Pittwater Life October 2019 Issue

Surfing Life
Surfing Life
Turning of the tide: how
about this origin story?
New book throws new light on how – or why – we came to surf...
We all know where
surfing comes from,
right? It’s Hawaiian!
(Polynesian, anyway...) Everyone
knows this origin story. It’s
pretty much an article of faith.
James Cook’s lieutenant
seeing a Tahitian riding waves
in a canoe and being intrigued
by the “supreme pleasure”.
Duke Kahanamoku bringing
the heat at Freshwater in
1915. The spoken legends of
ancient Hawaii, the centuriesold
hardwood boards in
Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. The
petroglyphs of surfers carved
into lava rock along Hawaii’s
coasts.
It’s what we’ve grown up
with, it’s how we understand
our sport.
What if it’s not the whole
truth?
A book I’ve just read – well,
devoured really – throws a
totally different light on the
story.
This book, ‘Children Of The
Tide’, by Italian surfer and Sinoscholar
Nicola Zanella, details
the existence of a wave-riding
culture in mainland China over
1000 years ago.
Nicola – “Nik” for short –
grew up and learned to surf
in Ravenna on Italy’s east
coast. He became fascinated
by China through a calligraphy
class at college, and
eventually found himself
in China on a study
trip, wandering into
a Buddhist temple in
Hunan, 600km from the
coast.
There he was stunned
to come across a
collection of 30 painted
clay figurines captured
clearly in the act of riding
a wave. The figurines
dated to 1880, young in
the context of Chinese
culture, but well before
they could have been
inspired by contact with
surfing as practised by,
say, Duke.
Nik asked the temple’s
Abbott: are these
surfers? “Oh no,” said
the Abbott, “I’ve seen
surfing on TV, these
aren’t surfers. These are
nong chau er.” Roughly
translated, the term means
“young people who play with
the tide”.
The Abbott wrote the wordsymbols
down for Nik in his
notebook, and Nik went looking
for the nong chau er, whatever
they were.
He discovered them in old
written accounts of life in
Hangzhou, near the mouth of
the Qintiang River just south
GRAPHIC: Wave-riding in China over 1000 years ago.
of Shanghai. The Qintiang was
renowned for its phenomenal
river bore waves, caused by
tidal movement in Hangzhou
Bay just beyond its mouth, and
rushing upstream for dozens
of kilometres. The bore waves
break maybe 120 days a year.
On peak tides, they can be
huge and terrifying.
They draw crowds today, but
they really drew crowds back
in the ninth century AD, a time
with Nick Carroll
when the Chinese love of
pageantry held sway. Back
then Hangzhou hosted
the Mid-Autumn Festival
around the coming of the
river bore’s biggest waves.
Warships were arrayed,
flags were flown, and
thousands lined the river
banks, eating, drinking,
and awaiting the show.
As the waves
approached, then
came the nong chau
er. “Hundreds of brave
watermen from Wu,
with unfastened hair
and tattoos, holding
10 coloured flags,
race to the water at
the sound of drums,”
according to a 12th
century account. “They
paddle against the flow,
towards the oncoming
waves, appearing and
disappearing among the
leviathan waves 10,000 ren (1
ren = 2.66 metres) long. Then
they leap up, and perform a
hundred manoeuvres without
getting the tail of their flags
even slightly wet. This is how
they show off their skill. Hence
the nobles reward them with
silver prizes.”
Ha! Long hair, tattoos,
showing off, prizes! Sound
familiar?
40 OCTOBER 2019
The Local Voice Since 1991