Inappropriate sporting attire or the lack thereof and workout habits

A common perception about Chinese people is that they are all unathletic. Why I can remember when I was in highschool that most of us Chinese mostly excelled academically or musically. It was uncommon to see a Chinese student, especially those that weren't born in aus, to excel at any sort of sport. Mind you, the Phys-Ed classes we used to have in school were all tailored towards western style sports, so maybe my Chinese classmates could've kicked ass if ping pong or driving was in the curriculum. But no, for the most part, Chinese students are less sporty compared to their western counterparts. And if you're not interested in something, you're not going to take it very seriously are you? Take sporting attire for example.

Chinese people have some funny ideas about what appropriate sporting attire is. People seem to play sports and exercise in anything they can randomly find in their closets. Or maybe they just decide to exercise on a whim and just do it in whatever they're wearing at the time? I've noticed that jeans are a hot item for any sort of sport, especially running and jogging. It's heaps more prevalent amongst the middle age or older, but you still see some of the youngsters comitting these crimes against sporting fashion. Sometimes you'll see someone fly by in their jeans and nice shirt and wonder if they're in a hurry to get somewhere or they're just working out. But the phenomenom is real, cuz i've seen plenty of them running around the fields and tracks.

It's like they could probably go straight out to dinner after their run, except the fact they'd be all sweaty and smelly. But ah, maybe its linked back to the fact that chinese people don't wear deodorant or fragrance. So that means they either don't stink much when they sweat, or they just don't care about BO. Or for the men anyway, all the cigarettes they smoke later will drown out any smell. Or maybe they just wanna look fashionable while working out, who knows?

While we're on the topic of jogging and walking, some chinese do this strange thing of walking backwards around running tracks. Maybe it's supposed to be better for the legs somehow. It's a bastard when you're trying to run around a track though and you've got uncoming traffic reversing towards you, much akin to real driving on chinese roads :)
Like westerners, some runners will also listen to some tunes while running. The only difference is, some of them believe you'll love their choice of tunes too, and belt it out over the mini speaker of their radio or player. and they pump it up, real loud. and it's not like Chinese music is good to work out to anyway, since most of it is soppy love songs. Not much in the way of a fast beat to get you pumped up.

Some of you might be sitting there thinking , ''hey al, maybe some don't have enough money to buy sporting attire, quit being a bastard!'' But when i mean sporting attire, i don't mean buying an expensive nike sweat breatheable shirt. all i'm talking about is simple pair of shorts or tracky dacks, and maye a t-shirt. that stuff is dirt cheap to buy in china, and surely every chinese person has at least one old pair sitting around in their closets.

That's the thing i've noticed with people working out. the lack of exposed skin. I don't know if chinese people are just modest and loathe to expose their legs, but it seems that most of them will refuse to wear shorts. They even cover up their arms as well sometimes. I do know though that most asian girls like to preserve their white skin because of their perceptions of beauty.
Even in competitive sports or sporting carnivals, some people will still wear jeans, long pants and/or long sleeve tops.

Some of these pictures are from a sports carnival held within the university. Now i assume most of these kids taking part are doing so of their own freewill, and WANT to win. but i tell you they aren't doing their chances any good by wearing some of this stuff. I mean, when the olympic games came to beijing in 2008 didn't they notice Usain Bolt wasn't sporting a pair of Diesels in the 100 metres? C'mon, surely they also understand the concept of 'wind resistance?' Or maybe some of these students just took part for the hell of it and wanted to look fashionable in front of their mates.

Heres a final pic of some inter-uni soccer match played on campus, and no, that guy is not a streaker, it's the referee!