Transcending Collectivist Culture: An Examination of Male Chinese Athletes’ Dual Identities in Their Everyday Lives

Abstract

With the prevalence of the ‘rise of China’ discourse that has centred on China’s rapidly developing economy following the success of its open-door economic reform, the country’s sporting industry has also grown substantially. With Chinese athletes’ many recent achievements in international competitions, as well as China’s showcasing of synchronised mass spectacles, notably in the 2008 Summer and 2022 Winter Beijing Olympics, Chinese athletes are increasingly being recognised in the global sporting arena. Against such a backdrop, this article examines how male Chinese athletes understand their own identities in line with the traditional cultural ideal of Confucianism and contemporary cultural notions of post-structuralism and late modernism. Contrary to studies which position Chinese identities as predominantly collective, I put forward the argument that Chinese athletes are also individualists; they perform their dual forms of identities, which operate along the binary axis of collectivism and individualisation, in their daily lives.