Promote Exchanges, Acquiring New Knowledge and Friendship between China and the United States in Sports

[Author] LANG Ping,  Player on the China Women's National Volleyball Team, Head Coach of the Chinese Women's National Volleyball Team, Vice President of the Chinese Volleyball Association (CVA)

[Summary]

During the 2021 Lanting Forum, Lang Ping expressed her honor and willingness to do her part to promote people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.

According to her, volleyball is oriented in the U.S. and has become one of the most popular sports after more than 100 years. Compared with forty years ago when she first learnt to play volleyball, the development during these years were stunning.

When volleyball was firstly introduced into China, she was lucky to learn to play it during middle school. A year after she was selected as a player in the Chinesewomen' s national volleyball team, her team had an opportunity to visit the U.S. and play volleyball match with American players. It was through the exchange that she realized sports is border-free, offering chances for communication to enhance mutual trust, deepen friendship and most importantly, jointly help this sport develop in a better way.

In 2013, when she took the job as the head coach for the Chinese women's national volleyball team for the second time, frequent exchanges between Chinese volleyball player and their American counterparts could be seen. Since most Chinese players can speak English and a lot of American players love to learn Chinese, language was no longer a barrier. Their communication is smooth and joyous.

Last year, most of volleyball events ceased to be held worldwide, but they still invited U.S. national volleyball players to join the league matches in China. It was meaningful that they could still create chance to get together in such a difficult circumstance. This has provided them with confidence in overcoming the pandemic and playing volleyball games in world tournament. Thus, she believes that there will be more interactions and exchanges in volleyball communities, sports circles between China and the U.S. in the foreseeable future.