网球在中西方的发展差异.doc

2015年5 月10日
Contents

摘要 ii
Abstract iii
Introduction 1
I. The difference of tennis between China and West in cultural aspect 6
1.1 Chinese culture 7
1.2 Western culture 9
II.The difference of tennis between China and West in social background aspect 11
2.1 Chinese society 11
2.2 Western society 13
III. The difference of tennis between China and West in economy aspect 15
3.1 Chinese economy 15
3.2 Western economy 17
Conclusion 19
Bibliography 20
Acknowledgements 21

网球在中西方的发展差异
摘 要
网球起源于西方，在西方已有一百多年的发展历史，而后相继传入世界各地。网球到达中国的时间较晚，但近几年发展迅猛，2004年雅典奥运会，2006年澳网女子双打冠军，2011年法网女子单打冠军，标志着我国女子网球项目的迅速崛起。但是，就总体而言，我国网球运动与西方国家相比，还是存在着巨大的差异，落后于世界先进水平。因此如何从若干领域比较中国网球运动和西方网球运动发展的相同之处与不同之处，从而找出对我国网球运动发展的有利因素，是现阶段我国广大网球理论工作者应该重视和深入研究的一个重要课题。本文采用文献资料法，比较研究法等想相关研究方法，对中国和西方发达国家的网球发展作比较研究，通过对异同作深层次比较研究，发现中西方网球运动相关领域的差异及其对中西方网球运动发展的影响，从而找到中国网球运动发展与西方网球运动发展的差距。根据研究的需要，本文将中西方网球运动比较的范围确定在中西方文化，社会背景和经济等方面进行考察，得出以下研究结论：
1.网球是西方传统文化的产物，西方人在参加网球运动时具有天然的适应性和传承性，而中国传统文化在一定程度上影响着网球在中国的发展。
2.与西方网球运动相比，中国网球运动仍处于落后阶段。在综合比较中，找到差距的成因，并努力改变，中国的网球才能与西方网球想匹敌。

关键词：网球；中国；西方；差异

Analysis on the gap of tennis between China and West

Abstract

Europe is the birthplace of tennis, and some time later, tennis has been introduced to many countries around the world. Tennis arrived in China a little bit late and yet develops rapidly. Chinese female tennis players have won the 2004 Athens Olympic,the 2008 Australia open and the 2011 France open, which marks a new beginning. But as seen from the whole, the tennis level between China and west is distinct. Therefore, how to compare the similarities and differences of tennis and find out the favorable factors to Chinese tennis is an important subject to many theoretical workers to pay attention and for in-depth research. For this reason, this study, using literature method, comparative analysis and other research, makes a comparative study between Chinese tennis and the western tennis. Through a deeper level study between similarities and differences, this thesis aims to find the disparity, and to provide appropriate suggestions for the Chinese tennis. On the need of the study, this paper will fix the scope of the comparison in culture, social background and economy development. Following are the conclusions:
1. Tennis is a product of western culture and westerners have a natural adaptation and transmission when they play tennis, traditional Chinese culture, on the other hand, interferes the development of tennis.
2. Comparing with the western tennis level, China is falling behind. By comparing the differences between China and West in various aspects, we may find the causes and improve ourselves and try to catch up with the western countries.

Key Words：Tennis; China; West; Difference

Introduction
Historians believe that the game's ancient origin lay in 12th century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand[1].The French king was a keen player of jeu de paume (“game of the palm”), which evolved into real tennis, and became notable as the first person to construct indoor tennis courts in the Modern style .Tennis has swept the world around these years, and tennis players both from home or broad are doing a great job. Chinese tennis is developing extremely fast recent years, and the most remarkable monument is when Lina won the French open in 2011.People in china are now so obsessed with tennis that they wouldn’t miss a game, their enthusiasm is heightened. But the difference between China and west is still distinguishing. The development of western tennis has reached a level that china can’t catch up with. For instance, the four great tennis matches are held in western countries, and their tennis players always rank the first place in the list. There is no Asian male players who can have a sit in the top ten list. Some may wonder why this happens. Many researches are made by scholars or theoretical workers to explain this interesting phenomenon and how it goes so far. However, what people care about are merely the top players, their introduction and how many medals they have won, or even their gossip. They usually negate the most important facts. Few ever reach this issue from cultural view, social background view or economic view. Following are the analyses on this issue.

