First, if you have not yet, watch this video.
This is a very typical situation with sports diplomacy with China. I spoke with a woman who played basketball with her country's national team for more than a decade; her comment about playing China was this:
"We hated coming to China because we knew we were going to get beaten up."
The foreigner soccer leagues in Beijing have banned all Chinese teams for this very reason. If they do not influence the referee, they usually forfiet because they freak out. I watched in awe as a team chased the referee off the field because he gave a red card to a player who said, "Ni ba ge bi." (Your mothers cunt). I played many times in fury as our team would get hammered by Chinese players with no referee action taken, but if we got near the Chinese it was a penalty; one game started with four free kicks in a row, the last being a goal.
Other people have told me similar stories in other sports. A bench clearing hockey fight where the sticks were weapons...In fact, this sort of situation manefests itself in the bar as well, which is why I do not often go to San Li Tun. If some foreigner and a Chinese get into a fight on the street, and I am no the street, I would be a party in that fight and be subject to projectile beer bottles, chairs, and the like. People who live in China are not suprised by the basketball fight; I am suprised that Georgetown would bring their team to China to play with an army team expecting anything different. Run a camp next time!
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