Traditional Sports
Traditional sports with distinct Chinese characteristics are also very popular, including martial arts, taijiquan (shadow boxing), qigong (a system of deep breathing exercises), xiangqi (Chinese chess) and weiqi (known as Go in the West).
Taijiquan is a kind of Chinese boxing, combining control of breath, mind and body. It emphasizes body movement following mind movements, tempering toughness with gentleness and graceful carriage.
Qigong is a unique Chinese way of keeping fit. It aims at enhancing health, prolonging life, curing illness and improving physiological functions by concentrating the mind and regulating the breath. There are various entertaining and competitive sports activities in the minority-inhabited areas, for example, wrestling and horsemanship among Mongols, Uygurs and Kazaks; Tibetan yak racing; ethnic Korean "seesaw jumping"; crossbow archery among the Miao, and dragon-boat racing among the Dai ethnic minority.
Xiangqi and weiqi were two of the 5 sports featured at the World Mind Sports Games, held in Beijing in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Sport In The People's Republic Of China
Famous quotes containing the words traditional and/or sports:
“There are two kinds of fathers in traditional households: the fathers of sons and the fathers of daughters. These two kinds of fathers sometimes co-exist in one and the same man. For instance, Daughter’s Father kisses his little girl goodnight, strokes her hair, hugs her warmly, then goes into the next room where he becomes Son’s Father, who says in a hearty voice, perhaps with a light punch on the boy’s shoulder: “Goodnight, Son, see ya in the morning.””
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)