From: rrhersh@gmail.com   
      
   On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 12:14:13 PM UTC-5, Bob wrote:   
   > And by "big", I mean comparably to Japan or India. Did it start to and get   
   derailed?   
      
   Major modern professional team sports all, to a surprisingly good   
   approximation, originated in Britain or North America.  The question to answer   
   is why anyone else took them up.  The answer is imperialism, whether explicit   
   or economic.  (Think of, e.g.    
   Argentina c. 1900.  It was an independent country, but its technical   
   infrastructure was operated and largely owned by the British.  If the   
   Argentines got feisty the Royal Navy could sail into Buenos Aires harbor and   
   set things straight.)  British    
   sporting culture often was adopted by the local elites, and worked down the   
   social ladder from there.  Hence Indian cricket and Argentine football   
   (soccer).  Japanese baseball was introduced as a delayed part of the Mejii   
   Restoration.  Japan was    
   frantically working to catch up to the West.  Most of this was technology and   
   industry, but all sorts of cultural flotsam was carried with those.  Then   
   after WWII there was an even stronger imperative to take up American culture.    
   Baseball was already    
   known, making it an easy sell.  China?  They never took to the practices of   
   foreign devils.  While the Western powers could boss the government around for   
   favorable trade deals, Western culture had little direct impact on the   
   population.  I am morally    
   certain cricket was played in Hong Kong, but I don't know if it spread to the   
   locals, and it certainly didn't go far on the mainland.   
      
   Richard Hershberger   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)