By Zhao Rui (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-11 09:29

There have been hundreds of different halftime shows in the NBA's 58-year history, but I'm willing to bet you've never seen one that involved spaying a goat.

Believe or not, I caught this basketball spectacle in a small Chinese village while covering a rural tournament in the village of Gutang, Anhui Province, in 2005.

But this was the only oddity I encountered in this tiny town - the rest of it was pretty much like any other basketball experience anywhere else in the world.

That may be hard to believe for some Westerners. Since Yao Ming's season-ending injury, lots of American media outlets have depicted Yao's fans as simple Olympic freaks who know nothing about professional sports.

The facilities in Gutang were admittedly not up to professional standards. The stadium, such as it was, had no roof, no stands and not even a concrete floor.

Sure, there were some reminders of the NBA experience - some on-court music and dancing cheerleaders - mixed in with the halftime goat-spaying. But these fans don't need fancy distractions to show their love for the game.

The teams were made up of farmers from eight nearby villages who gather in the winter to play games on their farmland. Players usually eat at farmers' homes and drink the water from local wells so the annual event does not put any financial burden on the village, where an average family's income is only about 2,000 yuan ($250) per year.

But despite these anomalies, to watch these farmers fight it out is to witness first hand the evolution of Chinese sport. China's sports fans are decidedly more sophisticated than Western media make them out to be. They have evolved beyond just Olympics-crazed fans and into experts of professional sports.

Traditional images of Chinese fans involve groups of frenzied people waving red-and-yellow national flags and chanting "Zhongguo jiayou" (Go China!) as their athletes chase Olympic gold in sports like table tennis and volleyball.

Chinese people love their country, after all, and many are willing to pay ridiculous amounts just to see their compatriots taste gold.

I myself brought similar prejudices to the basketball games in Gutang, thinking I was far more educated about professional hoops than they could ever be. I approached one farmer-athlete with this know-it-all attitude after their game. But that 23-year-old farmer, Chen Yong, left me speechless with the knowledgeable questions he asked me after learning I wrote about the NBA.

"Should Suns coach Mike D'Antoni play Barbosa and Nash together on the court? Does Tracy McGrady have a better finger-roll than Geroge Gervin? Who is the fastest point guard in the league, Devin Harris, T.J. Ford or the Answer?"

Chen is just one of 450 million Chinese basketball fans, closely following the dunks and air balls of pro basketball for more than 20 years, from Magic Johnson's no-look passes to Michael Jordan's windmill dunks, all the way to the Rockets' current winning streak without the hobbled Yao.

Chinese fans have evolved beyond simple Olympic freaks and have a much broader understanding of professional sports than outsiders assume and are able to appreciate sports just as deeply as their US counterparts.

They are understandably concerned about Yao's injury, and it does have plenty to do with his availability for the Olympics. But they are also concerned about the Rockets, well aware of their NBA-best winning streak, and the rest of the league as well.

CCTV says TV viewership of NBA games hasn't suffered since Yao went down. That's because China knows pro hoops.