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The resilience of street basketball – and those who play the game – have much to teach a city at war with itself, argues Niall Fraser
Walk along any Hong Kong street and you will find them. Hard-working, focused and happy youngsters blessed with levels of energy and invention betraying the environment in which they have to perform.
Team spirit and individuality exist cheek by jowl, like two sides of the same committed coin and in most places where this fast-moving pastime plays out, a shifting population of spectators stops by to marvel at the skills on show.
The end-to-end pass, move, block and shoot simplicity of it when done right is dizzying. Not only that, so is the range in age, size, shape and ability of the participants.
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I am, of course, talking about that remarkably resilient feature of our high-rise, shopping mall-dominated city – the humble basketball court and the people who populate it.
It is in these pockets of concrete jungle – built on a quasi-religious desire to know the price of everything and the value of nothing – that, in my opinion, you find the real spirit of Hong Kong.
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This is not top-down, officially organised sport. No money changes hands, everyone plays to the same rules and everyone wants to win. Yet the whole endeavour is imbued with a sense of decency and respect, devoid of which it would cease to exist.
