When it comes to surfing, China and California are a world apart.
Here, surf shops dot the coastline and the culture is on display in everything from attire to advertisements. Young kids dream of being surf stars and thousands of surfboards crowd the water on any given day, at times to the point of chaos.
In China, a country with countless pristine surf breaks, only a few hundred people have taken up the sport. Most people shy away from the beach when it’s sunny outside, for fear of tanning delicate skin. The country’s oldest surfers are in their late 20s, the first generation of ocean-lovers who are braving uncharted waters.
The two cultures have collided in recent weeks, as a team of Chinese surfers traveled to Southern California with one goal: to learn our surfing ways.
It’s not just for fun: The trip was paid for and sanctioned by the Chinese government, which wants to train the team to be a contender now that the sport of surfing will have a place on the ultimate stage, in the 2020 Olympics held in Japan.
There’s only one problem. The team, admittedly, isn’t very good.
“There’s a big gap from our level to the top, we have to realize that. It’s a lot of challenge, it’s a lot of work,” said Moyu Huang, the team’s assistant coach, a 29-year-old who goes by the nickname Pablo. “It doesn’t mean it’s not possible. China has this history of making anything possible in a short amount of time.”
A trippy time warp
China’s current epicenter of surfing – if there is one – is in Riyue Bay on tropical Hainan’s southeast coast, an island with pristine waves. For Peter “PT” Townend, the rural nature and uncrowded surf puts him in a time warp, transporting him to what it was like on the North Shore of Hawaii in the 1960s and 70s.
It was in those early days of modern-day surfing that Townend, along with a handful of other Australians and South Africans, changed surfing forever by helping to form an international championship tour in 1976, with Townend the first surfer to claim the title of “world champion.”
Though Australian-born, he has been a Huntington native for nearly four decades and is a well-known figure in the surfing world, helping to promote the sport through various ventures – including as event director for a surf contest that has been held in China for the past few years called the Silver Dragon Shootout, an event held on a tidal bore on the Qiantang River.
It was during that contest last year that he was sought out by members of the government-run water sports bureau the day after it was announced surfing, for the first time in history, was going to become an Olympic sport in 2020.
“How are we going to get good at this?” they asked him.
After officials scouted a list of candidates, Townend was selected as head coach of the China surf team, a challenge he couldn’t ignore.
“I’m coaching China, arguably one of the best countries in the world in Olympic competition,” he said.
He has had many milestones during his long career, a resume that touts a gold medal when he was coach for the USA national surf team in 1984.
If Townend can earn a medal with the Chinese surf team – likely not in 2020, but perhaps in 2024 or 2028 – it would be among the highlights to cap a long career in surfing.
“It would be the swan song, the end. What else am I going to do? I’ll be in my 70s if we’re successful,” he said.
First generation of surfers:
Yan Zhu had just finished college a few months earlier and found herself in a boring office job working in computer networking in the middle of a bustling city.
She’d spend much of the time daydreaming about riding waves, searching online for the best places to surf in China.
“I never been to the ocean. I always wanted to go to the sea,” she said on a recent day in Huntington Beach.
Townend chuckles at the memory.
“She didn’t even know how to swim,” he said.
She quit her job one day – unknowingly to her parents for months – and volunteered to do odd jobs at a beach club on Riyue Bay, eventually becoming a surf instructor.
“They were really angry with me, they were not so happy,” she said. “But I just can’t go back.”
Three years later, she’s the top female surfer from the country, a longboarder who in the past year has been working on her shortboarding skills so she can compete on the International Surfing Association national team, and one day, maybe be part history by joining the first Olympics.
When asked how many female shortboarder there are in China, she held up her fingers and started counting.
“Maybe six?”
Now, being on the surf team is her full-time job, earning a stipend to eat and train from the government to make her one of the country’s best.
“Now I’m on the national team and my parents feel a little bit happy about that,” she said.
Most of the surfers they know don’t even start until after they are 18, or even after college, not permitted by their parents until they finish school.
“They have the same stigma in China that we had here in the 60s here and in Australia – you don’t go to the beach, you don’t go surfing, you go to school and get educated and get a job,” Townend said.
Yuan Hong Zhao – also known as “Alan” – is a 26-year-old who grew up on the sea, hailing from a fisherman’s family. But it wasn’t until six years ago that he surfed for the first time.
He recently became the first Chinese surfer to star in a surf film, focusing on his travels to Bali, an unheard of adventure for surfers from this region. And he was the country’s best performer, coming in third during his second heat, at last year’s ISA World Surfing Games in France last year, the first time China has ever competed on an international stage.
China came in ranked 39th out of 47 countries, behind Russia (ranked 34th), but better than Afghanistan (45th).
I told the government ‘Look, we need to find out who we are,” Townend said. “We don’t even know what we need to do until we known what we are (ranked).”
Townend’s assistant, Huang, has been surfing longer than everyone else on the 12-member team, for nearly a decade. He remembers the exact moment he fell in love with the sport.
“It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon on 8th of October 2008,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “The very first time I stood on the board, it felt like I’m flying. I felt like I experienced something so unique.”
Like the others, his parents weren’t thrilled with his new pastime.
“After that, they were kind of against it because I skipped too many classes,” he said, drawing a chuckle from all the surfers at the table.
History of surf culture:
Townend spent the Southern California trip with seven members of the team not just riding waves and training – which they do eight hours a day – but also teaching the surfers about the culture that drives the passion behind the sport.
They toured the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente to see historical surfboards made by early surfers, and scored some swag at nearby Electric Sunglasses headquarters to learn about a local surf brand. They visited Stamps Surfboards in Westminister, owned by shaper Tim Stamps, to see the board-making process.
“I get really stoked in sharing the experiences with them and trying to teach them about the culture, too. They’ve had no surf magazines, they’ve had no role models, there’s no one for them to follow,” Townend said.
Two surfers entered a National Scholastic Surfing Association contest in Huntington Beach, the first time Chinese surfers have ever competed on the amateur circuit.
“That’s the next piece that needs to happen in China, a domestic competition, so that they get experiences not just surfing against their team or their buddies,” he said.
They scrimmaged against San Clemente and Huntington high school surfers. They even caught a few waves at Lower Trestles during a big swell day when some of the world’s best Brazilians – Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo and crew – crowded the lineup.
“They’ve had more waves here in two weeks than in the entire two months of training in China,” he said.
Their favorite cultural discovery during their “Camp California?”
“They love Mexican food. They never had it before,” said Townend, who introduced them to nachos and shrimp quesadillas.
The team departs from Southern California on Tuesday. Next year, the surfers will travel to train in Australia, Hawaii and then return to California. The government is spending millions of dollars on a high-performance training center, where the team will all live and train constantly in preparation for the Olympics.
Huang said there’s much pride being part of the first generation of competitive surfers.
“The next generation can see that this team started at this level, we can’t go down,” he said. “We need to go up.”
