JIACHEN SHEN 沈嘉辰 jiachenshen601@163.com shenjiachen61
12/2022

You Can Even
Play Football in China



Despite being the most popular sport in the world, football is not regarded as a socially beneficial or active activity in China. Instead, it projects a negative, sportive, and amusing image, creating an odd social landscape. football-based gymnastics is a product of abnormal pursuit of political achievement in physical education in China. The project, which constructs a magical realism modeling animation, drives people to review the conflict between personal strength and the state machinery, as well as the role of sports in the daily lives of the public. 
Sea cucumber is an invertebrate. It is an expensive and rare dish at a traditional Chinese dinner. Meanwhile, it is recognized as a valuable tonic in Chinese medicine due to its numerous specific tonifying and health care properties. However, owing to a sea cucumber endorsement ad aired after the Chinese men's national football team lost a match in January 2022, the term "sea cucumber" has come to be associated with mocking up football and other sports in which China's national team performs poorly. The first implication is that it is unacceptable for Chinese football players to lose a match while still being able to consume this superior cuisine. The second meaning holds that Chinese football players, like sea cucumbers, are raised in perfectly bad conditions, thus resulting in their fragile, delicate physique and lack of athletic ability. Since then, every practitioner related to football in China will be labeled with "sea cucumbers". 
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