Fun and sports all over land

The most fascinating side of competitive sport lies in its unpredictability, which can always arouse emotions - especially when the athletes are from your home country.

Mass sports represent a different and relaxed way of viewing and playing sports.

I never knew hundreds of people exercised in conditions which could fall to -30 C in Changchun's Shengli Park until I went there with a media team last winter - even though I grew up in Changchun.

I discovered in my travels that some people would walk 12km over mountains to participate in a sports meeting. That story was told to me in the village of Bashan, a quiet hamlet in Shaanxi province.

My recent journey to Shanghai revealed a different tale. Shanghai has produced lots of Olympic champions and sporting icons - such as Olympic champion hurdler Liu Xiang, basketball star Yao Ming and table tennis world champion Wang Liqin.

However, the metropolis is now making efforts to become a pioneer in mass sports.

Our media group was scheduled to follow the city's orienteering challenge on the first day of our trip. To be honest, I've never been to an orienteering event, and the concept of a race snaking its way through the city's busiest districts intrigued me.

After a short drive, I found myself in a sea of orange. All the participants, ranging from children to the elderly and amateurs to the more experienced, were all dressed in orange and ready to start a race in which they had to finish different tasks at six Shanghai landmarks.

Those included asking a stranger to take a photo for them to get more people involved in the event, and also working out a jigsaw puzzle patterned in Quick Response Code to find out their next task with iPhone software.

Along the route we saw numerous streams of participants amid the modern buildings and curious passers-by slow down to watch the proceedings.

I was also impressed in Shanghai by an electronic sports meeting, in which people stood in front of a sensor and a big screen and the figure on the screen ran or swam according to the reactions of the participant.

There was a lot more to do in Shanghai, and I found the locals really enjoyed the mass sports initiative. The city's first Citizens Sports Meeting will last until November and, hopefully, this interesting and healthy environment will pass from Shanghai to more Chinese cities.