Race, Community at Heart of '9-Man'

From the beginning, race has been central to the sport of 9-man. Imported from Taishan, China, 9-man volleyball came overseas with Chinese immigrants and grew popular in Chinatowns across North America. Due to complications with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, many Chinese men were separated from their families, caught between the home country they left and a new country that was unwilling to fully accept them. “It became this almost all-male society, where men had to…play all these traditionally feminine roles for one another,” Ursula Liang, director of feature documentary “9-Man” said. “9-man was one of those things that helped them bond together and escape the tough lives that they had.”

Race continues to be a point of contention in the 9-man community. Apart from the fact that there are nine men on the court instead of six, 9-man differs from traditional volleyball in three crucial ways: all players must be men, six of the nine players must be “100 percent Chinese,” and all nine players must have some Asian background. There is some unrest in the 9-man community over this rule, but at least for now, it is here to stay. Liang herself is ambivalent on the rule. “I’m not sure it’s my position to feel anything about it…. There are people within the community who feel very strongly one way or the other, and it’s very complicated why they feel one way or the other.”

For Liang, the sport of 9-man has personal significance. She played club volleyball in college at the University of Michigan, but growing up in suburban Newton, Massachusetts, 9-man wasn’t on her radar. It wasn’t until adulthood, playing women’s recreational leagues with other Asian-American women, that she was introduced to 9-man. As a female, Liang was ineligible to play, but her brother did join a team.

“Growing up—my father is Chinese and my mom is German—we had a very limited connection to Chinatown. We would go in for dim sum, and we would do things like that, you know, explore the culture in a very superficial way,” Liang said. “But when my brother joined a 9-man team, he was physically in Chinatown all the time to practice, and he was among Chinese Americans. That kind of experience with the culture was very significant, and it made a very important connection for him.”

It is that underlying spirit of community that is central to the sport of 9-man, and which Liang hopes viewers will pick up in the film. “One of the greatest things for me, when I started to screen the film and get feedback from people, was [when] one of my friends who is Orthodox Jewish watched it and he completely related to the film. And that is something that’s really important to me, that some of the themes in the film are universal,” Liang said. “While on the surface, it’s very specifically a Chinese-American film, hopefully there are other groups that will relate to some of the issues that are brought up in the film, like issues of belonging, or community, or being judged in the realm of sports.”

While the 9-man community is particularly vibrant, sporting communities based around shared factors such as religion and race are not rare. In fact, Liang’s inspiration for the film came in part from “The Fast and the Furious” director Justin Lin’s 2000 documentary “Crossover,” which explores the Japanese-American basketball community.

But for the athletes interviewed in Liang’s documentary, 9-man is what is important. Liang interviewed people ranging from young boys to old men for her film, and all seemed to agree on the importance of the sport. 9-man is something their fathers played and it is something they will pass on to their children: 9-man is special because it is theirs.

—Contributing writer Andrew J. Wilcox can be reached at andrewwilcox@college.harvard.edu.