This aerial photo taken on Aug. 6, 2023 shows a volleyball match held in Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province. [Xinhua/Guo Cheng]

HAIKOU, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) — Following China's Village Basketball Competition and Village Super League, "CunVA," or village volleyball, has become the latest sports fever arising from China's vast countryside.

Concluding Sunday night in Wenchang in the island province of Hainan, the one-and-half-month volleyball league has taken the city — a rising tourist boomtown famous for its space launch center — by storm.

The event has brought together 20 teams from towns and villages, whose players include farmers, fishermen, migrant workers, teachers and middle school students.

"Everyone here can play volleyball," said Fu Chuanxin, 73, the oldest member of the cheering squad of the Dongjiao Town team.

"I've loved playing volleyball since I was very young, and now I'm glad to be a cheerleader since I'm too old to play," he said.

Xu Feng, 43, a player with the Dongjiao Town team, works fulltime at a coconut processing plant. He started playing volleyball when he was eight.

"When I was a child, I watched adults play volleyball every day, so I got to love it," he said, adding that he often plays volleyball after a day's work.

Wenchang, known as the "city of volleyball," has a thriving volleyball culture and a huge fanbase for the sport, which was introduced to the city in the early 20th century by Chinese returning from Southeast Asia.

Fu recalled that in his childhood, there were neither volleyballs nor professional volleyball courts, so villagers would weave coconut leaves into a volleyball, twist coconut palms into a rope and tie it between two coconut trees to form a court.

"It seems to me that the locals see it not just as a competitive sport, but also a source of happiness. They really enjoy the process of playing volleyball," said Xue Ming, a former player of the national women's volleyball team and a guest commentator at one of the CunVA matches.

The latest volleyball fervor has benefited from Wenchang's decades-long drive to improve sports facilities in rural areas. The city with a population of 600,000 now houses nearly 600 volleyball courts and at least one court in every village.

It also builds on the resounding successes of rural basketball and football games, which have brought legions of sports enthusiasts and tourist booms to many otherwise anonymous villages and towns.

Yang Ting, a visitor from the provincial capital Haikou, came to watch the game with her four friends even though she was not a big fan of the sport.

"It's very hot on social media, so we came to enjoy the atmosphere. People here are very welcoming, and they are really passionate about volleyball," Yang said.

Outside the venue of the CunVA matches, several big screens were erected for enthusiasts who failed to get into the packed court to watch the game, while local farmers sell snacks to the influx of tourists and sports enthusiasts.

"We can sell more than 200 roasted chickens on a weekend. Demand always exceeds supply," said Chen Zheng, one stall owner.

Bao Guangyu, director of Wenchang's bureau of tourism, culture, radio, television and sports, said that rural volleyball games have become a new engine of rural revitalization by boosting demand for accommodation, catering and transportation.

The latest statistics show from June 30 to Aug. 13, the city received more than 485,800 visitors and earned about 280 million yuan (about 39 million U.S. dollars) in tourism revenue.

Wenchang is now planning to build an outdoor volleyball venue that can accommodate at least 8,000 visitors, said Bao, noting that in the future they will improve the supporting facilities to better drive sports-related consumption and put the event on the nationwide map. 

People watch a volleyball match on a big screen outside a volleyball court in Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province, Aug. 5, 2023. [Xinhua/Guo Cheng]

(Source: Xinhua)