Myanmar's chinlone ball sport threatened by conflict and rattan shortages

Summary

Mastering control of the ever rising and falling rattan chinlone ball instils patience, a veteran of Myanmar’s traditional sport says. “Once you get into playing the game, you forget everything,” 74-year-old Win Tint says. “You concentrate only on your touch, and you concentrate only on your style.” Chinlone, Myanmar’s national game, traces its roots back centuries. Described as a fusion of sport and art, it is often accompanied by music and typically sees men and women playing in distinct ways. Teams of men form a circle, passing the ball among themselves using stylised movements of their feet, knees and heads in a game of “keepy-uppy” with a scoring system that remains inscrutable to outsiders. Women, meanwhile, play solo in a fashion reminiscent of circus acts – kicking the ball tens of thousands of times per session while walking tightropes, spinning umbrellas and balancing on chairs placed atop beer bottles. Participation has declined in recent years with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil conflict. Poverty is on the rise, and artisans face mounting challenges in sourcing materials to craft the balls. Variants of the hands-free sport, colloquially known as caneball, are played widely across Southeast Asia. In Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, participants use their feet and heads to send the ball over a net in the volleyball-style game “sepak takraw”. In Laos, it is known as “kataw” while Filipinos play “sipa”, meaning kick. In China, it is common to see people kicking weighted shuttlecocks in parks. Myanmar’s version is believed to date back 1,500 years. Evidence for its longevity is seen in a French archaeologist’s discovery of a replica silver chinlone ball at a pagoda built during the Pyu era, which stretched from 200 BC to 900 AD. Originally, the sport was played as a casual pastime, a form of exercise and for royal amusement. In 1953, however, the game was codified with formal rules and a scoring sy...