I. The difference of tennis between China and West in cultural aspect

1.1 The rules of tennis matches
Tennis is a racquet sport that can be played individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a racquet that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to play the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a good return. The opponent who is unable to return the ball will not gain a point, while the opposite opponent will.Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society and at all ages. The sport can be played by anyone who can hold a racquet including wheelchair users. The modern game of tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the late 19th century as "lawn tennis"[2]. It had close connections both to various field ("lawn") games such as croquet and bowls as well as to the older racquet sport of real tennis. During most of the 19th-century in fact, the term "tennis" referred to real tennis, not lawn tennis: for example, in Disraeli's novel Sybil (1845), Lord Eugene De Vere announces that he will "go down to Hampton Court and play tennis."The rules of tennis have changed little since the 1890s. Two exceptions are that from 1908 to 1961 the server had to keep one foot on the ground at all times, and the adoption of the tie-break in the 1970s. A recent addition to professional tennis has been the adoption of electronic review technology coupled with a point challenge system, which allows a player to contest the line call of a point. Tennis is played by millions of recreational players and is also a popular worldwide spectator sport. The four Grand Slam tournaments (also referred to as the "Majors") are especially popular: the Australian Open played on hard courts, the French Open played on red clay courts, Wimbledon played on grass courts, and the US Open played also on hard courts.
1.2 Influence of Chinese culture on tennis development
From the development of culture, the circle of conflict and combination of culture is destined, or we can say that the communication of culture boost the development.[3].Ancient China was located in the east of Asia, with the pacific ocean to the east, vast desert and arid grassland in north, steep Hengduan mountain ranges and Himalayas mountains in southeast(which including Tibetan plateau, known as the roof of the world). With all these special surroundings, a relatively complete, independent and closed natural geographic unit was formed. Traditional Chinese culture, which came out of this unique natural geographic environment, was often colored with a strong tendency of “self-centered” initiative. The Chinese character is the best proof, as the saying goes,“china, the center of the world”. It is the result of long time pride self consciousness and national consciousness, this cultural egoism permeates the life of Chinese people in all aspects.
Chinese sports culture is the consequence of the evolution of traditional Chinese culture, based on the individual agricultural economy with patriarchal family as its background and Confucian thoughts as its core. Chinese people believe in collectivism. The Chinese nation of thousands of years has developed its own glorious and variable culture in the process. Traditional Chinese culture value peace and pay less attention to competition, but the soul of sports is to compete with others, and this contradicts traditional Chinese culture. Family is the center of everything and they despise individualism, Chinese culture attaches great importance to unity and modesty, thus making sport activities hard to carry out. Especially for sport like tennis, they used to think it was too violent and refused to play it, and this resistance had influenced their children. Generations by generations, tennis in China had not swirled , and it was in the dark corner for a while. Traditional Chinese culture was a kind of ethical culture, which paid much attention to the doctrine of the mean, while so less to competition, but the vitality of sports lies in competition, the Confucian ethics was totally against it. Confucian ethics vualuable part. Traditional Chinese culture put family above anything and it loathe egoism, people are required to follow the “Three cardinal guides and Five constant virtues”, their behavior must be harmonious, unified and modest, the result is that the whole nation suffer from psychological inequality, their creativity is pressed by the morality as well as by the team rule, thus making the tennis match unfair for them to compete. “By learning from the west, all these have great effect on politics, economy, military and education”[4] . From The feudal ethics of the Grand unification kills the aggressive mind and competitive spirit in the tennis players,in consequence, our tennis players is short of independence concept and creativity.
