first day ballin

I went out today on my own to 东单 where they have some really nice courts. You have to pay to play there, 15 kuai. This is something I didn't really expect in China: There's no such thing as a public court. Unlike the U.S. where a town or city decides to create a court and maintain it, Beijing has nothing of the sort. Everyone either goes to places like 东单 or local colleges and universities which maintain courts of varying quality. This is a little bit surprising to me because one would expect a socialist country to provide more public sites of recreation, yet it is the U.S. that is doing so.

There's two things I think are interesting from this.

1) Beijing and China are still in the midst of economic development. While the American economy has already has the luxury of excessive profit. (Not that this profit is equally distributed.)

2) Beijing does provide things that U.S. doesn't. For example, I was walking around the other night and saw a giant ballroom dance class taking place on the sidewalk. From what I could tell it was totally free. There was one teacher telling people what to do on a loud speaker while the music played. I assume it was a public event. Which indicates that perhaps China and the U.S. are emphasizing different forms of physical recreation. What is interesting is what these forms of recreation reinforce, how do their "embodied pedagogies" differ? Basketball vs. instructed ballroom dancing. I'll leave you to speculate.

(Who decides these things?)

看菜吃饭， 量体裁衣 - kan4 cai4 chi1 fan4, liang2 ti3 cai2 yi1 - fit the appetite to the dishes, and fit the cloth to the figure