CHINESE VIEWS ON SPORT.

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9797, 6 May 1924, Page 7

CHINESE VIEWS ON SPORT.

GOLF OR CRICKET-FIGHTING?

At the festival of Awakening Blossoms there had been a knock-out tournament of champion cricketers, relates Mr J. 0. P. Bland in one of his “Blackwood” articles on life m China. In the last round old Kuan’s pet warrior, a peerless insect, freely backed by the fancy, had been defoated by a rival from Tientsin. Instead of sympathising in the misfortune, liis wife had denounced his sporting hobby as wasteful foolishness, unbecoming to a man of grey hairs and respectable family. Kuan sought the Englishman’s sympathy and his moral support lor the gentle art of cricket-lighting. Was not a man entitled, ha asked, to spend his spare time and cash as he thought fit? Was there anything more reprehensible in fighting crickets than in playing bridge? And was not the scientific training of quails a pastime just as befitting to intelligent man as hitting a ball about, with a stick for hours at a time? But the pith of liis appeal to tlio world-wide brotherhood of sportsmen lay not in those arguments (to all of which the Englishman cheerfully subscribed), hut in a Chinese proverb like that in which Solomon recorded his liking for the corner of a housetop in preference to sharing: a wide house with a brawling woman.