Conclusion

This semester is coming to an end before I realize it. I really enjoy this course (HMSL 6350) which has the most students in my graduate classes. Some former students who took this course told me at the beginning of this semester, “That’s a wonderful class. Enjoy it”! They didn’t lie!

This is my first blog writing in English. I have never thought I could express my opinions to others using this way. Blogging makes me thinking, then writing. Too much information around us, only if you are thinking, that information is valuable for you. I am so glad that my classmates like to read my blogs. At first, I thought no one would read my blogs because of grammar mistakes and different perspectives, but I was wrong. I also enjoyed reading my classmates’ blogs, because all opinions from the people who care about sports rather than the media. I think the opinions from media could not represent the public. Reading other classmates’ blogs gives me a chance to know the real lives of students in U.S.

Reading materials for the class truly expanded my mind and showed different dimensionalities of the sport world. I like reading from different authors and different opinions instead of a textbook. I have watched an inspiring movie named Homeless to Harvard. In the movie, a student asked his history teacher why they studied articles from different authors rather than using a textbook. The teacher told him that history is all people’s stories, while a textbook just is one person’s story. I believe different opinions from different authors for the same issue make an approach to the truth.

All in all, I learned a lot from this course, from Dr. Spencer, from other students. I highly recommend this course to other students!

Transsexual and potential transsexual

The most important thing in transsexual issues is how to maintain the fairness between transsexual athletes and normal athletes. Especially, when male athlete transfers into female athlete, because the androgen still maintains at a high level at the beginning of transsexualism, the sport ability will not change. Therefore, a standard of androgen is needed to test the athletes’ androgen levels before the games.

Another issue is potential transsexual which the female athletes abuse the steroid or other androgen medicines by themselves or by coaches. In order to increase female athletes’ physical strength and endurance, some coaches ask their athletes to take androgen medicines or some female athletes will choose to take. In other words, those female athletes received the potential transsexual for the purpose of winning the champions.

However, taking androgen medicines absolutely has the side effects to the female athletes. They will show masculine qualities, such as growing a beard, darkening body hair, and deepening voice. Those changes also will cause their psychological problems which make them feel inferior. Other serious problems will appear when those female athletes retire from sports. In order to keep female characteristics, they have to take estrogen medicines paid by their own. In the first place, however, most retired athletes in China are struggling to find a job, and those estrogen medicines are really expensive. Therefore, those female athletes live miserable lives during both athletic periods and retired periods. This is not the issue just happened in China, but in the whole world. If interested, please see Honour, J. W. (1997). Steroid abuse in female athletes. Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 9, 187-192.

Gender equity in media coverage

“Successful female Olympic athletes contribute to closing the gender gap in media coverage” (Hovden et al., 2008, p.1). According to Hovden et al. (2008), female and male athletes had almost the same media coverage in China. However, female athletes got fewer percentage of media coverage compared to their greater achievements. In 2004 Athens Olympics, Chinese female athletes received 63% of Olympic medals, but only had 52% of media coverage. This situation was even worse in Belgium which female athletes received 67% of medals compared to 43% of media coverage and in Germany which received 57% of medals compared to 39% of media coverage (Hovden et al., 2008, p. 8, table 7).

Overall, Chinese women sports receive more achievements than men sports. In 2008 Beijing Olympics, female athletes and teams won 57 Olympic medals, while male athletes and teams only won 42 Olympic medals. Especially, for “big balls” (soccer, basketball and volleyball), Chinese women teams won many world champions. However, most people in China will choose to watch men’s games instead of women’s games if these two games played at the same time. People think that male athletes are stronger, faster and more skillful than female athletes. When Chinese men soccer team entered the World Cup 2002 for the first time, the whole country was crazy! I was an eighth grade student in 2002. I still remember that one of the strictest teachers in our school cancelled her class, and she bought a big radio to the classroom. All students sat around that radio to listen the game---China vs. Brazil. Actually, the whole country did the same thing, from schools to companies, from government officers to taxi drivers.

The media coverage of Olympics in China based on who has greater chance to win gold medal rather than gender difference. Particularly, media and audiences all focus on top athletes who are former world champions. Therefore, the only hero is gold medal winner; the silver and third winners will be forgotten quickly.

