On sport

I'll confess to a certain amount of exhibitionism in sports: to play tennis, badminton, football, I want the setup--a court with a net and lines and set boundaries, let alone the intricacies of gear.
Each is a game of rules and prescriptions, of black and white verdicts and judgments.
With boundary lines, there is a set "IN" and "OUT." With a net, there is a set, "FAIR" and "FOUL."
I love it.

Then came Thailand.

Badminton, tennis, volleyball: play on the street and just keep the damn thing airborne.
Football: the "goal" is to get "it" past the other team. The farang in me looks at a game of kickball with a deflated basketball on a heaving cobblestone court randomly and liberally perforated with tree stumps and thinks, "Who would play soccer with a deflated basketball? On a 'field' without boundary or goal lines?"
Then I'm climbing to the top floor classroom and see more investment and engagement in a game of bottle-cap soccer than any American student would willingly show.
Later, the thirty-and-under crowd from the eight families on a block are batting around a shuttlecock, up down and sideways, among the cars parked on the neighborhood block. Again, the Westerner in me wonders where the boundaries are, where the net is, how they can play without rigidly defined "IN" and "OUT," without the arbitrary black and white.
In this hemisphere, the only golf I've seen has involved two people, two clubs--a putter and a sand wedge--driving a ping pong ball down the street. After great discussion and gesticulation, a "hole" would be agreed upon. One of the guys would hit a "drive" and walk after it until it bounced off the street. He would mark the spot and pass the single ball to the other player, standing where his last drive went out as the other guy backtracked to make his shot.
It had the intensity of a triple-overtime showdown on the PGA tour.

It's a good lesson for me. Especially for me. It's not about the trappings, not about the appearance or display. Exactly the opposite of physical appearances. It doesn't matter what the conditions provided the substance--getting it past the other guy--is present.

Which is odd, in a way, because it's exactly opposite with people--as a teacher, it doesn't matter what you're doing in the lesson as long as you look good. If you're svelte and suave walking in, have incomprehensible-looking notes on the board, you're set.

I want this to be some sort of morality and objectivity issue, to say, "SEE? It's not about the trappings but the content! It doesn't matter if you have the right decor and trappings as long as you have the earnest desire." But it keeps falling flat: Thais need personal trappings while pastimes are matters of an essential, internal drive.
In America, we give the individual the benefit of doubtful trappings and look for personal aptitude, while sport is a matter of trappings. So I wonder if it isn't an instinctive need for substance as well as show--a human adaptation of mating displays, which makes sense for the American displays of activities and pursuits, but makes me wonder about a country where daily life is a hyped-up sort of ritual.