Social Culture Study Of Folk Sports In South-Shanxi Area

Folk Sports is an important part of folk culture and the basis of sports culture. Folk sports has been developed from old time to the modern sports and facilitated human's rational development as well. Due to the quick development of the western countries from the pre-modern time, western sports have turned to threaten and invade the traditional sports in all the other countries, especially in China. More and more people realized the importance to protect our national culture during the globalization. The folk sports, under the pressure of western sport and traditional sports, is facing the opportunity to develop today. This study focuses on the folk sports in South-Shanxi, analyzes their condition and opportunity of development and aims to provide a basis of their development.This research has acquired the data with the method of documents and materials, question survey and investigation in rural area, analyzed and organized the data with the mathematical statistics and other theories in social culturology and sociology, described the geographical distribution of folk sports in South-Shanxi, peoples'acknowledgement, attitude and motivation of involvement to the folk sports; analyzed the cultural characteristics, value and cultural meaning of the sports; investigated the opportunity and restraining factors and provided with some suggestions and advices.The research has achieved the following results:1. With the view of the geographical distribution, the seventeen most widely spreading fold sports in South-Shanxi are Yangko dance, stilt, hobbyhorse, land boat, dragon lantern, tug of war, wrist wrestling, rope skipping; kicking shuttlecock, swing, recreation, Hongtong Tongbei boxing, Chafang, skipping rubber band, Dingguai, rolling a hoop, and bouncing balls etc.2. The top twenty popular sports are:Yangko dance, stilt, land boat, kite; waist drum, tug of war, wrist wrestling, rope skipping, swing, kicking shuttlecock, swimming, mountain climbing, riding bicycle, yangko gym, skipping rubber band, bouncing balls, dropping the handkerchief, hide and seek, Dadiebao, and rolling a hoop.3. Peoples in South-Shanxi believe the following folk sports with highly potential of development:Yangko dance, stilt, land boat, kite, wrist wrestling, tug of war, rope skipping, swing, kicking shuttlecock, swimming, mountain climbing, Chinese puzzle ring, skipping rubber band, bouncing balls and dropping the handkerchief. But some of the folk sports might disappear gradually, they are light revolving, kylin dance, brown bear dance, clam and mussels dance, stone roller clipping, stone lifting, iron shoulder pole, swing log, Zaiding, bombarding enemies, hoop rolling, top spinning, and turtle boiling etc.4. With the view of the people's acknowledgement, favorite and willingness, normal people would like to take an active part in the folk sports. The key restraints factor is the acknowledgement of the folk sports and its techniques.5. The motivation of attending the folk sports in South-Shanxi is to make pleasure physically and mentally, to promote health, continue the traditional culture, promote friendship, increase communication, reinforce the group cohesion, develop intelligence, exercise and to have fun.6. The restraint factors included less acknowledgement from normal people, less organization from government, less successor, great changes on life style, more scientific sports, less time, less instructor and more pressure of learning on students.7. The folk sports culture value in South-Shanxi represented as an living fossil of old aged people. It effectively protected and inherited the folk sports culture, enhanced the people's feelings, enriched the cultural life of the spirit of the people. The folk sports in South-Shanxi for its essence is a grassroots culture, parasitic culture, symbolic culture, vulnerable culture, farming culture, regional culture and culture with absence of love.8. The conditions and constraints of the existence and development of South-Shanxi folk sports included:how to meet people's need and the needs of the community, the tolerance from mainstream sports to the folk sports, the tolerance from folk culture to the mainstream and foreign culture, the reasonable and effective extent of the inheritance and propagation of folk sports culture.9. The folk sports in South-Shanxi have four social functions as follows:dividing lines between different regional residents, impacting the rural social behavior, promoting the human solidarity and promoting humans socialization. The folk sports society conflicts in South-Shanxi appears as follows:National sports and folk sports status differences reflected the majority of working people in the sports rights of marginalized; Western sports pressure on folk sports reflected the inequality in different countries; women folk sports project of the equality and participation is feminist fight; sports is China the weakening of the social strata structure changes; folk sports development will be affected by other factors of society. While interactive view of the Southern folk sports is reflected in the South of particular values and life philosophy. According to this proposed folk sports universities teaching materials, strengthening folk sports studies, strengthening folk sports training, strengthening folk sports market cultivation of a development strategy and recommendations.