Chinese kick shuttlecock-like things Friday night.

As Team China racks up the medals, I've encountered puzzlement from several Chinese here over what exactly their athletes are up to.

Fencing? Beach volleyball? Do Chinese play these sports?

The answer is no, but the Chinese government has shelled out mega-bucks to win medals in those sports.

The effort's included hiring foreign coaches and training athletes with no history in what they're competing in.

So you get something like fencing, which the Chinese won an individual gold medal in this past week.

Sword fighting is something Chinese know about, but I challenge you to find anyone practicing European-style epee fencing anywhere in China other than at the Olympic training centers that crank out Chinese athletes.

Or take rowing. There is dragon boat rowing here but one-or-two person rowing teams competing in the middle of a lake, again it's not something you see.

Now, if you were going to organize an Olympics with sports millions of Chinese could identify with, it'd look something like this:

Some Olympic sports would stay - basketball, soccer, table tennis, baseball, gymnastics, diving, indoor volleyball, shooting, track and field, badminton.

Then, you'd add some sports I've seen on the streets here. Such as:

A kind of hacky sack kicking game you do with a variation on a badminton shuttlecock. I imagine this would be judged on artistic merits like gymnastics is. Tonight, I encountered a mass shuttlecock session pictured above while walking back to my hotel.

The martial art tai chu chuan, which is more of a meditative exercise and which armies of people perform in parks here.

Kite flying, which isn't the kind of high-impact acrobatic kite flying people do in parks in the San Francisco East Bay where I lived. No, this would be judged more on the cuteness of the kite, preferably if the kite resembled a cartoon frog or fish. Otherwise, the kite just sort of stays put in the sky.

Then, some other activities I've seen around town which aren't sports but should be:

Urban driving, where the athlete would speed down the wrong side of the road while all manner of pedestrians lunge at him or her with zombie-like fury.

Urban bicycling, where the athlete would weave between moving cars at a glacial pace with a spouse sitting sideways on the back holding a television set.

Tourist-wrangling, where you'd rustle stray tourists into buses headed for Olympic venues and then unsuccessfully urge them to cheer during boring events.

Now, this, the Chinese could get into. A gold medal in shuttlecock would turn you into a national hero for sure.

-Jack Chang