subject: China And Basketball Movement [print this page] It was in the year of 1895 that China had formed a tightly bound to the basketball. Throughout the way of about 110 years, basketball activity had had a well blend with Chinese culture. It has played a significant part in the building up of physical condition and in the progress of the sports career. It is a common sense for all of us that America is the place of origin for the basketball. And certainly due to different temper of discrete peoples, the basketball movement in China and that in America will go through a discrete track. The particular milieu in China has prodigious effect on the introduction and progress of basketball activity. The subsequent is the concise narration of its history in China.
According to the modern history, we know that China had been enforced to open the door since the breaking out of the Opium War in 1840. In face of the mighty and advanced western culture, the time-honored Chinese culture had fell apart. In the emergent and wrecked situation, the modern sports had been put into China. In 1895, with the approaching of American preachers, the basketball activity had been brought into China by a certain preacher accordingly. And from then on, basketball activity has gone on its advance with China. If we want to have a division of the 110 years' journey, then there could be five stages.
The first period lasted from 1895 to 1927, which was called the cycle of enlightenment and promotion. Though Tianjin was its first landing place, numerous other areas had as well begun the activity, like the middle of China, the north of China, the east of China and so on. And the basketball movement even had appeared amongst all types of sports in National Sports, which had its emergence for three times. However, in this phase, it was still dominated by the American.
In the second stage China had begun its self advance in the basketball activity. Since the reign of the Kuomintang, China had regained the self-rule in sports. And after the Anti-Japanese War, the basketball activity had experienced a short booming. Shanghai especially was dynamic in the field. At this time, we were independent in sports. And there were large gathering of men of talents.
In the third stage, Chinese sports had come across a half-closed and self-developing period. Political factor was the one that had affected the situation. This stage should be called the golden stage of Chinese basketball movement. Scores of spheres that were connected with the basketball activity had come across their prospering phase as well. The development from all arounds had proved the might of China.
The cycle from 1974 to 1994 was the forth period for Chinese basketball activity. With the function of reform and opening policy, the path of the developing basketball had been broadened. During the period a lot of athletes bore in their minds the wish of revitalizing China via sports. While after the short improvement, the basketball activity has come into an embarrassing phase. The implementation of market economy had triggered the the alteration of basketball movement. In its change to professionalism, the athletes seemed to lose the sense of responsibility and the enterprising spirit. The prospect of Chinese basketball movement was no longer as powerful as that in the 90s. Although a number of big stars like Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian had entered the NBA and were well exploited by a few advertisers like Nike, the most part of Chinese basketball field was overcast. We ought to make a summary and consideration on the development of Chinese basketball movement.
