Just before the start of the Chinese New Year, the national workout program launched a number of initiatives to help build momentum for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
While many of the new offerings are clearly well conceived, they have not succeeded in getting me very excited.
Given my lack of eligibility, I might as well concentrate on my weekly golf sessions, slamming the ball into oblivion with a driver, at my neighborhood driving range.
Golf, despite its growing presence in China, is mysteriously absent from the newly announced program.
Under the "Sports-for-all with the Olympics" campaign organized by the State General Administration of Sports (GAS), China will organize 65 national sporting events in 2007.
Most involve non-Olympic sports such as dragon-boat racing, mountain climbing, Tai Chi and bowling.
Others are also expansive, envisaging the participation of the masses. They include:
Competitions of fitness for Chinese women scheduled for April, which gives rise to the possibility of an army of sword-wielding or fan-waving grannies;
Snooker competitions involving millions of Chinese farmers from January 2007 to July 2008, one month before the Beijing Games opens;
10,000 people swimming across the Yangtze River in July;
Roller skating by a million youngsters;
Desert fitness competition in September in Northwest China;
Darts competitions in four cities other than Beijing.
Among the events that are difficult for me to relate to is also the 10,000-people cha cha dance competition in October, or the 10,000-people aerobic gymnastics in June, to be held in a number of city squares.
While admiring the efforts of the sports authorities to promote various sports at grassroots levels, I wonder how these events will help them achieve their target of getting 40 percent of China's population to exercise regularly by 2010. This goal involves getting hundreds of millions of Chinese to work out at least three times a week at a medium-intense level for at least 30 minutes per session.
As a working professional, I am more interested in a once-weekly, hassle-free workout regime.
And for this, golf is the perfect answer.
Anyone with a discount card can hit a bucket of 100 balls in green surroundings for 40 yuan (less than $5.5) at a local driving range, at whatever time suits them best. This compares with bowling or tennis, both of which are recommended by the national fitness campaign, but neither of which is any cheaper.
Of course, practicing your swings at a driving range is not the same as playing on a course. Fortunately, there are also daily-fee golf courses for people who are not club members but who still want to head out to the course once in a while.
The advantages of golf include the fact that it is a personal experience and an ongoing challenge to improve. In fact, men at least 60 years old regularly turn up at my driving range and demonstrate their undiminished driving skills.
Yet despite its increasing popularity among Chinese managers and professionals - China already has close to one million golfers and hundreds of courses and driving ranges - golf is not part of the fitness campaign this year.
On the contrary, the sport is developing something of a bad reputation on the mainland, where it is increasingly "misperceived" as an elitist pastime of the moneyed classes, and a potential threat to the environment, says Zhang Xiaoning, director of the small-ball sports administration center under the GAS.
Golf can help build a harmonious society in China as it promotes a balance of body and mind, as well as etiquette and integrity, Zhang argues in a speech posted on the GAS website.
He points to other future developments for the domestic game as a sign of encouragement. This year, a national tournament by more than 200 18-hole golf clubs will be held for the first time in China, he says.
As the sport begins to work its way into the nation's consciousness and into people's lives, however, it would be nice to see it granted a higher profile here. Inclusion in the national fitness campaign would obviously have been a good way to kickstart this.
Email: yuanzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
