Comparative Studies Of Cultural Ideologies In Chinese Traditional Sports And Western Sports

There have been many researches on Chinese traditional sports culture and western sports culture, and some early systematically studies of this topic from the culture comparison perspective can be traced back to Xiong Douyin period. From three seemingly unrelated perspectives, i.e. cultural ideology, religion influence and physical education, this thesis tries to explore the past and future of Chinese and western sports culture development. Starting from definitions of national sports and traditional ethnic sports, this thesis summarizes various origins and general evolution of sports as a distinctive culture, making it the norm of basic concepts as well as upholstery of presumption for its following argument. Chinese traditional sports culture comes from China's ancient civilization. It is a sports cultural phenomenon formed in an agricultural economic background which takes the Chinese traditional philosophical view of body and life as its ideological basis, and the unique health care and martial arts as its major external manifestations. Western sports culture comes from ancient Greek civilization. It is a sports cultural phenomenon formed in an industrial economic background which takes the modern scientific view of body and life as its theoretical basis, and competitive sports as its major external manifestations. The thesis advocates that different cultural backgrounds form different cultural concepts, and that diversity of ideas creates communication and that conflicts are inevitable before integration. The ideology of "Harmony" in Chinese traditional sports takes the pursuit of health care and noble character as its purpose, which becomes the representative of eastern sports. Ancient Greek sports respect fair competition, entertainment and fine physique, which becomes the representative of western sports. Religions play an important role in the formation of both eastern and western sports, but great differences lie in the style and approaches of their aims, principles and manifestations. Explanations for this can be found in their respective religion. Ancient Greek religion speeded the emergence of the ancient Olympic and formed the Western sports ideology, from which the modern Olympic originated. In the evolutional process of Chinese traditional sports, totem worship, Buddhism and Islam can be considered as leading factors through centuries in the sense of technical heritage and size sport, while Taoism is what Chinese national sports have relied on at the spiritual level. The school education in pre-Qin dynasty and ancient Greece value physical education greatly and make it as the necessary military skill for students. Therefore, students can defend their country and have healthy physiques. The overwhelming Confucianism educational policy in China's feudal society prospered ancient school education on one hand, but on the other hand, it simplified the main education. As a result, students could hardly obtain comprehensive knowledge and healthy physique and the physical education was ignored. In modern times, China witnessed the coming of western sports culture. With selective introduction and study of the ideology and systematically management in western sports culture, total communication occurred in the physical education field. Moreover, as China enters the Olympic Games and other international sports events, communications between Chinese and western sports cultures have been on a new stage. Sports ideology system comes from physical education. In comparison of physical education ideological development between Western and Chinese sports, it can be concluded that the future trend for both Western and Chinese sports cultures is coexistence and symbiosis.