论文部分内容阅读
HAYDEN Opie, Sam Callaghanand Tom Lanhove are amateurs-amateur sportsmenthat is, who are the kingpinsin three clubs helping to make afterhours life in China fun and healthy. Dugin Beijing, they have re-created for themselves, and everyone else who sharestheir interests, a little bit of "home,"whether that’s Belgium, South Africa orNew Zealand. Sport takes the edge off thestresses of expatriate life. Never mind thefitness and the toning, it also providesthe conditions in which love blooms andfi’iendships are forged. Hayden the hiker,Tom the biker and Sam the rugby playerall strive to make their clubs’ obsessionspopular with the Chinese too. Academicand business success are the real badgesof honor in today’s China; sports-apartfroln Olympic competitions-not somuch, laments Lanhove, but if these enthusiasts have their way, this will change.
China may be known as the kingdomof bicycles but cycling clubs are anothermatter. Tom Lanhove spoke to me on behalf of the Peloton (a French term referring to the main body of a cycling group)-the largest expat road bike cyclinggroup in Beijing. For their purposes,it’s a club that gets cyclists out for grouprides and explorations of the countryside around Beijing. The membership islargely people from Western countriesworking for embassies or companieshere, plus a contingent of Mongolian,Singaporean, Japanese and Chinese enthusiasts. Almost all are adults, and mostare foreigners. The parent in a one-childsociety is understandably reluctant abouttheir child taking up such a sport. A ridenecessarily interferes with regular traffic, and because cycling clubs use publicroads and go at fair speeds, it can be dangerous. It is dicey for expats to organizeriding clubs for Chinese children becauseof the risks involved.
For these reasons, Lanhove stresses,"Civic and official players are needed tomake cycling leagues happen, and thattakes willpower." In Europe or NorthAmerica, your 13-year-old kid can alwaysjoin a cycling club, ride against their agegroup and compete for trophies and jerseys in weekend races against other civicclubs and move into contests for a largergeographic. By the time they are 16 or 18the top talents will be riding in international leagues. In China, there are manylocal amateur social clubs and "racing"clubs and there are so-called "leagues,""but these are not leagues in the proper,economic sense of the word that we havein the West; rather they hold irregularand ad-hoc competitions, usually associated with a cultural festival a few times ayear, " Lanhove explains. In other words,if we are talldng about genuine, competitive and structured sports clubs whereraces are subdivided in age categoriesthat feed into the highest levels, hestresses, "That simply does not exist inChina."
Lanhove has thought through whythis isn’t happening and concludes,"There is a large cultural component to the expat choice to get involved in sports,especially team sports, in China; theremay be so few formalized Chinese sportsclubs because ’leisure time’ is not readilyavailable and involvement in sports maybe considered decadent."
Nevertheless, Lanhove feels if Chinacould produce a cycling giant like LanceArmstrong, funding and public respectfor the sport would surface at the civiclevel. "The National Cycling Associationof China could set up provincial leaguesand a point system so talent can begauged as it develops, and cooperate withcivic authorities to cordon off streets andstop traffic, " he adds. But private individual associations are required to nurture a taste for cycling at the grassrootslevel, and so he admits, "What we havehere is a chicken and egg situation."
In the meantime, three kinds of members are taking every advantage of fitnessprovisions for comers at all fitness levels;rides vary from 5o to 120 kms, and allthe equipment you need is an entry levelmountain bike, or better yet, just a roadbike with multiple gears. A sporting attitude is the other essential.
