China rising
Watch out, world. While China may be about to harness fully its economic and military might, more impressive, I think, will be its take-over of international sports.
While running, I hate dogs, without discrimination. A dog of any race, breed or national origin, I hate. And I especially hate Chinese dogs because the scruffy beasts that roam the streets must surely be rabid. And my exposed calves, to a rabid beast, scream “appetizer.” And so, on my first run today on the insane street in front of the campus, I had to turn around and head back soon after I started. The dumptrucks bearing down on me, horns blaring, no sweat. The kamikaze mini-bikers approaching from behind, nearly up my arse, horns blaring, I’ll deal. But the squadron of scruffy beasts, used to feeding on garbage and about to be dinner for a kamikaze mini-biker and his family, sent me back to the campus “playground,” to run endless circles around its 400-meter black dirt oval.
Half of China joined me on the playground. Twelve basketball courts, filled with full squads against full squads, full-court, all-out. Six full-court soccer fields, full squads against full squads, full-court, all-out. Four badminton courts full, with birdies screaming across the sky like runaway missiles. A baker’s dozen sprinters gutted out 100 meter intervals. A racewalker did lap after lap. And, because it’s China, one woman javelin thrower tossed her spear which, amazingly, went completely unnoticed to the thousands of people potentially in its path and, equally amazing, managed to evade them all. Just as the mini-bikers manage to evade the dumptrucks manage to evade the chickens manage to evade the peasant bikers manage to evade the rabid dogs out on the skinny, bumpy roads.
And, also true to China, side games of basketball and soccer went on in every spare patch of land in the surrounding fields. In sports as in farming, not a speck of dirt goes unused.
And, in both cases, not a speck of grass grows. The soccer pitches are 100 percent infield dirt, the kind on baseball diamonds. The track is black dirt. And a tornado of dust swirls above it all, adding an inch of dirt to every participant’s skin and turning the sky coal black. If second-hand dust inhalation is carcinogenic, a billion people will drop dead tomorrow. It’s everywhere here, a sign, truly, of industrious hands, and feet, at work. Constantly.
I cruised 80-second quarters around the track and experienced my baptism as spectacle-boy. In an arena of thousands of young men of the same race, the same relatively short height, the same clothes – tattered old jersey, baggy shorts and Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star low-top sneakers – a 6-4 twiggy white dude dressed in skimpy, teal running shorts and a teal tank-top with “WARREN STREET” emblazoned front and back, that’s a freakin event.
The basketball players didn’t notice much, so engrossed in their games were they, but the soccer players stopped their games, ran home to get their cameras, lassoed me off the track and had their Kodak moment with WARREN STREET. The runners did a few laps with me, but no English speakers among them and no Mandarin in me, yet. The javelin thrower had no love for anything, or anyone, but her spear.
All of this was more fun than should be legal. One of the beautiful things about running gazillions of miles around neighborhoods is that I get to watch upstart youngsters play the sports – soccer, football, basketball, baseball – that I played as an upstart youngster, before reality hit: it’s running or no sports for you, awkward boy. Through them I retrace my youthful obsessions with draining jumpers, working on my vertical leap, polishing the fundamentals and growing, day by day, in confidence.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that scene very often as I run the roads of America. The suburban softification has led to top-dollar equipment – glass backboards, full courts – and threadbare skills. Namely, pretending to be a suburban Shaq on a 7-foot hoop. And the three-point line has spawned a generation of kids who do nothing but play basketball but shoot nothing but three-pointers. The eight-footer off the glass has no hold on kids’ imagination, it seems. Instead, get out the catapult and launch away from 23 feet.
On 12 courts in Zhuzhou City, China, with a tornado of black dust overhead, on filthy courts with splintered wooden backboards and rusty rims and no nets, I saw magic. In-the-jock D, brick wall picks, hard cuts to the hole, ferocious drives, equally ferocious blocks and no blood no foul. Hardly a three-pointer was hurled. Every shot was contested. Boxing out happened each play. And the teamwork was Lakers-Celtics, vintage 1985. Wow.
And the same was true on the soccer pitches. Every play left someone on the ground. No ball rolled out of bounds peacefully. Brilliant bending crosses were met by a slew of skyward heads, and a goalie sprawled to make the save. Every play aggressive, action nonstop. Wow.
By running gazillions of miles, I get to witness the future of sports, and it looks much more Chinese than American, at least through my eyes. I came to China to be inspired, and am finding inspiration in places I never thought of before I came. If this is a year I get to spend reliving my life as an upstart youth eager to make my name in a glamour sport, I will become a more gritty Warren Street. The Chinese have much to teach us about active engagement in athletics, far away from rabid dogs and with a tornado of dust above.
