Gender and sports

[Liebkuchen]

During a meeting/chat with the Director of Studies this am, he was asking my two male friends if they played basketball, football etc. I then asked the Director about the girls and he sort of laughed and said that if the girls did any sports at all, they played badminton and table tennis. I have to admit that I've not seen any girl on the basketball courts. Even jogging around the uni track it tends to be myself, my English pals and male chinese of various ages.

I am awful at badminton. Truly awful. But I love football and wouldn't mind learning to play basketball which is THE sport on campus. What would be the likelihood of getting a go if I hang around the courts on my own? My male friends are reluctant to join in because, being British, we don't know the game. I guess I'm asking about how the male students will react to a female in their domain and a foreign one at that? I'm conscious of the more stereotypical gender roles in chinese society and don't really know where I stand over here as a sport loving although not sporty female.

Sorry for rambling...

[amandagmu]

Generally, the way I'm treated in sport over here is much less as a "female" and much more as simply a "foreigner", except for when I jog alone in Beijing and get those dumb guys (usually old men) who grunt at me ("uh uh uh uh!" which I think is their way of saying "1 2 1 2" but only occasionally *actually* sounds like "yi er yi er"). I get a LOT more stares when I run alone or only with Chinese men than I do when male foreigners jog alongside me... so I'd say you need to expect this and get used to it (I haven't really, so when I jog alone I often bring music and go to Chaoyang park to avoid this situation), or you should consider asking some of your foreign male colleagues to hang out and play too. Otherwise, see how it goes and ask them only if you start to feel uncomfortable with all the attention.

With that said, I think you shouldn't have a problem joining in, even if you suck... just don't join anyone who's acting like hot shots on the court! Personally, I'm terrible at basketball but I used to play anyways at Taida when I lived in Taipei. It's about the same over there in terms of female participation, with the only difference being that perhaps they take basketball (in general) a bit more seriously here on the mainland, and they are much less inhibited by outright staring/gawking at any foreigner, male or female, on the court.

[amandagmu]

By the way, you should check out the mashup league in BJ for social sports... I can't remember the website, but they do put together leagues for things like basketball, although yes it's mostly foreigners, like most of that stuff around here is.

Personally, I found running friends by stumbling on this "Heyrobics" thing last November/December (http://heyrobics.com) and while it isn't for everyone, I do tend to run into people of all backgrounds when I go - people who play football, basketball, rugby, running,cycling, triathlon, etc. Mind be worth showing up at something and chatting around with the other (mostly expats) who show up.

For more Chinese groups you could try douban.com , although I've never found any consistency in the sports groups on there.

[liuzhou]

I find this most odd. Every Chinese university and college I've ever visited, and I've visited many, has had as many female basketball teams as male. In fact, the best player I've ever seen was female.

[amandagmu]

Well, I think Leibkuchen means casual basketball, not people who went to 体育学校 or 业余学校 (or something similar) growing up, but rather people who just casually participate in the sport... there's a big difference in China compared to other places. For example, I mentioned that I jog. I hardly ever seen other women out jogging, but some of the best runners I have ever witnessed in competitions here are clearly women who did some sort of professional training growing up or are still doing that.... but there is no group of people of females like me: female, semi-competitive recreational runners. (Semi-competitive is my way of saying that I try to run my best and train for it on my own in the park!) Almost all women here either don't jog/run at all, a VERY few might run/walk on occasion at the park, and then the hot-shot athletes from a university team or similar, i.e. people who went to sports schools growing up.

[liuzhou]

I am not referring to students who have had any specialised sports eduction or training. Just regular college students. I meet them playing basketball all the time. The girl I referred to as being best was an English Education major who went to a very normal small town middle school. She played purely for " casual recreation" as do most, if not all of the students I meet.. She now teaches in Shanghai and hasn't played for years.

I have met very few people here who jog or run at all - not just women.

[langxia]

I have to say that at Minzu daxue in beijing there are a lot of womn running (jogging) at least as much as men. I haven't payed attention if there were girls playing basketball, but they do definately also play other sports then badminton and pingpong.

A lot of them join the university clubs (which are usually run by students), which you could also do if you are really interested in learning basketball.

[rezaf]

As far as I know girls go for volleyball not basketball.

[liuzhou]

As far as I know girls go for volleyball not basketball.

Not in my experience.

This afternoon, I visited the local teachers' training college. They have no classes on Tuesday afternoon as the teachers have their party meeting. Of the five basketball courts, two were being used exclusively by girls and a third was being used by a mixed group.

I am now back home. My kitchen window overlooks a middle school. Right now I can see several girls playing basketball. No boys.

[anonymoose]

That's odd. From what I've seen, it's practically 100% guys playing basketball. I mean, if I said 99%, it would definitely be an underestimate. By the way, I'm talking here about recreational playing, as opposed to compulsory sports classes at school.

[amandagmu]

This is very interesting... I wonder if we compared notes if there would be similar patterns according to social backgrounds and/or location? I'm talking about most of Beijing, and in particular places like Beida and Chaoyang park, which I realize are frequented most by educated and/or moneyed people.