The chance to get out of your trafficbound vehicle in Beijing is plus enoughyou’d think, but Lanhove says being offroad can become a kind of addiction:"You get to see things, aspects of Chinathat tourists don’t see, ever. Culturalsites are there but hidden from anyoneon a commercial tour." Cycling fever isalso a passion for seeing, hearing andfeeling the crevices of China rather thanits worn paths. Even so, tourist traps remain a big draw, and regular excursionsare made to segments of the Great Wall,Ming Tombs and Pinggu peach orcharddistrict. Two-hour rides along the riverto Beijing airport leave every Saturdayand Sunday from the east end, ChaoyangPark. The Pentalon started out in 2008with 15 die-hards and now has a mailinglist of over 500, Of which Lanhove knows150 by name, bike and helmet. Lanhoveis a professional too: he keeps the clubalive and growing while working for theBelgium Embassy’s political, culturaland economic division. His specialtiesinclude helping Belgium’s sports companies break into the Chinese market.
Hayden Opie mixes business and pleasure in another sense. He wed Sun Huijie,owner-manager of the Beijing Hikers. Thebusiness was started by Sun’s sister SunHuilin, who just started taking her coworkers on hikes for fun in 900l. In 9003when she moved to Australia the businessstayed in the family. Hikers get around:0pie, a New Zealander, met Sun Huijiewhen he built the club’s website, and hewas referred to them through his motherthe hiker, who met her new husband on ahike. Opie has a double business major inadvertising and IT, and he still keeps hishand in that, but says helping his wife runthe business "ticks all the boxes for me."
Unlike cycling, the hiking group has arobust base of Chinese participants, andemergencies amount to sprained ankles and heat exhaustion; guides either havetheir Wilderness First Response basicFirst Aid or CPR certifications. Like cycling, the reasons members love it havemuch to do with the social activitymates of the friendly, romantic and soulful varieties meet each other here. Fourof the six staff of the Beijing Hikers including Opie and Sun, act as trail guides,so business development is a closelyfelt thing. Opie echoes cyclist Lanhove’ssentiment that "rural Beijing is anotherworld", and the hikers work hard at trailhunting in Beijing’s surrounds, mixinghikes with country meals and local cultural events and entertainment. Thenthere’s the call of the wild; their biggest growth area may be hikes that takepeople further afield for camping trips toever more exotic locales, including thedeserts, grasslands and sections of InnerMongolia.
This club reaches out to youth by doing dedicated school hikes, and to corporations with customized event offerings,and it’s easy to see why it might beat agame of badminton or a corporate subsidy for a gym membership.
For up close and personal however,you probably can’t beat contact sports.Consider rugby, it doesn’t need all thatfootball gear. The Beijing Devils rugbyclub has its priorities straight; it wasborn of an age-old expat desire in 1996:"Working people," explains long-timemember Sam Callaghan, "have a difficulttime finding camaraderie." The Devilsare keen on the traditional contact sportand successfully compete around Asia,but they are trying to make it less painfulfor those who want to get involved butavoid injury.
The growing popularity of their"touch" rugby division is gratifying, because while both the "bold" and "lite"versions of the game might take commitmerit, it’s the social life they live for. Andif you like companionship on an international scale, besides its 8o players thisclub has 150 plus social members of 26nationalities. Many players are transient,admits Callaghan, but the home turf isDuIwich College and games have beenheld here for three years.
The one-time player and successfnladvisor to an auto insurance firm enthuses, "Positions and salaries are allforgotten on the field; you are not justwhat you earn; Beijing may one day acquire the snobbishness of one-industrycenters like Shanghai or Hong Kong, butessentially all walks of life are attractedto rugby in the capital." The culturalcomponent is also part of this hobby;the Beijing Devils play every week fromApril to June and then, like their fellowsports fanatics in hiking and cycling,take to the road from September toNovember for their hit of experiencingthe Orient - touring not only China bntother Asian cities as well. Each Devilsmember pays a yearly subscription feeto be part of the club which partly covers the cost of hiring fields to play onand equipment; for their year to yearrunning they lean heavily on corporatesponsors.
