Cue sports strike back in the digital era
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You're listening to Roundtable. I'm Steve Hatherly today with Niu Honglin and Lai Ming. Coming up, snooker, a game of ball, cue, and table is one stereotypically reserved for older folks. But wait, recently a young Chinese snooker star took the sport by storm. We'll talk cue sports in just a moment.

And then, when you step onto an escalator, either going up or down, I'm guessing that you almost instinctively move to the right side. It happens here in China, and almost everywhere around the world to be fair, but are we actually using the escalator correctly? Huh?

Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts. Don't forget, we love hearing from you as well. Yes, you can send an email and we enjoy that, but we love to hear your voice. So send those voice notes our way with your thoughts on any of the issues that we discuss here on the program. Roundtablepodcast at qq.com. That's roundtablepodcast at qq.com. And now...

Have you heard his name yet? If not, you're about to. Zhao Jintong. His historic victory as the first Asian player to win the World Snooker Championships has reignited China's passion for billiards. Once a wildly popular pastime about three decades ago or so, the sport is now experiencing a remarkable resurgence among younger generations.

industry analysts project China's billiards market will exceed 100 billion yuan, that's about 14 billion dollars, by 2025, with fans surpassing 210 million nationwide. What is behind the revival of the game? Well, the answer lies in a mix of star power, changing lifestyles, and smart commercialization. Niohong Lin or and Lai Ming, are you snooker players or fans?

Definitely not snooker players. Snooker is too hard for me. But I do occasionally play a little Chinese billiards. It's fun. Chinese billiards. That's what we call it. But I think it's really close to the pocket billiards, the easier version with 16 balls, one cue ball, and 15 other ones, object balls. And for me, it's easier. You...

you break and then whichever one goes into the pocket first would be yours. Yep. And then you only hit yours and yeah, because you finish and that's the eight, the black eight, the black eight ball. Yeah. Some of the balls are solid colors. Some are stripes. Yeah. That's pocket ball, I guess. Eight ball or nine ball, depending on, on the game.

But yeah, it's a different game from billiards. And I only have experience of that. From snooker, excuse me. Lai Ming, were you a player? I can count with the fingers on my left hand the amount of times I played cue ball. Check your notebook. When was the last time you played it?

Yeah, I may be able to find out about that if I paid for them. My friends usually pay for them. So what's going on here? I mean, this is big news in the sporting world, right? There's a new superstar in town. Yes. And this year, May the 5th, millions of snooker fans in China witnessed history as 28-year-old Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese player, actually the first Asian player, to

I actually, I didn't watch the whole entire match. Snooker matches can go on for quite a long time, but I watched the final 10 or 11 minutes. This happened at the Crucible Theater in Sheffield in the UK. And I was like, oh my God, this is going to be a big thing.

And I must admit, before I watched, I had never heard of Xiao Jintong. I wasn't a big snooker fan, to be honest with you, in Canada, in America. We're familiar with the sport. It's often televised, right, on ESPN2 or 3 or something like that. It's a very quiet game to be broadcast on TV. Yeah, but for fans, I mean, they really love it. So because Xiao Jintong won the world championships, I tuned into the final 10 minutes or so.

this guy is phenomenal. I can tell you that. He doesn't miss and he's really calm, but he's not just calm. He's confident, but there's a swag in his play. And he plays without hesitation. If you watch other players play, they'll kind of

move around the table a little bit they'll they'll look at the shot first you can tell he knows exactly what he's going to do before he does it so he plays with a without hesitation as well so I was impressed obviously by his play he won the world championships but I was more impressed with the interview that he did after he won the semi-final match not the final but the semi-final and

And I was impressed by that because in the semifinal, he was playing his idol. This is a man by the name of Ronnie O'Sullivan. And Ronnie had been helping him out with his career. He's much older than Zhao Jintong. And

So Zhao Jintong was playing against his idol in the semi-final. And after the match, they asked him, you know, congratulations, how did you feel about beating him? And he said, well, I felt bad because I wanted him to win his eighth world championship. Ronnie O'Sullivan is a seven-time world championship champion.

So the humility in his answer, and he was so sweet and kind, and I looked at the comments online, because this is from a foreign media outlet, and everybody was saying how impressed they were, not only with his play, but just with the kind of character and the kind of person that he was presenting himself to be as well. It was a really great moment. And on top of that, he's being very sportsman in that kind of way, because even though he wanted his mentor to win,

the eighth world title, he still played his best and still grabbed the title. And he won. Yeah. And I think billiard is that kind of sports. You can have your own style and you show your personality, you show your strategic thinking, you even show a little bit of whether or not you are someone who can control your temper through the playing of the game. Not only these kind of competition that we can enjoy to watch,

but also in the everyday game, well, maybe not everyday, in the game that you play with your friends. You get to see another side of them. Yeah, and snooker has a reputation of being kind of a classy sport anyway. And Xiao Jintong, he just looks like he fits in perfectly with his character.

