Immediately to the northwest of Beijing, the Great Wall of China snakes its way up and down, east and west, over jagged small mountains. Over a pass, the highway drops into the grasslands, where on Saturday my family and I wended our way along a dirt road lined with towering trees in full leaf-changing display.
At the end was the Sunny Time Polo Club.
An entrepreneur, James Wang, has brought polo to China, hoping to draw on the aura of wealth and exclusivity associated with what is known as “the game of kings.”
On a clear autumnal afternoon, as a Chinese team awaited a match with a team from India, Brazil, Chile and the U.S., an American player, Sohail Quraeshi, suggested that the sport is actually returning to its origins.
“Polo originated in China, went over the Silk Road to what is now Pakistan, was first discovered by the British in a little place in the Himalayas called Chitral, and then taken to India,” Quraeshi told guests on the sidelines. “Now, it’s an honor to play back in the capital, Beijing.”
On the dais were the ambassadors of Pakistan, Chile and Argentina, and various officials from the Chinese sports and equestrian associations.
Sunny Time isn’t exactly the Ascot Park Polo Club in the English countryside, where ladies wear large hats. After all, off to one end of the pitch were the Port-a-Potties for the guests. We sipped mineral water, not champagne.
Chinese performers did a dragon dance, and Muslim women dressed in Silk Road finery lined the pitch.
As to whether polo was actually invented in China, quick research shows some dispute.
An Ascot Park website says: “Polo is thought to have originated in China and Persia around 2,000 years ago. The name of the game may well come from the word ‘pholo’ meaning 'ball' or 'ballgame' in the Balti language of Tibet.”
Another website says “no one knows where or when stick first met ball after the horse was domesticated by the ancient Iranian (Aryan) tribes of Central Asia.”
Polo was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1939 but today is played professionally in only Argentina, England, Pakistan, India, and the United States. Maybe China will soon add to that list.
The Federation of International Polo says:
Be that as it may, in all probability these ancient civilizations picked up the sport from the Central Asian nomads whose home was the saddle and whose writ ran from the Great Wall of China in the east to the Caspian Sea in the west.
It seems absurd for any country to lay claim to something derived from nomads, who by definition didn't stay or even originate in one place.
Posted by: davesgonechina | October 21, 2007 at 02:35 AM
Let me correct an omission, thanks to a kind reader in Australia. He wrote me the following email:
Hi Tim,
As a long-term China resident and avid reader of your blog, please accept my congratulations.
However, as an Australian and former member of a polo club. I need to take issue with the omission of OZ from your list of countries where polo is played professionally.
The game is very popular in OZ at both the amateur and professional levels. The late Kerry Packer was a polo fanatic and hosted 40 goal competitions near his property, Ellerston, in rural NSW. Being a billionaire, he could afford to buy the best international players.
In international polo circles, Kerry Packer is given much of the credit for revitalizing the game at the international level. In 1994 and 1995, the Packers won the Gold Cup at Cowdray Park and have consistently rated highly in world competition during the last decade.
Just thought you'd like to know. Keep up the great work.
Kind regards,
Edward
Posted by: Tim J | October 21, 2007 at 07:09 AM
just quoting from http://sportclubs.ucdavis.edu/horsepolo/history.htm
a story that is too familiar to us, the North Easterners:
QUOTE:
Polo came to the west via Manipur, a northeastern state in India. The Guinness Book of Records in its 1991 edition (page 288) traces the origins of the game to Manipur, circa 3100 BC, where it was known as Sagol Kangjei. According to historical accounts, one British government official stationed in Manipur (then a princely state) during the late 19th century wrote an account of the sport, and thus its popularity spread.
As further proof, it is recorded during the House of Lords debate on Juvraj Tikendrajit's trial on 22nd June 1891, the Marquess of Ripon said about Manipur "it is a small State (Manipur), probably until these events took place very little known to your Lordships, unless, indeed, some of you may have heard of it as the birth place of the Game of Polo."
The 10th Hussars at Aldershot, Hants, introduced polo to England, in 1869 after reading an account of the game in The Field magazine. The game's governing body in the United Kingdom is the Hurlingham Polo Association, which drew up the first set of formal British rules in 1874, many of which are still in existence.
The sport became popular amongst European nobility, but during the early part of the 20th century, under the leadership of Harry Payne Whitney, polo changed to become a high-speed sport in the United States, differing from the game in England, where it involved short passes to move the ball toward the opposition's goal. Whitney and his teammates used the fast break, sending long passes downfield to riders who had broken away from the pack at a full gallop.
Posted by: Pri | October 21, 2007 at 01:22 PM
How dare anyone contend that everything was not invented by the great and powerful china!
Off with your heads(for later use in polo by central Asian nomadic royalty)!
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 21, 2007 at 02:54 PM
I just saw a feature on CCTV about this guy, who renounced his British citizenship to ride for China in '08. I wonder what the REAL reason behind this was. Could it be the 2 million pounds he was offered? Hmm....very shady indeed. (They failed to mention the $$ on CCTV, of course...)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/09/wchina109b.xml
Posted by: canrun | October 22, 2007 at 07:00 AM
Isn't polo originated somewhere in Mongol ? back in those days, who were most capable on horseback other than the Mongols .
Posted by: Iknow | November 05, 2007 at 12:14 PM