There are inherent cultural and gender barriers that the club is meeting headon. The rough and tumble of rugby is nota problem for the fit and fast northernerbut the concept (and dare we say, theexperience) of tackling is simply too foreign for the average Chinese, hence thenew emphasis on touch rugby. Social andplayer memberships are offered to Chinese nationals at half price and competitions with local Chinese rugby clubs andthe China Agricultural University clubhave turned out to be popular; the latteris involved with the Chinese Nationalteam. The Yellow Sea regional championship saw a Beijing Devils’ victory in afight between Beijing, Seoul, Shanghaiand Guangzhou in 2010, so a fan base isnot out of reach. And in case you assumethe game is a guy-thing, the she-devils(their woman’s league) are adding to theclub’s many temptations.
China may be known as the kingdomof bicycles but cycling clubs are anothermatter. Tom Lanhove spoke to me on behalf of the Peloton (a French term referring to the main body of a cycling group)-the largest expat road bike cyclinggroup in Beijing. For their purposes,it’s a club that gets cyclists out for grouprides and explorations of the countryside around Beijing. The membership islargely people from Western countriesworking for embassies or companieshere, plus a contingent of Mongolian,Singaporean, Japanese and Chinese enthusiasts. Almost all are adults, and mostare foreigners. The parent in a one-childsociety is understandably reluctant abouttheir child taking up such a sport. A ridenecessarily interferes with regular traffic, and because cycling clubs use publicroads and go at fair speeds, it can be dangerous. It is dicey for expats to organizeriding clubs for Chinese children becauseof the risks involved.
For these reasons, Lanhove stresses,"Civic and official players are needed tomake cycling leagues happen, and thattakes willpower." In Europe or NorthAmerica, your 13-year-old kid can alwaysjoin a cycling club, ride against their agegroup and compete for trophies and jerseys in weekend races against other civicclubs and move into contests for a largergeographic. By the time they are 16 or 18the top talents will be riding in international leagues. In China, there are manylocal amateur social clubs and "racing"clubs and there are so-called "leagues,""but these are not leagues in the proper,economic sense of the word that we havein the West; rather they hold irregularand ad-hoc competitions, usually associated with a cultural festival a few times ayear, " Lanhove explains. In other words,if we are talldng about genuine, competitive and structured sports clubs whereraces are subdivided in age categoriesthat feed into the highest levels, hestresses, "That simply does not exist inChina."
Lanhove has thought through whythis isn’t happening and concludes,"There is a large cultural component to the expat choice to get involved in sports,especially team sports, in China; theremay be so few formalized Chinese sportsclubs because ’leisure time’ is not readilyavailable and involvement in sports maybe considered decadent."
Nevertheless, Lanhove feels if Chinacould produce a cycling giant like LanceArmstrong, funding and public respectfor the sport would surface at the civiclevel. "The National Cycling Associationof China could set up provincial leaguesand a point system so talent can begauged as it develops, and cooperate withcivic authorities to cordon off streets andstop traffic, " he adds. But private individual associations are required to nurture a taste for cycling at the grassrootslevel, and so he admits, "What we havehere is a chicken and egg situation."
In the meantime, three kinds of members are taking every advantage of fitnessprovisions for comers at all fitness levels;rides vary from 5o to 120 kms, and allthe equipment you need is an entry levelmountain bike, or better yet, just a roadbike with multiple gears. A sporting attitude is the other essential.
The chance to get out of your trafficbound vehicle in Beijing is plus enoughyou’d think, but Lanhove says being offroad can become a kind of addiction:"You get to see things, aspects of Chinathat tourists don’t see, ever. Culturalsites are there but hidden from anyoneon a commercial tour." Cycling fever isalso a passion for seeing, hearing andfeeling the crevices of China rather thanits worn paths. Even so, tourist traps remain a big draw, and regular excursionsare made to segments of the Great Wall,Ming Tombs and Pinggu peach orcharddistrict. Two-hour rides along the riverto Beijing airport leave every Saturdayand Sunday from the east end, ChaoyangPark. The Pentalon started out in 2008with 15 die-hards and now has a mailinglist of over 500, Of which Lanhove knows150 by name, bike and helmet. Lanhoveis a professional too: he keeps the clubalive and growing while working for theBelgium Embassy’s political, culturaland economic division. His specialtiesinclude helping Belgium’s sports companies break into the Chinese market.