But he also just looks like he's about 30 years younger than the average snooker player. Again, I'm not an expert. I could be very wrong about that. Just to go over quickly for our listeners who might have no clue about what these tables look like or what these different games are. Billiards.

And by the way, these terms can sometimes be used interchangeably. And even native English speakers who aren't experts on the game, we don't exactly know what we're supposed to be calling these. But I looked it up. Billiards has no pockets.

And it has three balls, one white, one yellow, one red. Pool, which is what Njonglim was talking about before, it's on a smaller table. And it's usually about seven to nine feet long with six pockets. There are 16 balls. You've got the colored ones and the striped ones. This is what we call eight ball or nine ball or pocket ball. And this is really popular in Canada and the U.S. And you were saying this is kind of a popular game in China too? As well, yes. And then you've got snooker.

And snooker is the largest table. It's 12 by 6 feet. And the reason that they say snooker is the hardest of all three that I just mentioned is because the pockets are smaller. And you take the balls out from the pocket. I don't get it.

I get it. I've done my job. So the rules are different. In this one, you've got a lot of red balls, 15 red balls. Then you've got six colored balls, all different colors. And then you've got the one white cue ball. So the way that this goes is you have to hit one red ball into the pocket and then one colored ball. The red balls stay in the pocket. But when you hit the colored ball, it comes out. It comes out.

- And goes back onto the table. - What, why? - Well, because-- - It's the rules. - You have to get rid of all the red balls for, listen, I watched so much schnooker yesterday afternoon. I was working, quote unquote working, getting ready for this topic today. But this makes Xiao Jintong all the more impressive because this is the game

that even professionals say is the most skillful of all the ones that I just mentioned. So let's talk about the market here in China. What does it look like? A report from industry research company China IRN estimated that China's billiards market is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan or 14 billion US dollars by 2025, which is this year, without

over 210 million billiards enthusiasts and an annual growth rate of 180, well, 180%. I bet that number is about to go up. Yes. There's a new Chinese world champion in the snooker realm. Yes.

Definitely. And data from business registration tracker Chi Cha Cha reviewed that there are more than 160,000 domestic enterprises related to Billiards Halls, and they have shown a significant growth trend in post-pandemic era.

The number of newly added billiards holes from 2021 to 2024 is 20,000 to 31,000 to 41,000 and 55,000 respectively. And the biggest jump was the most recent jump, as a matter of fact. Yes.

So when did, I mean, this has been around in China for a while. It's obviously growing in popularity. I mentioned when we were starting the show today is that maybe around 30 years ago or so, this was a really hot sport. This was a hot thing for people to do. Here in China, I think it's around 2000 or early 2000, it started to be really, really popular or popular.

already being really popular because of the development of this pool game, not snooker. Snooker is still a bit too hard for regular players. If you play snooker, it takes longer time, and it takes time to find your component to play with you. But the

pool game is easier and it's not that time consuming. And in different pool billiards halls, there are different ways you can pay for each game. You can pay for the amount of time you're going to use the facilities in the halls. Like a bowling alley. Like a bowling alley, which makes it easier as an entertainment choice. Yeah.

I don't know. It really depends on the difficulty of the game. If it's something as difficult and complicated as snooker, as you guys have mentioned earlier, then I believe for anything to be popular, it has to be easy. And I can see how

the easier version of the billiard balls can be more popular across the country than snooker. I don't recall ever seeing a snooker table in my life. Really? But there was a report from People's Daily in 1988.

that said, 1988, that said that there were over 200 billiard halls within a 10 kilometer stretch of road. And I was chatting with a coworker who told me that sometimes businesses would even put the billiards table outside of the business, literally on the street, and I guess people would come and play. So I mean, that's a bit of evidence right there. And this is a long time ago. This report is from 1988, right?

So evidence that there was a time when this was quite the hobby for people. But back then, I don't think these billiards halls are the places where I would encourage, for instance, for me to, well, I would encourage my kids, for example, to go. Because back then,

then, you would see people smoking because smoking was still allowed in indoor area back then in China. Maybe a bit of gambling that shouldn't be happening at the time as well. That happened in Canada in those types of establishments. And I also remember in those billiards halls, it's usually a little too dingy and fishy. The

atmosphere was not as today's. That's interesting because that's how I would describe pool halls of the past in Canada too. Now this might be a stereotype but it's just the image that comes to mind for me. A very kind of brightly lit space with some perhaps um

less than friendly characters hanging out there. But what happened in Canada, at least when I was in my university years, this would have been around the late 1990s, is that there was a complete overhaul in the image of what a pool hall was. All of a sudden, these upscale pool halls started to appear. Now, what's an upscale pool hall?

they completely cleaned up their image. They made the interiors really, really nice, really, really fancy. They started selling alcohol, but not at such a cheap rate that it would encourage everyone to come. They made it more expensive to keep with that upscale image. And then they started playing really cool music too. So it became a place where young people would go and just hang out, not necessarily because they love pool so much, but

but just as a cool, fun place to socialize. The first part, I can agree with my experience growing up in a small county in China because back in the days, I think New Hollywood agreed that little children and little kids and even youngsters weren't encouraged to show up at those places. It's almost on par with arcades. You know, arcades, they will usually hang a curtain there

in front of the gate and they want to invite people around but they don't want people to see who's in there. Especially parents. Mainly parents. Yeah. And so Belia Hall was kind of like that. You could often see people riding their motorcycles there and they have very strange hair and they sometimes bare their chest in summertime. You know, they're just...