Sport is the result of culture. Although it is also influenced by race and language, culture is the most important one.[5]Traditional Chinese culture attach great importance to intelligence while so less to physical sport, favoring “calmness” over “movement”, the supporters of this think people with great intelligence are the rule, while people who work physical are the ruled. The wind of despising physical labor and sports activities has been current for a long long time. Especially when it comes to the Han dynasty, the situation gets even worse and everything is about Confucianism. People who play sports would be thought as cake eaters, extreme sports are despised. And because of it, some traditional sports have fallen into entertain performance in court, losing its original intention. The selection of tennis talents is highly strictly limited as the consequence of this wind, parents refuse to let their gifted children engage in professional tennis, hence, tennis lack enough social attention and support, the idea to popularize tennis also becomes quite difficult. Chinese people in old times think life activities come from human body itself, “governance of inside” is put forward as the fundamental method to keep fit, while “outside care” as the supplementary tool, the core purpose is to protect body from any harm, they hold the view that the best way to sustain life is reduce the damage to the body as less as possible. Measures like “to protect, to build up and to tonic” are taken to mobilize the self adjusting and self healing functions. They advocate emotional regulation and oppose strenuous exercise and this totally conflicts the modern way of training, which is filled with overload training to improve the potential of human body in speed and strength. Well, tennis is exactly this kind of sport, the reason why it fails to get kicked in a country like China is so obvious.
1.3 Influence of Western culture on tennis development
The ancestors of the western people mainly live in the temperate zone and frigid zone, meat, fish and dairy products are their mainly food for most of people. So they are extremely energetic, easily excited and aggravated. Ancient western culture has always been caught between “Apollo” and “Honest” the two extreme thoughts, it is active, religious, aggressive and always has a strong desire to conquer. As a result, most of their sport activities are the products of worship activities, they try to please God and Divine, pursue the perfect combination of body and soul. Rich slave owners can have a secure life without having to worry pure knowledge or dreams. So the tools that they used for exercise equipment at start were very competitive specialized, refine and ideal.
Europe is the hometown of modern tennis, it is also the cradle of the modern civilization and modernization, the traditional culture is full of warrior spirit, duel spirit and brave piratical robbery spirit. The German poet Heine says if the British rule the ocean, so the French rule the continent, while German rule the sky. So in bloody battlefield countries like Germany, France, Britain and The Netherlands tennis is very popular and their tennis players are world class, this is closely related with their national spirits. Tennis players from Southern America also also doing a great job these days in spite of they are developing countries, this also has to do with its quirky culture. Many countries of Southern America were colonies of the early empire countries like Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. They are not as strong as the Europeans, but the adventurous spirit of Columbus and Magellan are still in them, so that they can play tennis to the full.
Western culture originates from ancient Greek culture and Roman culture individual radicalism and open absorbency are the basic characteristics of western culture. The development of commodity economy and the open ocean geographic environment made westerners worship strength, they liked the legend of knights and adventures, independent and pioneering spirits were always in their hearts. They liked to do all kinds of violent sports, and it has already become a part of their life. This national character formed in ancient Greece, Greek people had always held the martial spirit, and when it came into the Roman Empire, this spirit had transferred into a popular wrestle in the slaves, the pancratium spirit of the Rome and the rise of medieval Chivalry. The so called “Chivalry” was the adventurous spirit to put all your eggs in one basket. After the Enlightenment, the “Hurricane Drang” appeared in Germany, it was a well explanation of individual radicalism and the culture of Europe put on a new look because of it. Western culture promote the individual supremacy, pursuit of external transcend, rational thinking and the advocation of the personal interest above the group. Therefore the western sports culture is figured as competitive. After the second world war, the western sports culture was divided into two major schools because of the influence of the new international political and social background, one was represented by the former soviet union and eastern Europe, this group held that sports culture should be established on the basis of socialist public ownership and unit of the country; Another group represented by western Europe and north America thought that sports culture should be built on capitalist market economy, it should follow the need of the market but not rely on the governments help or funding, everyone was eligible to partic