Sports Recreation
6 min readGood Sports Chinese ruffled feathers by claiming they’d invented golf and soccer（a claim even the FIFA lent credence to）.But most Chinese over the past few millennia were not into physical“sports，”per se，with the exception of martial sports-archery，horsemanship，kung fu.Cultured Chinese engaged in more sedate pastimes such as painting，poetry，calligraphy and tea.Then we violent barbarians showed up with rugby，soccer，hunting，basketball and cricket（sometime before 1878）.
Eric Liddel1，the Scottish 0lympic gold medalist who became a missionary to China，wrote that Chinese scholars insisted on wearing Confucian robes even while playing soccer-and tripped all over each other.In 1917，a young Mao Zedong’s first published article was about exercise；he made some humorous observations about Chinese afraid of losing their dignity by stooping to exercise.
But it wasn’t long before Chinese swapped robes for running shoes and gave the barbarians a run for their money.And in modern sports，as well as in modern education，medicine，music，arts and literature，Xiamen led the nation.
Xiamenese took to soccer soon after the Brits introduced it on the foreigners’Recreation Ground on Gulangyu in 1898.One Chinese enthusiast was John Ma ，a 16-year-old Gulangyu schoolboy who went on to become the“Father of Modern Chinese Sports.”
And ever since John Ma’s day，Xidmenese have been setting world records in many sports.For example，just recently，three Xiamen athletes shared a total of 19 world championships.
And given the popularity of tiger hunting in 01d Amoy，it is not surprising that Xiamenese have set many world records in marksmanship.
This explains，perhaps，why modern Amoy has so many big shots.
Boredom is dead and buried in Xiamen.You can ice skate（2 rinks-California Mall top floor and above Carrefour near Zhongshan Rd.），windsurf，kayak，parasail，roller blade，scale rocks，fly kites，run our marathon，play tennis，badminton，basketba11，and paintball-or golf a Greg Norman-designed course.
Seek something a bit more sedate？Try a stroll in our parks，or along beachfront boardwalks in Xiamen and Haicang，or the scenic Railroad Park.
Too hot to hike？Try brisk walks through air conditioned malls，or the underground plaza beneath the train station&Robinson’s Mall.
After melting the calories，pile them back on with our Chinese or international cuisines，then soothe soul and sole with a Chinese foot massage.
YWCA members invented basketbal1，volleyball，and racquetball，coined the term “bodybuilding，”and“softbal1，”and had the first professional American football players.They also led modern sports in Xiamen，as well as in the rest of China.
kiamen YMCA，one of China’s first，was started in April，1912.Our“Y”set up Amoy’s first sports program，held Xiamen’s first sports meet（Yanwi Ting）on Nov.27，1915，Xiamen’s first swim meet（on a Gulangyu beach in 1913），and kiamen’s first boat races（1934）.
Andrew Morris wrote，“By 1907，staff at the Tianjin YMCA were rallying their Chinese charges with the cry:When will China be able to send a winning athlete to the 0lympic contests？When will China be able to invite all the world to Peking for an International
0lympic contest？Nearly a century later，on the eve of China’s first-ever 0lympic games，this innovative book shows for the first time how sporting culture and ideology played a crucial role in the making of the modern nation-state in Republican China.”
Retirees Activity Center，Bowling Lanes（Laonian Huodong Zhongxin，Baolingqiu）.Don’t let the name fool you！They sometimes even have midnight bowling-black lights and the works.
“According to the dictionary, sport is that which diverts, and makes merry. Many men require many diversions, and what with cricket, lawn tennis, hockey, riding and shooting Amoy does its best to cater for all tastes. The public recreation ground on Kulangsoo forms the arena for games; and whether it be a tennis day graced by the patronage of many fair ladies, or a hockey day devoted to the surplus energies of boys in their teens, and of old boys in their sixties, every afternoon finds a cheerful, social, and sportive gathering on the ground.
“Riding is mostly confined to the Amoy side, where you have six miles of sand, and back again, good going, good training ground, safe, but very monotonous; however, the raw griffins down from the north often demand the whole of their riders’ attention, to the entire exclusion of all thoughts of the surrounding scenery.
“Then, once a year in January, the Chinese drill ground is converted into a Race Course, and three days are devoted to the Amoy Jockey Club meeting. With eight races each day, the prizes to be won are necessarily of small value, but are none the less keenly competed for by the local sportsman. To those who are fond of ponies, the winter months’ training for the races affords an excellent specific for moral, and physical health.A young man who aspired to ride successfully must adopt health habits, and cannot burn the midnight oil if he is due in the saddle at the first dawn of day for a training gallop. Racing and gambling are inseparably connected in people’s minds; fortunately the machinery for gambling in Amoy, is hardly more harmful than that afforded by sixpenny points at whist “The remaining sport is shooting, and in this, if we except tigers, Amoy figuresrather badly. Pheasants, and partridges can be found in the interior, but beyond the range of a two-days’ trip; and a few sportsmen care to forsake their comfortable shooting boats to share a native hovel with native creepers, on the bare chance of indifferent sport. About 4 miles up, the river expands over a larg area of mud flats. Here, with the advent of winter some immense flocks of Wild Fow1, Geese, Duck, Teal &c.. Owing to the want of cover the birds are difficult of approach, and a good bag is only attainable with the help of a duck gun and punt, but cold hands, wet feet, and a bruised shoulder are part of the game, and will never deter the ardent fowler. Every species of duck common to China, is found on the flats, but the mandarin duck is rare. Pelicans, and Swans are occasionalvisitors, their presence indicating a cold winter. But the crowning sport with which the name of Amoy is associated is the pursuit of that king of the jungle, the wily tiger……”
Amoy Cricket! Nov.2012, six cricket teams from Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Xiamen competed in a cricket tournament on the Gulangyu sports ground, where Europeans played cricket back in the 1870s. In March,2013, Amoy’s Typhoons played Hong Kong. Want to join the fun? Read on!
In the early 2lst century an intrepid band of expats set out on a voyage of discovery that would take them from a small city called Xiamen, in S.E. China’s Fujian province, to the fabled island of Gulangyu. Their goal was simple: to seek out the elusive sporting arena that was previously known only to the local Fujianese several Tsingtao beers. The 5 minute voyage was harrowing yet undeterred they disembarked. Wandering aimlessly through narrow cobbled streets for what seemed to be an eternity, they were running dangerously low on supplies (Tsingtao) when suddenly, up ahead in the distance, they saw a shimmering light. It was to be the sporting arena, the Mecca, the Holy Grail, the Lord’s, the ‘G’ which is the Gulangyu Peoples Stadium. Elation filled the air as the stadium’s first game ofcricket was played, then & there it was decided that Xiamen needed its very own cricket club.