Disability in China

“Sports opportunities for people with disabilities should focus on how to construct opportunities that emphasize the sports ability of participants rather than their disability” (Nixon, 2007, pp.417). This is the most impressive statement to me. I think we should also apply this rule (focus on ability rather than disability) to the real world for all people with disability.

People with disability in China have a header life than in the U.S. If you are in the public places, you barely can see the people with disability. It is abnormal to consider the huge population in China. The reason for this phenomenon is lacking of basic facilities for the people with disability. Before 2008 Paralympics, the Chinese government built many facilities for the athletes with disability in venues and infrastructure. These facilities truly improved the situation for people with disability in China, but it’s still not enough. In contrary, in the U.S., I found lots of people with disability in the public places, such as the supermarket, restaurant, or shopping mall. Convenient parking space, automatic door and special bathroom shell provide people with disability wider lives for outside of the world.

Another issue about people with disability in China is employment opportunities. As far as I know, the majority of people with disability are authors. Because people with disability usually stick at home for lacking of basic facilities in the public places, writing is one of few jobs they can do for living. I heard, for the big companies in U.S., they have to hire several employees with disability to show the equal opportunity for all. For example, Bowling Green State University is committed to equal opportunity for all and does not discriminate in admission or access to, or treatment of employment in, its programs and activities on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, marital status, mental or physical disability, or veteran status.

Even though China don’t have perfect legal systems and enough basic facilities, because China need face to lots of social issues as a developing country, the Chinese government have already started to concern about the people with disability.

Nothing wrong to be a gay

In the 2008 Olympic Game, only 10 athletes announced they are gay or lesbian from total 10, 500 athletes. The reason why most of the gay or lesbian athletes will not come out is some people don’t understand or accept the gay or lesbian athletes. Gay athletes worried that if they come out, they may lose their fans, their commercial contracts, and even their playing opportunities.

I got my bachelor’s degree in Wuhan Sport University (recently changed the name from Wuhan Institute of Physical Education to Wuhan Sport University). Most of students in our university are college athletes, and some of them are the Olympic Champions. I know many gay or lesbian athletes in our university. There even has a “gay bar” in our university (the university rent some idle buildings). However, when I searched the Internet, I found that no athletes in Chinese National Teams announced they are gay or lesbian. I believe the gay or lesbian athletes hide their sexual orientation to bend of social pressure.

Existence is reasonable. I don’t understand why some people cannot accept the different sexual orientation. I think the different sexual orientation is the same with the different eye color. My friend told me a story about her dog named Xirui (a boy’s name). She said Xirui always chase other boy dogs rather than girls. At first, she thought he was too young to know love, but as time goes by, he still chases boy dogs. One day, she suddenly realized that her dog is a gay. My friend treats Xirui as her family member. She told me, “If GOD creates him as a gay, why not against his nature? I just want him happy”.

I found an interesting Game named Gay Game. Originally called the Gay Olympics, it was started in San Francisco in 1982; it retains many similarities with the Olympics, including the Gay Games flame which is lit at the opening ceremony. The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level. There are no qualifying standards to compete in the Gay Games. It brings together people from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden (resources from Wikipedia).

Reading the Muscle Body: A Critical Decoding of Advertisements in Flex Magazine

I read an article about the muscle size of GIJoe from a Chinese website many years ago. The article said that the GIJoe’s muscle become bigger and bigger for the last thirty years. White and Gillett (1994) mentioned, “Building a muscular physique offers some men a compensatory means by which they can construct and validate, symbolically through their bodies, a particular masculine identity” (pp. 20). They also said, “Muscularity is still central to intermale evaluation even for men who scoff at the exaggerated muscularity of professional bodybuilders” (pp. 20). The bodybuilders in the Flex Magazine are really huge and a little scaring. Do the females really like the exaggerate muscles?

In China, we also have the similar magazine with the Flex Magazine named Fitness and Beauty. This magazine which is the first fitness and bodybuilding magazine in China started to publish since 1980. The contents are more focus on fitness and health rather than the bodybuilding. The cover characters are sunshine and health instead of the exaggerate muscle size.

