Greetings From China, Where Sports Are Alive And Well
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Roger Grossman, Lake City Radio-
NI HAO! Greetings from the Grossmans in China, where we are putting the finishing touches on our second adoption. We have just met a little boy named Yong for the first time and soon he will became the fourth member of the Grossman clan. Normally this time of year I take some time away to fish and hang out with the family … and sleep in, because getting up at 4 a.m. six days a week for 50 weeks a year can wear you down. Where we are now is literally a world away from our normal fishing spot in northern Minnesota. We have enjoyed our second visit here and the locals have been very good to us. Standing on top of The Great Wall is awe-inspiring, and I cannot ever take my own American freedom for granted having once again stood in the middle of Tiananmen Square – where 26 summers ago too many Chinese young people died while expressing a hope that they too could have those same freedoms. The first time we were here I stood in the exact middle of the Square, and in my mind, all I could see was a mural of pop-up tents occupied by those college-aged kids. It puts a lump in your throat. And it makes you wish you could take every young person, every flag-burner and everyone who openly shows no appreciation for what they have here and make them stand there in that spot for a few minutes, and explain to them that people died in this spot because they simply wanted a chance to have what our kids get just by being born here. But I digress. Athletics in China has always been important to the culture, but in proper perspective. Until the 1970s, the Chinese were traditionally known for table tennis, gymnastics and volleyball. Now the locals here are quite avid followers of sports around the world. They enjoy futbol (what we call soccer) a lot, and Chinese ‘sides’ have really improved over the last 20 years or so. Their women’s national team (called Guózú), was World Cup runner-up in 1999. Major League Baseball is followed here, and Yao Ming turned a billion people on to the game of basketball. It seems cliché, but many Chinese do take part in some sort of morning group exercise routine. We hear from our guides that once they commit to a group they rarely miss, in part because they want to enjoy the group setting and because they believe strongly that it makes them feel better and work better later into their day. The saying is “an hour in the morning is worth two in the evening.” It’s also a country where the bicycle is a major form of transportation, and if you have ever been on a charter touring bus in Beijing on a weekday you’d understand why. Traffic in the major cities here makes Los Angeles look like a joy ride. I will never complain about Parker Street in Warsaw at 5 p.m. on a Friday anymore, that’s for sure. They like to play games here a lot. Walk through any park in any Chinese city and you will see checkers and chess tables everywhere and people of all ages testing their skill and strategy. They also have an activity that is very comparable to our hacky sack (remember the little bean bag that young kids used to kick around?). They get in groups of six to 10 people and kick around what looks like a badminton birdie with strips of thin cardboard at the point and feathers glued to them. In 2010, I got invited to participate in one of these groups and it was a lot of fun. There are no winners or losers, just people of all shapes, sizes and ages having fun. Oh, and I learned the hard way that you don’t use your head to keep the volley going. I did that and they almost fell on the ground laughing at me. I played along with the act, bowed my head in fain embarrassment and they let me re-start the action. People hear are walkers. They walk everywhere they can (see the above paragraph on traffic). They walk for exercise and they walk to go places. They factor that time into their day because they know it will take them longer to get from one place to the other by walking. That’s one thing I appreciate about our hosts, the Chinese – they have a margin-for-error in their days that a lot of us in the U.S. do not. China of June 2015 is a little different than the one we experienced in 2010. Of course, our travels took us to a different city in China then, but even in Beijing we could tell the difference. The college kids who have been coming to Purdue and UCLA have brought back with them Americanisms and modern culture. They got a taste of democracy that was similar to what the kids in The Square had been dreaming of back in May and June of 1989. But young people here are smarter, more confident in themselves, and certainly not afraid to stray away from the traditions and customs of ‘old China’ in favor of forming a new China. I believe there will be a ‘revolution’ here soon. No, nothing like our revolution in 1776. This will be a revolution of the mind for the youth of China. They won’t protest for freedom in an open place, but instead will begin to slowly infiltrate positions of power within the country’s infrastructure and form a new nation that will be modern and moving and based on technology and progress. And those same students who brought back American culture and ideals also packed a healthy love for organized sports in their suitcases to share with their countrymen and women. And sports here are growing because of it.
