Chinese Companies Fight Through Basketball
Don’t like another company? Just play them in a game of full-court.
This title may be loaded, but let me explain. Many companies in China establish dominance over one another through a simple game of basketball.
Sure, making more money or being more successful is excellent, but does it mean anything if you can’t win a game of full court?
After my Expat Job Search was finally successful, I worked as a social media expert for a tech company in Shenzhen, China. With an immense amount of responsibilities, my own personal content creation has fallen by the wayside at the moment (sorry about that), but one thing hasn’t.
Basketball.
Our company plays together every week. We rent a court, get out there, and sweat out all the stress we gained throughout the work week. As all Chinese companies do, HR broadcasts our out-of-office activities to the world, which leads to a challenge from an opposing tech company.
When our CEO caught wind, he talked a lot of shit, and it was on. Little did our opponent know, they added a 老外 (laowai, foreigner) to their team.
When I First Joined My Company’s Basketball Team
It must have seemed like a miracle for my coworkers when I first joined—messages exclaiming that an “NBA brother” had joined the company. I won’t lie; it was nice to get some recognition, even if it was just for my skin color.
It’s not generally like that in the United States, but in China, as long as you’re American, you must be good at basketball, right?
I’m a six-foot poultry, definitely not tall by basketball standards. Yet, I’m the tallest person at my company, automatically designating me to play the center position (the guy that gets the rebounds) even though I haven’t played it since I was about 13.
Yet, it seemed it wouldn’t matter as our team was pretty damn bad. I believe I’m the only person that played organized basketball, as no one knew what a 1–3–1 or a 2–3 was. No worries, we were having fun during these weekly games with friends.
That was until our company versus company battle reared its ugly head.
It’s Nearly Time to Fight
As you can see from the graphic, things got pretty serious. The company opposing us was reportedly bringing around 100 supporters, so we had to market for our coworkers to come to support us.
Overall we knew nothing of the other team; they could be ex-pro players for all we knew, so nerves were pretty high. All in all, I was just excited to play a “real” basketball game for the first time in years.
Eventually, it was the day of the game, and we had no coach. So someone on the R&D team put together a substitution plan, where we found a huge problem. We had 18 players, which is too much for a basketball team.
Before we had time to figure everything out, it was time to go to war.
The War Begins
Unfortunately, I couldn’t start the game as we were trying to balance the different subs, but I’d have plenty of time to play. We wouldn’t be playing in quarters. Instead, we’d be playing for a full hour and a half, and the first team to reach 120 points wins; interesting rules, I know.
We were all expecting to get crushed, yet somehow we showed up to the occasion. The game was close throughout, and we quickly abandoned our substitution schedule. Overall, I played 90% of the hour and was exhausted.
In the end, we were able to grab the win after much controversy. The referee for the game was their coach; how does that work? Even with this disadvantage, we eeked it out.
As I play rather physically, I guess you can say our companies didn’t become friends, but we took the glory home in front of our supporters. Group chats and WeChat moments rang out with a victory. This experience was something I’d never had before.
For a completely different outcome from a similar story, check out this post:
