Manly Arts

i have been watching some of the Olympic Games on TV. At odd times, catching some unfashionable coverage.

 i liked the women's archery, which went all the way down to one arrow. It was between Mexico and South Korea. i rooted for the Mexican woman, because she was cute and because the Koreans were winning every damn thing. And as the saying goes: 'Poor Mexico: so close to the United States, so far from God'. The Korean won.

The Modern Pentathlon amused me. It was developed by Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, to show the skills of the ideal soldier, namely a cavalry officer caught behind enemy lines. Not an infantryman, mind, a cavalry officer. Coubertin may have had dreams of modernity and internationalism but this sort of classist and Eurocentric thinking places him nicely of his age. Thus, the skills of the Modern Pentathlon are those most manly European pursuits of
epee fencing,
pistol shooting,
equestrian show jumping,
swimming, and
Resident Evil: No Hope Left.*
Naturally at London 2012 there were no Eritreans or Peruvians competing, although there was an Egytpian, bravely challenging the class and race barrier as it manifested itself in some weird early twentieth century time warp.

The manliness bit reminded me of the Mongolian Festival of Naadaan. i went through a big Mongolian phase a while back and learned a lot about it. i even considered a very expensive expedition to the Gobi desert where i would be looking for the extremely rare Little Brown Gobi Bear. The brochure showed lots of pictures of rocks and deserty bits. The itinerary went something like this:

Day One: Ulaan Baatar

Day Two: Looking for the Little Brown Gobi Bear

Day Three: Looking for the Little Brown Gobi Bear

Day Four: Looking for the Little Brown Gobi Bear

Day Five: Looking for......etc

Day Fourteen: Ulaan Baatar

It is almost fortunate that the LBGB is so rare, because if you found one on Day Three what would you do then? You'd have to call the whole thing off.

Anyway the Festival of Naadaan is famous for its four Manly Arts, which are:
wrestling,
horse racing,
archery, and
Resident Evil: No Hope Left.*

i have sometimes thought about the heritage of these sporting festivals, and their genesis in the traditional male activities of war. This is why we throw javelins and hammers, and wrestle and run. These sports are so far away now from modern warfare. If we had sporting festivals based on modern warfare we we have - i dunno - Drone racing over 5,000 kms. Hardly Coubertinian. Hardly sporting.

Perhaps we could have sporting festivals based on the traditional female activites. We could have the 5 km Jog With Child On Hip. Of course we would no longer use real children, but we would have titanium plated aerodynamic child-shaped objects designed for carrying at speed, that cost thousands to design. We would have half forgotten the orginal race that required actual children.

We could also have the 10 km Walk With Pot On Head, the Firewood Collecting, and the Rice Planting Marathon. Not exactly riveting stuff for the viewers. Why are women's activities so unglamorous, repetitive, slow, small in scale, lacking in drama? Gosh, there's a thing.

So we could have an alternative girly Olympics with a programme like this:

5 km Jog With Child On Hip
10 km Walk with Pot on Head
Rice Planting Marathon
Sweatshop sewing  (a recent addition, to account for globalisation)
Synchronised Swimming
The Sims Livin' Large*


* Some of these are not real sports in any part of the multiverse. It's just that i am bad at lists.