Promoting Western Sport and PE Ideas in China Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Abstract

A personal narrative account is provided in the hope that sports professionals and others who work in China can gain benefit from the author’s own experiences when promoting Western philosophies of sport and physical education (PE). Hofstede’s cultural comparison framework is utilized to shape personal accounts and place the lived experiences in a theoretical context. The author’s own journey of cultural awareness and ongoing reflection provides many interesting vignettes which can serve as important lessons for the future. Ignorance that stemmed from the difficulty in gaining knowledge of the Chinese education and sports systems has been replaced by first-hand experiences of teaching and a realization that the Western philosophy of PE can actually be viewed as a reincarnation of core Chinese teachings.