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  • Año de Publicación:
    2011
  • Autores:
  • -   Hyoungseob
  • Revista:
    Chinese Literature
  • Volumen:
    69
  • Número:
  • Páginas:
    21–46
  • ISSN:
    1226-2943
This article aims to analyze ancient Chinese soccer culture from Song(960-1276) to Ming(1368-1644). Soccer game was called by cuju(蹴鞠) in the traditional China, which was selected in 2006 as a national intangible cultural heritage by a government-related organization. This article is an attempt to analyze various cultural and social contexts of ancient Chinese soccer game leaping over the understanding to consider it as a simple game. Here I especially focus on women's soccer reproduced in literature such as Chinese classic poetry, drama, novel.Soccer, in other words cuju became one of the most popular game in Song's society from emperor to all the people. Soccer culture in Song showed a tendency to be commercial and professional in various aspects. Customer could have the opportunity to choose soccer ball of various quality according to their own use purpose. The organization constituted of professional soccer players appeared such as qiyunshe(齊雲社). Also, soccer books were published, which dealt with the expert knowledge of soccer. Women's soccer became more prevalent with the public popularity and interest. The description of women's soccer was an important part of soccer culture reproduced in literature. Though soccer game always was popular among men in traditional China, and was played especially on the Haishi Day and the Qingming Festival.Women's soccer had the peculiarity of an artistic performance at a banquet after Song, just like kinds of songs and dances. Women's soccer gradually existed as a kind of performance at a brothel, distinctly during Yuan and Ming. Customer at a brothel had a sexual relationship with a player and prostitute after enjoying the performance of women's soccer. In relation to this circumstances, the description of women's soccer in Yuan drama and Ming novel showed the decadent mood and trend of eroticism to induce erotic stimulation.I think that women's soccer in those days existed as a kind of amusement at private and closed places without occupying a open and social position, and this phenomenon was connected with the spread of Neo-Confucianism and the decline of soccer's popularity.Above-mentioned qiyunshe was concerned with women's soccer. In the traditional China qiyunshe played several important roles of the propagation of soccer culture and value, the improvement of kicking skills, the diffusion of field rules etc.