Fairplay in China

After having left Guangzhou in the early 90’s, I moved on to Hangzhou for a further year of study.    Hangzhou was a paradise.   (I’ll talk more to this on another day) 

While in Hangzhou I experienced something that greatly influenced my view of the Chinese.  It was a great teaching moment, and something I could never have learned if I was still stuck in America trying to learn Mandarin.   The below is yet another reason why one needs to go overseas to his target country.  It’s only overseas when the real learning begins.   What one learns in class is only 20% of what one learns overall.  There is so much more learning that takes place after class.

We had a motley group of Germans, Australians, Japanese a Canadian, and a few Americans.  A much larger group of students than we had in Guangzhou.  It was a great time.

Us male students would get together and form a soccer team.  We’d play against the University soccer team.  We played them twice.  Once in an ad hoc matter and lost, and again in a rematch(and won!).  

Maybe another post.

We Americans, incl teachers had about 7 or 8 of us.  We’d play on the basketball courts with everyone else.  We tried to mix things up with the Chinese, that is have teams of both American and Chinese play against ea other, but the Chinese alas, just wouldn’t have that.   So we’d play basically USA vs China, and we’d stomp them.   I forget if we played their University team or not, but we always won.  We usually played before dinner, after class.   It was just something to do.

Our best player was abt 6’2, and pretty good.  He was blonde, and I think from Montana.  He was a teacher.  We envied him because he had his own private room, away from prying eyes.  Had his own bathroom as well.  We students of course all had a roommate and hot water was rationed one hour a day for showers.   Our bathrooms, unlike in Guangzhou, were communal.  

Our Teacher comrade of course had a hot girlfriend from the States’ and we really envied him when she came over.   The rest of were just ordinary joes…not really good players, but as we were American, were pretty comfortable with the game.   The popularity of basketball in China has spread immensely since the time of Yao Ming, and their players are much better than they were then.  And they weren’t bad than either!   I recall though we did have one guy whose mom was Chinese, but dad was an American professor.  That is, poor kid didn’t have an athletic bone in his body. 

Well, the Chinese for some reason, despite their pounding, challenged us to a match, and this time, they said they’d have a timeclock.  

Oh?  A timeclock?  On an outside court?

They also said they’d have referees….

Well….things are getting a bit serious.

We simply shrugged and said ok, we’d be there.

Nothing to worry about, we’d never lost, and at that very competitive stage of my life, sure as hell didn’t plan on losing either.

Well, the day of the game, we show up and wouldn’t you know….there’s not only a timeclock, and a referee, but the courtside bleachers were full of people!   Previously we’d beat these guys with no one really watching or paying attention.

This time there were people surrounding the court, to watch this match.

We just took it in.  It was quite the spectacle, and we felt like Stars.  Just a couple of Americans playing ball after school….and now this!

Except there was a problem.

Our best player wouldn’t be able to make it.

He had a class to teach the time of the game.

We were bummed out of course, but didn’t think it a big deal.

But than we did a head count, and realized we’d lost a few more players, and suddenly we’re down to just 5 players.   For a complete game.  With no substitutions. 

To make matters worse, I had managed to break my glasses.   My vision today is 20-400, and I suppose it was probably something close to that back in 1992.    So now we have what is basically 4 players and one blind fellow against the University Team. 

Taken aback by the crowds, the noise, and our sudden feeling of vulnerability, I finally saw the look of worry spread across our faces.  We knew we were going to be in for a fight this time.  

The match began and all I found I could do was play defense.  I played rather well on the defensive side throughout the match, but couldn’t see the damn basket, plain and simple.  We played man to man and the Chinese guy I was up against obviously wasn’t used to an aggressive style of play.  He kept telling me in Chinese I was rude!   I didn’t care.  It was just good play and I was never called for a foul.  Feeling the desperation we were in, we truly played with our back against the wall. 

For one, we just couldn’t stop and rest.  This was a real game, with a whistle.  In no time, us 5 guys were well winded.  It was all we could do just to stop from collapsing.   It was at moments like these the Chinese coach would substitute.   I felt it was bad sportsmanship on their part to freely substitute as they did.  They knew we had players missing. 

Still, the game went back and forth.  It was here I learned the Chinese phrase jiayou or “GO TEAM!”

I wouldn’t say the crowds were hysterical, but they cheered loudly whenever their team made a basket.  We had no one cheering for us, and that took it’s toll.   It was just rotten luck on the day we played their University Team that our best player was out, and I was playing with only 2 eyes instead of 4. 

In the end we lost….by one point.

One measly point.

At the final whistle, what happened amazed me.   When the clock hit zero the Chinese students in the bleachers rushed the court and let out a tremendous roar….

Us laowai….aged 19-23 were too tired to even lift our heads.  I remember we were pissed.  After gathering enough oxygen we just slumped back to our dorms by ourselves. 

To this day, I’m upset the other side freely substituted like they did to take advantage of our fatigue.   And then rushed the court as if they’d won the Gold Medal.   The players knew they hadn’t beaten our best team, but everyone was happy, and thrilled all the same.

In later years when I eventually reflected back on my time in Hangzhou,  I’d think of that moment.  I realized the inferiority complex within the Chinese was so great, that just to beat a Western team in basketball, regardless of the way they won, was all that mattered. 

Did I feel they were bad sports?  Yeah, I did.

Did I feel they cheated?  I’ll leave that up to the reader.   Some of you without a doubt will just call me yet another American poor sport, and gloat at my perceived self pity.    

Now, I have quite the international readership, with readers from Latvia, Japan, Chile, and last week even from Nepal….so I want to stop here and mention I know what a few of you are probably thinking:

(“You American’s are just poor sports, and full of excuses.  The better team won, and just face up to it.” I know I’ll eventually get that remark from somebody……)

From a Western pt of view, their victory wasn’t anything to be impressed with.  They beat a shorthanded team, which had no ability to substitute.    They had a lopsided advantage from the first second of the contest.   And won by one point.   Then to rush the court like they did was really quite the surprise.   Their victory lacked total context.  

And they didn’t care. 

There is no “sense of fairplay” in Chinese society vis a vis the West.   

Rather, maybe this is just a Western concept?

Chinese society is so rife with “relationships”, and the need to curry favor, that one must take every advantage one can get just to get ahead.  Everyone is on the hustle, because that is what society has deteriorated into.    This is what happens when members of a society perceive it is not getting it’s full share of the spoils, or that someone is using devious methods to expand his share of the pie.

Getting caught simply means you weren’t smart enough, rather than an admission you did something wrong.

An iphone in your underwear on GaoKao day?  Justified, if it means a higher score.  (Don’t get  caught!)

A fake military license plate?  No problem if it means I can get away without paying tolls.

Getting ahead in life has never been black and white.  In any country.   But in China success is “grayer” than in most other places.

I’m confident parents don’t say to their kids in China as much as they used to,  “study hard and good things will happen”, or “work hard and you will be successful”.     

It’s ironic that in a nation that still cherishes the glory of the “EXAM”, one’s social skills are more important than ever before.     

I constantly have to remind my wife when’s she’s berating our 10 year old over her homework the goal is not to be the smartest one in the company, but to be the one that manages the smartest one in the company.  

So while the other kids are all taking PRE SAT MATH in Chinese school this weekend,  I’ll be planning on my daughter taking golf lessons.