Passage One Some known ancient cultural relics have provided evidences that health-building activities appeared in China over 4,000 years ago. By the time of the Western Zhou Dynasty archery and cauldron (大锅) lifting had emerged as sports activities. To get a complete and vivid picture of the development of ancient China’s sports, go to China Sports Museum, which lies in the southeastern corner of the National Olympic Sports Center in the northern suburbs of Beijing. It is an octagonal spiral building flanked on one side by a huge sloping wall with its highest point protruding out of the center of the structure. The huge wall, 36.5 meters high and looking like a large flag or a mountain peak reaching up to the sky, symbolizes the pinnacle that China’s athletes reach for. Displayed in its six exhibition halls are over 1,000 photos, 800 objects, 300 historical documents and cultural relics, 30 sand table models and 20 rubbings (募拓) and paintings reflecting China’s more than 5,000 years of sports culture and many sports activities of her 56 ethnic groups. The origin and development of China’s sports activities are closely related with the production, work, war and entertainment of the time. Traces of the earliest sports activities, such as hunting, archery and rowing race, can be seen from some bronze of the late Neolithic Age as well as from other articles. An exhibit of the museum, a lacquered wooden comb of the Qin Dynasty, features as ancient Chinese sports activity, jiaodi. Of early origin, it is a game similar to the wrestling of modern times. The ancient jiaodi was performed by athletes wearing ox horns and wrestling with each other imitating wild oxen. The vivid wrestling scene on the wooden comb is one of the earliest known articles picturing jiaodi. As an important part of popular culture, sports in China witnessed considerable development and took real shape during the Qin, Han and the Three Kingdoms periods, an important stage in the history of China. The various sports activities in these periods found their expressions in the sepulchral mural paintings, stone paintings, brick paintings, pottery figurines and poems. An attractive item on display is a color pottery artifact of the Western Han Dynasty unearthed in 1969 in Jinan, Shandong Province. It presents vividly at its bottom 21 acrobats, dancers, musicians and spectators, among which four figurines are performing handstand and jiujitsu (柔术) with ease, elegance and skill, demonstrating the high technical level of gymnastic training of the Western Han Dynasty. Another important period in the development of sports in China was the Tang Dynasty, when a variety of programs including some ball games and women’s sports games emerged. A game popular in the palace played by aristocrats and high officials was equestrian (马术) polo. A sand table constructed according to related historical documents and archeological findings reproduces a spectacular scene of the Tang people playing polo. In the Song Dynasty, sports games began to develop into popular games and games of entertainment. From Emperor Taizu Kicking a Ju, a painting by the famous Yuan Dynasty artist Qian Xuan, we can see Zhao Kuangyin, the first emperor of the Song Dynasty, kicking a ju with his brother, Zhao Kuangyi and some close officials. Ju, a leather ball filled with hair, is a primitive soccer ball. It was so popular in the Song Dynasty that everyone from the emperor to the ordinary people liked it. Golf is a modern game for the upper class. But in the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese were already playing a sports game similar to golf, which was painted in Hitting Balls, a mural painting displayed in the museum. At that time people played the game by hitting balls into a hole with a stick crooked at one end. The one who hit the most balls into the hole won. The unique Nationality Traditional Sports Activities Exhibition hall houses over 300 photos and 500 articles. It enlivens several hundred traditional sports activities of various ethnic groups, which rooted in the history of the ethnic groups, embedded in the local folk customs and mostly performed in traditional festivals, have been well loved by the native people. The Mongolian people living on China’s northern grasslands are known for their valiancy (骁勇) and openness. In August of every year the Mongolians hold the Nadam Fair, a gala annual meeting in which ethnic sports programs including Mongolian-style wrestling and horse races are performed. Mongolian-style wrestling differs from wrestling of other ethnicities in that the number of contestants in a Mongolian-style wrestling match must be a power of two and that the contest follows a single elimination system. The contestants wear a wrestling suit decorated with shining copper or silver nails and a sash made of black, red and yellow cloth. Formal wrestling competitions are held to the accompaniment of singing by old people. Due to their special living environments, other northern minority people like archery, hunting, wrestling and horse races. In winter, their favorite activities are skating, skiing and sleigh races. The over 20 minority ethnic groups distributed over Tibet, Yunnan and Guizhou in southwestern China also have special sports programs. Tibetans’ favorite sport is the horse race. Their first horse race meeting can be traced back to the year 779, which, lasting half a month, was held to celebrate the completion of a temple. Today, the Tibetan horse races take three forms: long distance races, short distance jogging and empty horse races. The long distance race is usually held on a straight path six to ten kilometers long, in a pastoral region. Mostly the contestants are boys from 11 to 12 years old. The length for short distance jogging is about three to five kilometers. In a short distance horse race, it is prohibited for horses jump with all four legs simultaneously. The length of the empty horse race is about 10 kilometers. Today, a national sports meeting of minority ethnic groups is held once every four years, providing an opportunity to train more minority athletes and promoting the development of health-building activities into real sports events.