Tennis A Sociological Perspective Essay Research — страница 3

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some more attractive jerseys and the rising popularity of soccer among girls. Sport, to some degree, and to some people, is a trendy hobby in society. Now a days, tennis is so popular that people from different parts of the world engage in this exciting activity. Although each individual may have a special reason for engaging in tennis, people with the same cultural background are likely to have similar reasons. Significant variations tend to exist across different cultural groups. Cultural relativism is the perception that the values of a specific culture are relatively similar and unique compared to those of other cultures. Because of such uniqueness, it is essential to adjust one’s own assumption in order to study or understand a different culture. According to an

international survey done by Tennis magazine in 1993, in terms of tennis, Australians and the Swedish view it as national sports. It is like ice hockey to Canadians, basketballs to American and gymnastics to Romanians. Many teenagers choose to play tennis in Australia and Sweden because of the success of Bjorn Bjork and Roy Emerson. Bjorn Bjork, a legend Swedish player who won the Wimbledon 5 time in a row plus 4 French Open single titles. Roy Emerson, arguably the best player of all time, holds the men’s record of most single championship of grand slam at 12. Australian and Swedish kids grow up with the knowledge that world champions of tennis were born and raised in their home country and with the dream of continuing the legend. In addition, because the importance of tennis

in Australia and Sweden, children are exposed to tennis in their schools. Because of the early exposure to the game and some famous legendary players in the nations’ history, the young generation of Australians and Swedish continue to see tennis as their national sports or even a tradition. In Hong Kong and Mainland China, reasons for playing tennis are a different story. There, tennis is a symbol of social status. Although in recent years, this special and somewhat erroneous feeling has been on the decline. Yet, tennis is still seen as a high-class activity in many traditional Chinese’s mind. Canadians do not have such strong cultural relativism in tennis. People play tennis for different reasons and few of them are significant or special enough to be considered as cultural

values. The good news about cultural relativism in respect to tennis is that all the values attached to tennis among different cultures are unique and important in nature. Despite the variations in social norms about tennis in different countries, there is not a culture that claims that its reason is better or more important than those of others are. Apparently, the theory of ethnocentrism does not easily apply to the cultural variations about tennis. Ethnocentrism is a thinking that one’s culture is better than others and the difficulty to accept the significance of other cultures. Ethnocentrism is always compared with cultural relativism because both theories emphasize cultural differences and ability to see or accept the importance of such differences. Because of Canada’s

multicultural society, cultural relativism is a much more widely accepted belief than ethnocentrism. To many Canadians, tennis is just one kind of sport, no more and no less. Some people enjoy the amazing feeling of hitting the yellow ball to a remote corner on the court that their opponents do not have a chance to react. To me, tennis is definitely part of my live both on and off court. From where to hit the ball in your next shot to how to promote the game to black females in rural African regions, tennis offers numerous challenges to think carefully. Besides, it is also very interesting when you think about why people may wish to engage in tennis. As you think more about it, you will notice many underlying cultural values and differences. In a sense, tennis is just like an

interesting objects or phenomenon in our society. It gives us pleasure as well as many questions and problems to be solved.