Interestingly, most Chinese young girl like the males named “beauty as flowers” recently. They usually have melancholy eyes, beautiful faces, and skinny body shape. A great many young girls are crazy about them rather than muscular men. Oppositely, these girls also enjoyed the female stars with the neutral sexual character. These female stars have short hair, no “S” body shape, and deep voice. Is that means the feminism is coming in China?

The Whole World Isn’t Watching (But We Thought They Were): The super bowl and U.S. Solipsism

Most Chinese people always think the basketball is the NO. 1 sport in the US. Because the NBA is very popular in China, and everyone knows Kobe Bryant (but my favorite NBA star is Allen Iverson). Kobe Bryant said he admires Peyton Manning who is one of best quarterback in NFL, and never can stay with him. The NBA All-Star Game always gives way to the Super Bowl for the better audience rating. Therefore, the football, in fact, is the NO. 1 sport in the US.

I have no idea why Americans like football so much, but I do know some reasons why most Chinese people do not interested in football. First, most Chinese people are not strong enough to pursue this violent game. We have problems with physical confrontation. This is one of the reasons why Chinese are good at badminton, ping-pong and dive, but not good at soccer, basketball and volleyball. Second, there have no national football teams in China. We watch NBA because we have national basketball teams; we watch the World Cup because we have national soccer teams. We love our own teams and then we love the games. Third, the football’s rules are too complicated for people who begin to watch this game. If you don’t understand the rules, the game looks like that many crazy and angry players to fight for a ball.

However, the thing changes in China. This year, six television channels broadcast the 2011 Super Bowl in China. The video I showed in the top was very wide spread in Chinese facebook. Also, there have a Chinese American named ED Wang who plays in NFL recently. More and more Chinese people will start to watch the football games for that reason.

Are pro sports growing more altruistic?

I certainly agree with the author’s assertion. It is convincing that pro sports are becoming more and more altruistic.  This change is originated from the change in the new generation’s life attitude. According to my observation, more and more young people in college nowadays are participating in community service. The young volunteers are making a large effort to improve the neighborhood. They work hard for free, but everyone is very happy during the work. The idea of giving back to the community is spreading across the campus, and I firmly believe it also applies to the sports field.

The famous NBA player Yao Ming paid back to his home country China by establishing The Yao Ming Foundation. It is in response to the devastating 8.0 earthquake in Sichuan Province, China on May 12, 2008.  More than 8,000 schoolrooms and 185 schools were destroyed during the earthquake. The Yao Ming Foundation has so far committed to rebuilding five schools in the earthquake region. The new earthquake resistant schools will provide top level education for more than 1000 students, many of whom will also board at the schools.

Yao Ming’s Foundation is not a special case. Many famous Chinese athletes responded to natural tragedy by donating money and supplies to the people living in Sichuan Province. As far as I know, lots of famous NBA players besides Yao Ming also donated to the people in Sichuan to help them rebuild their families. Therefore, the altruistic sports spirit has no boundaries. It is alive in every part of the world.

The flight of the Millennials in higher education

I only knew the generation of “Boomers” in US before I read this article. The author mentioned the generation of the Silent (born 1925-1942), the Boomer (born 1943-1960), the Generation X (born 1961-1981), and the Millennial (born 1982-200X), while in China we have the generation of the “Post-50’s” (born 1950-1959), the “Post-60’s” (born 1960-1969), the “Post-70’s” (born 1970-1979), the “Post-80’s” (born 1980-1989), and the “Post-90’s” (born 1990-1999). I am a “Post-80’s” in China and it’s same with the Millennial in US.

I think we classified our generation into every 10 years, because there was a significant event happened in China in each decade. In the 50’s, it was the beginning of the People’s Republic of China established. Because of the bad weather and the wrong decisions from the government, thousands of people died of hunger. In the 60’s, China went into the chaos because of the internal strife. In the 70’s, Xiaoping Deng, one of the Chinese presidents, proposed “the reform and open-up” policy. After that, the development of China’s economy has accelerated. In the 80’s, in order to control the excessive population growth, the Chinese government proposed “the One Child” policy. In the 90’s, China founded a state for 50 years, and gained very great progress in economy.

