SF Paai Kau Smash player Jacky Su sends the ball over the net against San Francisco Dynasty Gee Lick Impact during a nine-man volleyball tournament at Lincoln Square Park in Oakland. This version of volleyball has a deep history in Chinatowns all over the U.S.
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On a warm Sunday at Lincoln Square Park in Oakland Chinatown, two nine-man teams lined up on opposite ends of a makeshift volleyball court, along serving lines drawn in white chalk. Each player sank into a deep bow before marching, single-file, to meet opponents at the net and shake hands.
The pregame ritual is a nod to their sport’s nearly century-old heritage in Chinese American communities.
This is nine-man Chinese volleyball, so named because it features nine players on either side of the net rather than the standard six, and because it was introduced by Depression-era Chinese immigrant laborers in American Chinatowns.
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At that June 2 mini-tournament in Oakland, nine amateur teams from San Francisco played for a title and kicked off a season that will culminate in the 79th annual North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament at San Francisco’s Moscone Center during Labor Day weekend.
Spectators watch a nine-man Chinese volleyball match between the San Francisco Dragons and San Francisco Sky at Lincoln Square Park in Oakland. The mini-tournament served as a preview for the annual North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament, which San Francisco is hosting at Moscone Center in September.
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The first Chinese volleyball championship in the city since 2007, it already has seen a record 182 teams from the United States and Canada register, including 85 women’s teams, which follow standard volleyball rules. That’s notable for a scrappy tournament that used to be hosted on Chinatown streets across the country. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, said Norman Woo, 55, a player turned coach, nets were strung up on lampposts and tied down onto cars or water containers.
“I tell my kids now: They get to play indoors, have air conditioning and everything,” Woo said. “Back in the days when we used to play, we played in the streets.”
San Francisco is home to some of the nation’s top nine-man teams, among them SF Paai Kau Smash, which has won six championship titles, including last year’s. Paai Kau means volleyball in Cantonese.
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The tournament rule book dictates that every player must be of Asian descent — and that at least two-thirds are Chinese. The all-volunteer governing board relaxed rules somewhat last year, allowing one Chinese spot on each team to be filled by someone who is at least 50% Chinese.
Willy Wang of San Francisco Dragon Dynasty, center, goes up against four San Francisco Digma players during the nine-man tournament.
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Stalwarts defend the ethnicity requirements, saying they serve as a reminder that the game was developed in an era when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was still preventing Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. and subsequent laws disallowed those who were previously admitted from reentering. Chinese immigrants were, in effect, trapped here, unable to return home.
To unwind on their days off, laborers played volleyball as they’d learned it in their native China, with nine players, according to a handbook published for last year’s tournament, hosted by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Washington, D.C.
“Volleyball made sense for Chinatown,” the booklet stated. “Volleyball was a game that was accessible and affordable for young men with limited means.”
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Chalk or stones could create a court on any street. A bundle of cloth could double as the ball. In the 1930s, the booklet stated, teams from Providence, R.I., and Boston started traveling to play one another. The inaugural tournament was held in 1944 in Boston.
Justin Lam, right, of reigning champs Paai Kau Smash rises up against two Dragon Dynasty players.
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The tradition of holding the tournament on Labor Day weekend pays homage to the working-class roots of the sport, said Joseanna Tse, San Francisco’s representative on the North American Chinese Volleyball Association’s nine-member committee. It was a weekend that all players were off work.
“This game was born under very cultural circumstances,” Tse said. “So the Asian community, mostly the Chinese community, got together and said, ‘This is our thing.’ ”
Others say it is important to have all-Asian sporting spaces to allow younger Asian Americans to connect with their identity and flourish in a sport where disproportionately few athletes are Asian American. In 2023, only 4% of men’s college volleyball players and 2% of women were Asian American, according to National Collegiate Athletics Association data.
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Chris Der, left, plays with his twins, Jacoby and Maddox, 6, during a break in the nine-man volleyball tournament at Lincoln Square Park in Oakland.
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Furthermore, athletes and ambassadors of the amateur sport said they aren’t chasing mainstream popularity.
“We’re not aiming to get on ESPN,” Tse said.
Chinatown’s answer to volleyball
In standard six-person volleyball, three players stand near the net to hit an incoming ball. In nine-man, five or six players do that job, speeding up the tempo and creating more possible plays, say players and coaches. There are other differences.
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The 9-man net, standing at 7 feet, 8.5 inches, is about 3 inches lower than in standard men’s volleyball, which Woo said was because the Chinese players who invented the game were shorter than Caucasian players. Players can also “throw” the ball, not allowed in standard volleyball, by catching it for a split second and slinging it over the net, further accelerating the game’s tempo.
The faster pace attracted Woo to the sport. He had played regular volleyball since he was 10, taught by his grandfather, a volleyball player in Hong Kong and China. As a teenager in the late 1980s, Woo was recruited by older volleyball players in San Francisco Chinatown, he said, for his 6-foot-1 height.
Norman Woo, right, chats with Raymond Chow, center, and his family during the nine-man volleyball tournament in Oakland.
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Playing alongside fellow Chinese Americans from all walks of life, from postal workers to cooks to accountants, Woo honed his jumping and spiking skills and, he said, learned what it means to have a community.
“It was the challenge of being as good as them,” he said.
Retired after herniating three discs in his neck at a 2015 tournament, he has continued his involvement in a different way: coaching Bay Area middle school, high school and college students, free of charge, through a volleyball group that he and his wife, Manda, started called San Francisco Dynasty.
“We see a lot of kids that are talented, but people don’t see that and won’t give them opportunities, especially working-class families in Chinatown,” Woo said. “We give kids who are less fortunate a platform to better themselves.”
Ysidro Gan of Dragon Dynasty sets up for defense against Paai Kau Smash.
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One of his proteges is Ysidro Gan. When he met Woo at 17, Gan hadn’t had his growth spurt. He had been bullied through middle and high school, called “vampire” for his pale skin and “scrawny” for his thin wrists.
But Woo saw potential, watching Gan scrimmage against his daughter’s high school team. He saw a natural athleticism and the heart to be better. Woo tapped him to join Dynasty’s nine-man team.
“Norman always told me, ‘You’re going to be great. You have the potential. Everyone sees the potential in you,’ ” Gan recalled. “I didn’t really see that in myself.”
Twice a week at 9 a.m., Gan would meet Woo and his wife at Ocean Beach to sprint up sand dunes — plyometric training to increase his jumping power.
Now 23 and 6 feet 2, Gan has the job of executing the “fast ball,” leaping just as his teammate “sets,” or directs, the ball into his hand, and throwing it forcefully onto the other side of the court.
In the Oakland mini-tournament semifinal, Gan’s team faced off against Paai Kau Smash, the reigning champs and a team Dragon Dynasty had never defeated. Early in their first match, Gan took three steps, jumped and hurled the ball. He knew he scored before the ball hit the ground.
Gilvin Paniza of Dragon Dynasty celebrates a point against Paai Kau Smash.
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It wasn’t enough to beat Smash in a best-of-three. Dynasty lost 21-15 and 21-17. But it was enough to make Gan feel good about the team’s potential. It is vying for a top five-finish in the championship after ranking ninth out of 93 teams last year.
“I feel like this nationals is going to be very promising,” Gan said. “We definitely want it a lot more this year.”
Reach Ko Lyn Cheang: [email protected]
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