Tyler Street in Chinatown is an outdoorsman's nightmare. Hereyou have parking spaces only a Yugo owner would love, brick buildingsfighting for elbow room, churning noises from central air exhauststhat make it difficult to hear yourself scream. Hard to believescores of people bypass expansive recreation centers in spacioussuburbs to join their inner-city counterparts here under a 60-footcanvas bubble.
But the South Cove YMCA on Tyler is where Chinese adults andyoungsters learn and hone their skills at nine-player volleyball, anAsian version of a game played by their ancestors since the turn ofthe century. They train for hours in this cramped, dimly litfacility year round -- in preparation for an annual three-day eventingrained in Chinese-American history for 51 years.
Many people beyond the spheres of Chinatowns throughout theUnited States and Canada have not heard of the North American ChineseInvitational Volleyball Tournament. But each Labor Day weekend, morethan 60 teams and thousands of spectators from North AmericanChinatowns converge on a city for three days of match play and socialactivity.
'It's not really a sporting event, but a social gathering,' saidBob Guen, former tournament executive committee chairman and currentassistant coach for the Boston Knights, one of the teams at the SouthCove YMCA, which trains for the meet.
'It's a community thing, a cultural thing. People who play inthe tournament play for pride, pride for their community, pride tofollow in their father's footsteps.'
The tournament began in Boston's Chinatown in the 1940s. It wasstarted by Chinese immigrant laundry and restaurant workers wholabored six days a week, up to 18 hours a day, but found recreationactivity limited because of strict immigration laws preventingtravel. They were often left with little to do on Sunday, their dayoff.
'There was a branch of the YMCA on Tyler Street, and it had avery small backyard, but it was big enough to accommodate a smallvolleyball field,' said Henry Oi, one of the tournament's founders.
'Volleyball was picked as the sport to play because at thattime, most of the Chinese immigrants were from Canton, and volleyballwas the sport of choice in China. Every village had a team thatwould challenge other village teams. It was like baseball here; youlearn when you're a little kid.'
And they learned to play nine-person volleyball, a faster,livelier game than the six-person variety. There is no rotation ofplayers or switching of sides in the nine-person game. A side canregister a point regardless of which side is serving. A ball playedoff the net counts as one hit, as does a block. Moreover, the sportdoes not discriminate according to size; taller players stand closeto the net, shorter players in the rear.
'The game is also economical for a team; all you had to do was buya ball,' said Oi. 'If you didn't have a net, you just picked up acouple of ropes.' The founding players often tied one end of thenets to fire escape stairs when they were short of a pole and madeballs from cloth.
Word spread to the Chinatown in Providence, and players therecame to Boston to play the sport enjoyed in their homeland.Subsequently, New York got in on the act, and 1945 marked the firsttournament, between New York and Boston. Labor Day weekend waspicked because the laundry workers had a rare two days off andbecause of a special $2 round-trip excursion train fare from New Yorkto Boston.
'You have to understand that under the immigration laws, we couldnot bring our wives and children over with us,' said Oi. 'So many ofus spoke little English. There were many communication barriers.
'The primary reason for the tournament was to communicate witheach other. It was a challenge and a recreation, but the mostimportant thing was to communicate. We were promoting friendshipsand finding out what other immigrants were doing, what their thoughtswere.'
The tournament was interrupted during World War II, but afterwardbecame a reunion for veterans. Many teams consisted totally ofveterans.
For five decades, the tournament had maintained its identity andpurpose, despite having stretched across the continent. Now thetournament site rotates each year to Chinatowns in Boston (site ofthe 1994 event), Washington (this year's site), San Francisco,Chicago, Toronto and Montreal. Women's teams began play in 1977.The Boston Knights, formed in 1961, were the first American-bornChinese to play in the tournament. Last year they finished fourth,their best ever. 'We founded this club to show immigrants thatAmerican-born Chinese can play it, too,' said Knights founder andsenior adviser Reggie Wong.
Once a week, the team trains at a gym at Boston City Hospital.On other days, it trains at the fence-enclosed bubble that is SouthCove YMCA -- on the same block as the abandoned building that used tohouse the old Y.
Built in 1971, the South Cove YMCA has no working waterfountains, no air conditioning. 'During the summer months, it canget so hot that there's a layer of sweat on the floor,' said Knightsplayer Seton Seto.
The bubble was built after the old YMCA closed, yet it wassupposed to be temporary, until a new Y was built. Folks inChinatown are still awaiting the groundbreaking. 'At the time thebubble went up, we thought we had a gold mine,' said Guen. 'Wedidn't know better.' Meanwhile, the bubble has deflated three timessince 1971, once during the blizzard of 1978.
Chinatown residents are appalled at this situation. 'The kidshave been too good down here,' said Guen. 'We don't have juveniledelinquent problems, like drugs and crime. You don't see graffiti onour walls. And yet we don't get the kind of attention or funding asother areas of the city.
'You don't see major courts here. We have policed ourselvesthrough athletics and we keep our kids straight through athletics,but we don't get support.'
Boston police detective Ben Leong agreed with Guen's assessment ofjuvenile crime in the area. 'They do have a low crime rate comparedto some parts of the city,' he said. 'When you're talking about thedowntown area, you're talking about the Combat Zone being right nextdoor {to Chinatown}, and there are a lot of homeless in the area.But as for the youths in the Chinatown area, there's no bigproblem.'
The lack of a quality facility has not stopped suburban playersfrom returning to the area where their parents grew up. 'I'm surethere are recreation centers in Newton,' said Donald Wong, whoattends Newton South High. 'But I don't go out there to any.
'The people bring me here. Friends from my school told me aboutit. It's harder than the volleyball I learned at school; I'm stilllearning.'Seto said that as the Boston Knights have become better, emphasis onwinning the tournament has increased. 'This club is more like afraternity than anything, but there are teams that are moreathletically oriented. They're really there to win,' he said.'There are a lot of NCAA All-Americans playing now, so the level ofcompetition has skyrocketed in just two years.'
South Cove players frequently make their way onto GlobeAll-Scholastic teams. Seto made the team in 1991; Donald Wong was aSuper Team member in 1994.
This year three players made the list, including Jacky Lei, asenior setter/hitter from North Quincy High who made the Super Teamin only his second season on the high school squad. Denny Ching, asenior setter/hitter from O'Bryant, and North Quincy's Ken Goon (207career blocks) were All-Scholastics.
Yet they say the nine-player game does not supplement thesix-player game. 'It's very much a different game,' said Seto. 'Itis so different you couldn't really feed off here to play six-man.Defensive positions and everything are just toally different.'
Moreover, players do not even consider applying their talentstoward athletic scholarships. 'We have never geared it to thatrespect,' said Reggie Wong. 'The way we feel is that any outstandingathlete should be able to qualify for an academic scholarship.
'This is intramurals. What it does is give the young{professionals} a chance to do networking, to get involved with otherChinese.'
The tournament has come a long way from Boston's Chinatown streetsin 51 years. In the 1940s, even the $2 fare from New York was alarge expense (some workers made only $10 a week). This year playerswill charter buses as well as fly to Washington, and accommodationsare at the Grand Hyatt.
That's a far cry from the bubble on overcrowded Tyler Street.It's also an example of how much you can do with little. 'It's beengoing strong for 51 years,' said Oi. 'We must have done somethingright back then.'
