Sometimes we hit with one part of the foot, sometimes with another,
according to the rules of the game. This, like kite-flying,
is a great amusement among men and boys.
We have nothing corresponding to tennis and other Western ball games,
nor, indeed, any game in which the opposite sexes join.
Archery was a health-giving exercise of which modern ideas of war robbed us.
The same baneful influence has caused the old-fashioned
healthful gymnastic exercises with heavy weights to be discarded.
I have seen young men on board ocean-going steamers
throwing heavy bags of sand to one another as a pastime.
This, though excellent practice, hardly equals our ancient athletic feats
with the bow or the heavy weight. Western sports have been introduced
into some mission and other schools in China, but I much doubt
if they will ever be really popular among my people. They are too violent,
and, from the oriental standpoint, lacking in dignity.
Yet, when Chinese residing abroad do take up Western athletic sports
they prove themselves the equals of all competitors, as witness
their success in the Manila Olympiad, and the name the baseball players
from the Hawaiian Islands Chinese University made for themselves
when they visited America. Nevertheless, were the average Chinese
told that many people buy the daily paper in the West
simply to see the result of some game, and that a sporting journalism
flourishes there, i.e., papers devoted entirely to sport,
they would regard the statement as itself a pleasant sport.
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