Play and Leisure in Asian Cultures - Essay Example

Play and leisure in Asian Cultures Introduction Play and recreations plays an important role into the development of a society as they not only reflect about a society’s values and ethics but also provide an opportunity to engage into healthy and constructive activities. Besides play and leisure activities are considered as as old as modern history of world can go back as play and leisure activities are often considered as natural to the people but also provide a tool to live a healthy lifestyle. “Leisure can provide a variety of functions in facilitating and maintaining culture and ethnic practices. First, groups can pass on their cultural practices from one generation to the next through leisure activity. Elders in Aboriginal culture often teach special skills and the old ways to their children and grandchildren through leisure. Second, the use of leisure as a renewal of cultural practice can also lead to healing so often referred to by Aboriginal people. Aboriginal communities are often inflicted with many addictions and negative behaviors which have threatened their actual survival. Leisure has been used as a forum through which healing takes place, especially among the youth. Third, leisure activity can be used as an agent of interface between one culture and another. For example, ice hockey in Canada is often used by Aboriginal people to enter and learn the rules of the dominant culture. Additionally, these leisure activities are often a means for two cultures to interact and stereotypes can be broken down as a result of this contact. “ (Reid and Welke) Historical evidence suggests that the sports and recreational activities are human activities which developed as men evolved with the passage of time. It is often argued that while defining a culture whether the play and recreational activities should become part of the culture or not. Culture is often been described as the expression of human behavior in its different modes of living and thinking and its every day activities therefore with that domain play and leisure activities are often considered as part of the culture. (Nakornkhet). However as the human evolution took place, the form of play and leisure started to differ according to the various cultures and communities within which different classes of human beings started to live. It was because of this reason that the different cultures evolved different kinds of play and leisure activities of their own. This work will undertake to study the play and leisure activities within Asian cultures however before discussing the issue a theoretical background will be presented to define the role of play in leisure activities within a society and culture. Culture, play, leisure and theory It is often being argued that one of the challenges which are faced by the researchers is their inability to formulate a comprehensive theory regarding the development of theoretical framework of play and leisure that is ethnic based and takes into account different cultural as well as social variables into account. (Walker, Deng and Dieser). This often happens because of the varying degree of cultural factors that impact the play and leisure in individual cultures. While discussing the play and leisure into researchers often considers the issue from various perspectives like play and leisure from the perspective of women, children, males, women etc as play and leisure activities tend to differ according to age, sex and social status of the persons involved into it. Apart from this, the folklore is often taken into consideration as it is increasingly becoming a promising area of investigation into the various human attitudes and cultures. The influence of folklore is thus great when formulating a theoretical framework on the play and leisure activities set within cultural settings. From the psychological point of view it is often believed that the folklore tend to define the interpersonal relationships among the players therefore play from the perspective of folklore help psychologists to under the development of social life of the adolescents within any culture and provide an ample opportunity to study human development from the perspective of the culture and ethics. Play and leisure into Asian cultures From the primitive ways of playing and passing leisure activities to the new and modern video games playing on computer and playstations, the play and leisure activities have basically altered in most of the Asian societies. However, in order to study the play and leisure into Asian Culture, it is very important that we must first start from the villages of the Asian cultures as they are considered as most important centers of cultural activities including play and leisure. Within Asian cultures, the games and leisure activities often concentrate on group dynamics as there is more stress on developing the group coherence and reliance on developing a collective identity while playing games and engaging into leisure activities. Similarly, leisure and playing activities in the villages take place in the presence of the elders of the village where at the end of play or leisure activity, elder(s) deliver a long folk story to the youngsters so that ancestral traditions pass through to the present generation and from them to the next and future generations to come. Further, it must also be noted that the games and leisure activities show strong sub-cultural tendencies within Asian cultures. Take an example of India where people belonging to the same community but different caste tend to develop strong rivalries among themselves during festivals and games competitions. It would therefore not be easy to discount the influence of culture onto the play and leisure activities within these cultures. As discussed above that village are the right grounds to study the play and recreational activities in Asian culture because villages have more strong cultural orientation and primitive cultural values are still prevalent there. The increasing urbanization into Asian cities has diluted the demographics of those cities thus rendering them a fine mix of heterogeneous population from different cultures and sub-cultures. Because of this factor, a uniformed pattern of sports and recreational activities have not emerged. Cities especially in India, Pakistan, Srilanka and Bangladesh are mostly concentrated with population who like to play cricket as their favorite sports whereas other Asian countries especially Arabs tend to have inclinations towards football as their favorite sports. Similarly Far East nations show an entirely different inclination towards sports which mostly involved sport activities involving strong physical agility and mental presence such as Martial Arts and Karate. Due to the diversity of the region therefore there are different and varying degrees of sports and leisure activities and hardly there is a uniform pattern into them. However, countries which remained under imperialism tend to have uniform patterns in terms of play however countries which did not remained under Imperialism tend to show different patterns unlike Europe where Football tend to dominate the scene in almost whole region. It must also be noted that the design of the festive activities within these cultures also take place according to the local culture of the area where these festive activities tend to take place. The design and architecture of the festive area are designed according to the local cultural traditions with little bit or not variations take place from the way these activities were performed by their ancestors. Besides the development of the playing and leisure settings, the rules and the procedures of these playing and festive activities also took place according to the cultural traditions