Skateboarding in China

by Michael Beauchot

Dateline: 26 March 2001

You can't go wrong in Hong Kong, but mainland China is much slower in getting into the sport of skateboarding. That seems to be the consensus of my sources for skateboarding.

My main source is a teacher in Australia who has spent time as an ESL teacher in China. She has contacted many of her former students and I am in contact with my current students.

I have also talked to several Chinese online, particularly those that live in the two cultural meccas of China - the cities where the Western sports first cme and are accepted or rejected. these cities are the two largest in China - both with populations exceeding 15 million.

These two cities are Shanghai and Beijing. The news from both cities is not encouraging to the skateboard world. However, Hong Kong became a part of China in the 1990's and the sport is accepted and going strong there.

The reasons for the differences are fairly simple. Beijing and Shanghai(the former is the Chinese capital and the latter is the industrial center and the most Westernized mainland city) have a population that is not geared for skateboarding. Skateboarding essentially requires a fair amount of money and a fair amount of space. The people living in these two cities are well-off economically compared to most Chinese, but space is very limited. Almost all live in high-rise apartments and space is virtually a non-commodity.

Where people in mainland China do have space is in the farming villages, but these people are very poor and far removed from Western influences. I live in what is called a small town in Shandong Province in China. The small town is not small by American Midwest standards(about 300,000 people live in Liaocheng), but small by Chinese standards. No one in Liaocheng - teachers, students, townspeople - have ever even heard of skateboarding. The chance for growth in Chinese skateboarding will depend on better communication. The seeds will no doubt have to be planted from Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was a British colony until recently and is really a Western city that happens to be located in the East. The people in Hong Kong are prosperous and they can afford to buy the skateboards. They have the Western influence and so they not only know that skateboarding exists, but have embraced it. Whereas many Western cities ban skateboarders from their streets as if they were criminals, skateboarding is encouraged throughout Hong Kong. Skateboarders are seen as a form of traveling show - an entertainment that is not only uniquely Western, but is free to the audience. If there is a mecca of skateboarding in the East, it is certainly in this most Western of cities.