Hayden Opie mixes business and pleasure in another sense. He wed Sun Huijie,owner-manager of the Beijing Hikers. Thebusiness was started by Sun’s sister SunHuilin, who just started taking her coworkers on hikes for fun in 900l. In 9003when she moved to Australia the businessstayed in the family. Hikers get around:0pie, a New Zealander, met Sun Huijiewhen he built the club’s website, and hewas referred to them through his motherthe hiker, who met her new husband on ahike. Opie has a double business major inadvertising and IT, and he still keeps hishand in that, but says helping his wife runthe business "ticks all the boxes for me."
Unlike cycling, the hiking group has arobust base of Chinese participants, andemergencies amount to sprained ankles and heat exhaustion; guides either havetheir Wilderness First Response basicFirst Aid or CPR certifications. Like cycling, the reasons members love it havemuch to do with the social activitymates of the friendly, romantic and soulful varieties meet each other here. Fourof the six staff of the Beijing Hikers including Opie and Sun, act as trail guides,so business development is a closelyfelt thing. Opie echoes cyclist Lanhove’ssentiment that "rural Beijing is anotherworld", and the hikers work hard at trailhunting in Beijing’s surrounds, mixinghikes with country meals and local cultural events and entertainment. Thenthere’s the call of the wild; their biggest growth area may be hikes that takepeople further afield for camping trips toever more exotic locales, including thedeserts, grasslands and sections of InnerMongolia.
This club reaches out to youth by doing dedicated school hikes, and to corporations with customized event offerings,and it’s easy to see why it might beat agame of badminton or a corporate subsidy for a gym membership.
For up close and personal however,you probably can’t beat contact sports.Consider rugby, it doesn’t need all thatfootball gear. The Beijing Devils rugbyclub has its priorities straight; it wasborn of an age-old expat desire in 1996:"Working people," explains long-timemember Sam Callaghan, "have a difficulttime finding camaraderie." The Devilsare keen on the traditional contact sportand successfully compete around Asia,but they are trying to make it less painfulfor those who want to get involved butavoid injury.
The growing popularity of their"touch" rugby division is gratifying, because while both the "bold" and "lite"versions of the game might take commitmerit, it’s the social life they live for. Andif you like companionship on an international scale, besides its 8o players thisclub has 150 plus social members of 26nationalities. Many players are transient,admits Callaghan, but the home turf isDuIwich College and games have beenheld here for three years.
The one-time player and successfnladvisor to an auto insurance firm enthuses, "Positions and salaries are allforgotten on the field; you are not justwhat you earn; Beijing may one day acquire the snobbishness of one-industrycenters like Shanghai or Hong Kong, butessentially all walks of life are attractedto rugby in the capital." The culturalcomponent is also part of this hobby;the Beijing Devils play every week fromApril to June and then, like their fellowsports fanatics in hiking and cycling,take to the road from September toNovember for their hit of experiencingthe Orient - touring not only China bntother Asian cities as well. Each Devilsmember pays a yearly subscription feeto be part of the club which partly covers the cost of hiring fields to play onand equipment; for their year to yearrunning they lean heavily on corporatesponsors.
There are inherent cultural and gender barriers that the club is meeting headon. The rough and tumble of rugby is nota problem for the fit and fast northernerbut the concept (and dare we say, theexperience) of tackling is simply too foreign for the average Chinese, hence thenew emphasis on touch rugby. Social andplayer memberships are offered to Chinese nationals at half price and competitions with local Chinese rugby clubs andthe China Agricultural University clubhave turned out to be popular; the latteris involved with the Chinese Nationalteam. The Yellow Sea regional championship saw a Beijing Devils’ victory in afight between Beijing, Seoul, Shanghaiand Guangzhou in 2010, so a fan base isnot out of reach. And in case you assumethe game is a guy-thing, the she-devils(their woman’s league) are adding to theclub’s many temptations.