In all of these generations, the “Post-80’s” and the “Post-90’s” get the most attention and discussion. Because of “the One Child” policy, we are the only child in our family. At first, the mainstream society believed that the “Post-80’s” are spoiled, dependent, selfish, and irresponsible. However, as time passed, we proved that we can take the responsibility of our society.

Recently, people focus more attention on the “Post-90’s”, since they will take over the “Post-80’s” in future. But most of the “Post-90’s” let people feel disappointed; they are mammonish, unfeeling, and crazy about stars. But I believe they will grow up someday like us, and make a contribution to our society.

The importance of sport in society

Keith Suter (2010) said, “The games are a showcase of a country’s ability. Communist countries used the Games as a way of showing the ‘superiority’ of the communist way of life and therefore put a great deal of funding and training into preparing athletes”(pp. 333-334). It is kind of true, even though it doesn’t sound good for a student who comes from a communist society. Developed countries use the Olympics for profile, such as commercial, television rights, and tourism; while developing countries use the Olympics to show themselves.

On one hand, as Chinese, we are so proud of ourselves to hold such a big international event successfully, and the result was good. On the other hand, China may put too much money and energy on one “Game”. Like Keith (2010) said, sport can show a country’s ability, but do we want to replace the US in sport as well as economics? I hardly think so.

First, America and China have different sports systems. In the US, athletes pay for coaches or other related staffs, training ground, and nutrition. But in China, the government will pay all these bills and even pay salary to the athletes. Athletes in China believe that the sport is their career for their whole lives. An American who has a normal job in daily life may also be an athlete in the Olympic Games. After the 2008 Olympic Games, China began to change our sport system to be like developed countries. Therefore, as a beginner, China has a long way to go. If China changes their sports system to be like the US, it will be impossible to gain such achievement like 2008 for the following the Olympic Games.

Second, China falls behind the US in economics by about one hundred years. Over the happiness in the Olympic Games, China started to introspect itself. Should we need to put 42 billion dollars on a “Game” just to show ourselves? Even though the economic situation is much better than 30 years ago, in the northwest of China, there are millions people who fail to meet a certain standard of living. They don’t have enough food, don’t have enough clean water, and some even just have one pair of pants in the whole family, only the person who needs to go out can put on the pants. I believe China should spend this money to change their living condition, such as exemption from taxes, development of education, and new technology to provide clean water.

Introduction: Sport and Me

Hi, everyone! I am Yu Zhang. I take the sport and society course this semester. I will try to bring some different thoughts from another culture, try my best to absorb your ideas from the class and your blogs.

This is my second semester in BGSU. My major is Kinesiology, and my specific interest is exercise psychology. I plan to do my thesis proposal this semester, and start my research this April, due to I would like to pursue my doctor degree in future. This week, I began to help an obesity research which is conducted by Dr. Berger, Dr. Darby, and Dr. Carels. Kallie and Courtney, which are nice to me since we took the same courses last semester, are also in group. This is my first time using English to test the participants, but they make me feel less tense.

Sport is a part of my life since I was born. I live in a small city called QinHuang Dao in China, which has 3,000,000 people. We have a National Sport Training Center in our city which is my mom works. National top sport teams will be here for training in the summer. When I was young, I had a lot of opportunities to watch their play. These experiences and memories became a factor which influences me to choose my major in future.

After graduated from high school, I decided to pursue my bachelor’s degree in sport psychology in Wuhan Institute of Physical Education. Wuhan is one of the biggest cities in China, which has 9,000,000 people, and far away from my hometown. Most of students are college athletes in our university, and some of them are Olympic Champions, Asian Champions and National Champions. I had 48 classmates, which took the same courses in the same time for four years. That’s a lot fun, because we knew each other very well. But after graduated from college, only two of us chose to pursue master degree in exercise science, which me and one of my best friends,  and none of us chose to work in a relate area. The most important reason is exercise science is a new field in China, and it difficult to find a job.

However, after 2008 Olympic Games, the situation was changed. China changes their focus from elite sport to public sport, which means China will pay more attention to common people rather than athletes. The government has made August 8th National Fitness Day. Therefore, the exercise science in China will more important and more developed in future.