of that area. “Research across almost all cultures consistently shows that its the females who decide 80 percent or more of the time, where and when families spend disposable leisure time and money. And if the family has children, although children may not decide where the family goes, they definitely have a strong voice in where the family does not go for leisure. Women and children think, feel, process their senses, act and perceive the world and their experiences differently than each other and much differently than men. Their leisure preferences and needs and how they experience environments are different from each other and from men. Their brains are wired differently, both by nature and nurture (including local culture), and they have different skills. And children differ amongst themselves based upon their stages of development.” (White). However studies also suggest that Asian cultures as being more of male dominated in nature tend to give less preference to the women while deciding about the play and leisure activities. As discussed below that Asia having the strong religious diversity tend to provide restricted access to the women especially to the play and leisure activities. Religion, play and leisure activities It must be noted that Asia is a country having multi-ethnic and religious orientation. From having Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in majority, this continent provide a rich opportunity to study the play and leisure activities in their cultural orientation. However, because of the strong religious values of the majority of the population of the region, religion has strong influence over the play and leisure activities in Asian Cultures. Most of the Muslim countries in the region do not allow women to freely participate into games and other festive activities. Some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran have strong religious rules and values which virtually restrict the participation of women into the playing activities at large scale. However, Researchers have argued that the lack of participation of women into leisure activities is not only because of the religion but also it happens when women fail to identify themselves with a definite and proper culture. This argument is further strengthened by the fact that within some Asian cultures, marriages end to take place often out of families and clans thus after marriage, women tend to move from one subculture to another which may be one of the variable to restrict the participation of women into play and leisure activities in most of the Asian cultures especially India and Pakistan. Studies on the Iranian women suggested that most of the women seldom took part into the sports whereas their recreational activities include watching TV, listening to radio and other family gatherings with little or no outdoor activities. (Arab-Moghaddam, Henderson and Sheikholeslami). These kind of studies strongly suggest that the play and recreational activities within some of the Asian cultures are not only restricted to all members of the society but they are more of male oriented in nature. It is also because of the religion that we found marked differences between the play and recreational activities of most of the Asian cultures. Asian cultures which are Muslim in their religious orientation explicitly disallow playing games involving speculative activities such as lottery, cards and even trading on the stock exchange such as short selling of stocks. These kinds of restrictions because of religion disallow many activities to take place. Similarly during festival activities, Muslim countries do not allow drinking wine or any other liquid which intoxicate a person however in other Asian cultures such kind of bindings or restrictions are not imposed either by the government or the society itself. Shifting patterns in play and leisure in Asian culture However despite the religious constraints and other male dominated variables, the way play and leisure took place within Asian cultures is changing. The education and the emergence of information technology. Asian cultures were dominated by the sports activities on group dynamics are now tend to loosen their grip on the new generation as more and more emphasis is being placed on information technology to deliver play and leisure activities. Video games have now become a norm in almost every Asian culture where children especially tend to play with computers without involving any other human being as opposed to traditional Asian values. Further, the growing urbanization in the region has shifted or rather diluted the cultures and subcultures in the region giving rise to the decrease in the play and recreational activities as traditionally they took place in Asian society. India is the largest producer of films in the world where watching movies on cinema was probably the most important recreational activity for the whole nation however with the advent of satellite television this trend is shifting also as pirated movies are easily available and one can easily watch them on cable television services without paying high price of going to cinema houses. Similarly, theater is also on the decline mostly due to the technological shifts which have perhaps shifted the consumer patterns more radically than expected. Similarly, Chinese theater is believed to have become too nationalistic in its orientation thus restricting the emergence of any uniform patterns into recreational activities in the region. Similarly many Asian countries are including the play and recreational activities into their preschool education thus formalizing the play and sports activities. However, this step seem to take out the cultural element from the play and recreational activities as traditional touch in the sports and play may be lost and play would only be limited to an activity to keep a balanced and healthy physical life style and not as an activity which involve strong social as well as cultural values and become part of the upbringing of children within a particular cultural as well as social settings in which these sports and leisure activities evolved. Conclusion Asia, as a region has strong diversity in terms of cultures and various ethnic patterns and it is because of this reason that it is one of the richest areas in terms of sports and leisure activities. Play and leisure activities in Asia are largely dominated by two variables. One is culture which is more prevalent in societies where religion does not have much significance in the peoples’ lives whereas the second variable is religion which is stronger force even in the presence of cultural forces. Religion tends to shape the religious and leisure activities in most of the Muslim countries in Asia whereas culture has significance in other countries. Traditionally these activities took place in villages however with increasing urbanization these patterns are tend to shifting and now play and recreational activities are not approached in the way earlier generations in Asia tend to approach them. Works Cited Arab-Moghaddam, Narges, , Karla A Henderson and Razieh Sheikholeslami. "Womens Leisure and Constraints to Participation: Iranian Perspectives." Journal of Leisure Research 39.1 (2007): 109+. Nakornkhet, Kasem. "Cultures and Sports Preference." Asian Folklore Studies 48.1 (1989): pp. 107-121. Reid, Donald G. and Sue Welke. " Leisure and Traditional Culture in First Nations Communities." 1998. Journal of Leisurability. 23 May 2008 . Walker, Gordon J., Jinyang Deng and Rodney B Dieser. "Culture, Self-Construal, and Leisure Theory and Practice." Journal of Leisure Research 37.1 (2005): 77+. White, Randy. "The Role of Culture in Location-Based Leisure Design." 2000. White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. 25 May 2008 . Read More