The culture gap (again)

Some Chinese friends were telling me the other day that they'd been out to watch the final day of the China Open tennis tournament last weekend.   They admitted that they had a problem with their attention span, that it was difficult to keep their interest up through the course of two fairly long matches.   Well, fair enough - it's a challenge for anyone.  And tennis is still a fairly new and unfamiliar game here in China.  It was scarcely played here at all 20 years ago, and this is not a nation that's grown up watching the game, becoming attuned to its many nuances.  Of course Chinese spectators are going to get a bit restive, disappear for long breaks in the middle of matches.  Only natural.  Not the end of the world.   But my friends also told me that this impatience had grown so severe that many people left as soon as the last match - the Ladies' Final, I believe - was over, and there was hardly anyone there at all to watch the presentation of the trophies.  The way they told me this implied that at least they had stayed to watch the presentation - although I didn't like to enquire too closely about this.  They sounded as though they realised that this was unfortunate behaviour, but they didn't really seem to be disapproving of it - and sounded regretful that they hadn't done likewise themselves.   To me, this seems to be the most outrageous bad manners.  These sportsmen run themselves ragged for two hours or more, entertaining you with their skill and effort - and you can't even be bothered to wait around another 5 or 10 minutes to applaud them?   I mean, you wouldn't rush out of the theatre before the curtain calls, would you??  Well..... if you're Chinese, perhaps you would.     Last night, I was watching highlights of Rafa Nadal's 2nd round match against James Blake in the Shanghai Masters earlier this week.  It was a superb contest.... and the arena was almost deserted.   It looks as though it will be a very long time before tennis builds up much of a following here.  I fear it will also be a very long time before Chinese standards of etiquette at sporting events evolve to what we would wish them to be.