Don't Chinese people care about sport?

[woodcutter]

This sports column is a bit sad compared to the others, isn't it?

Is this because Chinese people don't really care about sport?

I thought they were crazy about it these days.......

[galitonwu]

[sunyata]

。 。 。

[Quest]

they do care, but people here come from different countries.

[TSkillet]

I also think it's pretty much between seasons for Chinese sports right now. The basketball and football seasons are over - olympics haven't begun yet. There's just not a lot of sports news.

Unless you count the Chinese National Basketball team beating up three junior squads in hte 4 Nations Cup last week in Beijing, there's just not a whole lot going on.

Well, unless we talk about the recent allegations (Sports Illustrated? Time? I forget, I read too many magazines nowadays) that the publishers of a book detailing history of the modern olympic games refused to change certain critical quotes and passages about Chinese coaches (mainly the long distance woman's running Coach - Coach Ma) from his former runners. So they won't be publishing that book in China anytime soon (at least officially)

[bella_1230]

i am a native chinese.

here in china ,sports is popular too.

now. there is aisa cup .

and there is lots of people like soccer and bascketball.

pingpong ,badminton swimming are the sports liked by lots people for many years.

so you couldn't say that chinese people don't like sports.

maybe this board is not as popular as the others is because this is a web for people to learn chinesebut not to discuss sports stars or sth like that.

we have other better web which is only for people to talk about sports,i think we perfer them.

[keith]

It baffles me that my Chinese friends from China say that they are embarrassed about supporting the Chinese national football team...

I think China is OK. True they are not yet as good as Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Iran but considering China is a newcomer to footbal I think the signs are encouraging. The Chinese fans should be patient - after all Japan were also rubbish from the 1960's thorughtout 1980's, but they came good in the early 1990's.

[pazu]

CHN - IRQ

3 - 0

YEAH! HAHA.

[xuechengfeng]

Is America the only place that calls playing with the pigskin, football?

[woodcutter]

Americans are not the only confused characters. No, upper class people call rugby, which is usually played with the hands 'football'. Australians have another game, mainly played with the hands, which they call 'football'.

Sane people call "soccer", which uses the feet, football. This is one area where American usage shall never triumph!

[chapka]

Sane people call "soccer", which uses the feet, football.

This is a common misconception. In fact, the name "football" has nothing to do with whether you use your hands or not. The game was originally called "football" to distinguish it from the other sports popular at the time, which were played on horseback, like polo. It's not "with the foot" but "on foot" (as in "zou3 lu4 qu4").

All early forms of the game which developed into soccer and American football were played using the hands. In fact, until fairly late in the development of soccer, players could use the hands to bat down the ball before kicking it. Rugby football (aka "rugger"), Association football (aka "soccer"), American "gridiron" football, Gaelic football, Australian rules football, Canadian football, and all the other football games developed from this early game. In some of them, using the hands was eventually outlawed, but in many others it wasn't. It just so happens that the no-hands version became the most popular.

[woodcutter]

Nonetheless, since Polo is not a major world sport, I suggest that "football" is a more sensible name for soccer in the present global environment.

The multitudes of Spanish speakers, not to mention zuqiu lovers, may mean for once the American version of the language will not conquer all.

[TSkillet]

Soccer is not an American word. It's an English word - and by that I mean coined in England. So don't blame us.

Anyways - back to the topic - the tickets for the NBA China Games went on sale in Beijing over the weekend - I heard that 10,000 were supposed to go on sale, but 9,000 of them went comp'ed and under the table to people.