will get into the system past teenage age so it shifts the that idea away from the “state” being heavy handed. But it also means, ‘You better produce’ from an earlier age.

[Mike Young]

Mike Young on June 5, 2009 at 9:52 pm #84509

Nice post. I think these are all realities that they are facing.

In the end though if the country can fully develop within the next 15-20 years to the point that more people have the opportunity to do sport (or whatever leisure activity) then I think we’ll see quite a few athletic surprises out of China.

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