MONTREAL - Not all volleyball tournaments kick with a ceremony and only one gets launched with a dragon dance.
Over 1,500 Chinese-North Americans were on hand as that terpsichorean display launched the 67th tournament, based in Montreal this year.
Teams in the North American Chinese Invitational Volleyball Tournament came from throughout the Can-Am from as far away as San Diego and Washington, DC. Two-thirds of the players on each team are required to be 100 Chinese and the remainder is required to be of Asian heritage as well.
The tournament is the subject of an upcoming documentary by Ursula Liang, who says that it reveals much about the nature of Chinese communities on both sides of the border.
"Canada is a much more multicultural experience and people believe that this is their constituency, that these people matter and that these people vote," she said. "In the US, the Chinese community doesn't have the same kind of political power," said Liang.
Liang notes that the event has deep historical roots.
"It started in the 1930s at a time when it was an all male, all bachelor society and all Chinese restaurant workers and laundry workers -- very working class people -- came together because they had no other way to socialize," explained Liang.
Women are now represented in great number, as 43 of the teams are comprised of women, while 53 were male teams.
Montreal's coach said that the level of play is high.
"It gets pretty competitive. In the past we've had some Olympic volleyball players here," Derrick Chung who is coaching a team his father launched 31 years ago.
"Sure the team that I'm running now and coaching now is a team my dad started basically around the time I was born, so I didn't really have a choice. It's the passing of the torch," he said.
