Chinese American Volleyball Tournament Comes to San Francisco 

Over 60 teams compete from all over nation

By Allison Lee
Special to AsianWeek

The stereotype goes that Chinese Americans are studious, highly intelligent, hard-working and ever obedient. They are hardly ever considered athletic. But Asian Pacific American sports leagues proliferating the country are slowly but surely clearing up previous misconceptions. One such example is the North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament (NACIVT).

The tournament has the dual purpose of providing a time and a place for Chinese American teams to prove their prowess and at the same time come together as a community. The rules are that two-thirds of the members on a given must be 100 percent Chinese. That’s six out of nine players. The other three need to be of Asian decent. These are strict rules, but only because the North American Chinese Invitational seeks to preserve the identity of this uniquely Chinese form of volleyball. In contrast to the way Americans play with six men on the court, the Chinese originally played with nine. Volleyball was initially introduced in China by missionaries and gained great popularity there.

The tournament is said to have originated in New York City in 1937, with games between one Boston and two New York teams. Volleyball was popular in Chinatowns across the country since it was available and accessible for young men with limited means. According to the brief history of Chinese American volleyball on the National Volleyball tournament’s website: “All one needed was equipment, and even lacking the special equipment, one could improvise: If there was not a net, you could use a rope or even a piece of string; you could use stone markers to define the limits of the court, or draw its boundaries on the ground with a stick, a ball could be made out of cloth.”

Since the game was played by working-class peoples, Labor Day was an important holiday that volleyball was often played on. Keeping in tradition, the NACIVT is always held on Labor day weekend.

This weekend, San Francisco’s North Beach playground hosted the 58th annual NACIVT. Kicked off by a large scale parade that went from Fisherman’s Wharf to Chinatown, hundreds of young athletes from New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston and Toronto brought tons of enthusiasm to the streets of Chinatown. Colorful Chinese flags, dragon dancing and team cheers brought this parade to life. Adding to the spectacle was the fact that those in the parade were some of the tallest APA men and women ever seen, many of them six feet or over.

Labor Day’s extremely hot weather did not seem to stop hundreds of fans from gathering around outdoor courts marked off by caution tape. The array of talent proved exhilarating as powerful spikes, swift passes and desperate dives provoked “oohs” and “aaaahs” from the enthused crowd. This was no recreational volleyball, the kind you grow up playing at the local park.

This year 32 women’s teams and 30 men’s teams participated in the tournament. An organizer pointed out the vast difference from the mere five teams that participated back in 1970.