They seem to be having a good time, but there's not, you know. I know what you mean. So then, if that was the case, then what happened? Why has it become popular again?

To start with, the recent billiard halls I have visited, I didn't actually go play in those billiard halls. It just happened to be in the area I want to visit with some other indoor sports. There are archery, virtual archery and actual archery events.

items or runs that I can play in these almost integrated area. There are other kind of VR and AR games I can play in these areas. And in this very venue, you get to play billiards as well. So it has evolved in some of the billiards halls. It has evolved into this integrated entertainment space.

area or venue or shop that you can do a lot of things together with also balling. Yeah, so it's not just...

pool hall unto itself. It's part of a larger venue. Yes, and the technology is catching up as well. Sometimes you can scan the QR code to active the table. You can use facial recognition. You can remotely control the lighting, air conditioning with a mobile phone app and check out immediately after competition without the need for staff intervention. It's getting friendly to those with social phobia and it's getting the youngsters very happy.

And in some of the billiards halls, you can also, if you're playing by yourself, you can have the staff working in the place playing with you. And based on your past records and how well you play the game, they would even recommend certain courses based on your data. Yes, artificial intelligence analysis.

Oh my gosh, it's like your health app on your phone telling you that you're not exercising enough, but this time with snooker or billiards or pool, whatever game you have. I think media and social media coverage really helped because the less you know about something, the more likely you are to hold some stigma or grudge about something. But media coverage and the change of lifestyle

And also the introduction of more discipline of rules on the grounds really helped the business. And when you have new superstars who are humble and kind like Xiaojintong, then that will never hurt a rising industry as well. Coming up, airports, shopping malls, some hotels, and many large office buildings. Escalators are all around us. And if I asked you, do you know how to properly ride an escalator? You would probably reply, Steve, I'm not an idiot.

But what if I told you you were wrong? Looking for passion? How about fiery debate? Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives? Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal. ♪

It's roundtable time and you're joined by me, Steve, with Niu Honglin and Lai Ming. Have you ever found yourself riding an escalator stuck behind someone just standing still when you're in a rush? Frustrating. Or maybe you're that person standing to the side following what feels like an unwritten rule. Stand right, walk left. Well, it turns out that

Rule isn't just common courtesy. It's a global phenomenon. Washington, D.C., London, Tokyo, Beijing, you name it. Escalator users instinctively follow this two-lane etiquette. Standers on one side, walkers on the other. But here's the twist. This might not actually be the most efficient way to move people. So what is changing when taking escalators here in China?

Here in China, we are now talking about if you are on an escalator and you feel the need to run, then maybe just pause a little bit because it's not safe to walk on a moving escalator. It increases the chance of slips, missteps, and falls, especially on faster subway escalators. And it might cause long-term problems for the equipment,

because of the wear and tear of the escalator, and it decreases escalator capacity. So now a lot of cities here in China are talking to people saying that you should stand side by side and stand still instead of walking or running on the escalator. Hold the handrail, face forward, mind your step, and avoid using escalators with strollers or carts, and follow visual and audio prompts. Hmm.

of stand on the right and leave the left lane, is that the right word? Open for oncoming traffic seems to be one that's global but yet not efficient. The London Underground as well is exploring whether encouraging passengers to stand on both sides of the escalator rather than keeping one side open for walking can improve efficiency at deep and busy stations.

The reasoning is that during peak hours, most commuters prefer to just stand anyway. So using both lanes for standing could actually reduce congestion and move people faster. This is a quote from Mark Evers, customer strategy director. He said, the vast majority of people don't walk up the escalator. What we end up doing is half the escalator is utilized and the other half of the escalator is only carrying fresh oxygen. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. I think maybe from the standpoint of efficiency, overall efficiency, maybe it makes sense to have people stand on both sides of the steps.

Because there's less chance of, you know, there's less waste of space, that's for sure. But then why do people use emergency lanes when they drive? Why do people cut off other people? Why do people violate traffic laws when they're driving on the road? Just because some people are more easy to get anxious than others. And for individuals, if they feel like there is space for them to move up, then...

for that particular individual, they'll find themselves traveling much faster and much more efficient. I mean, that's for sure. So I'm saying is

Of course, if we all rely on ration or rules, then I'm sure there's an ideal way to arrange the workings of the escalators or the ways people operate on the roads. But people are not always rational. People are not always obeying the traffic rules.

And there's just no perfect solution. So I'll just let the issue drop. But I don't know if it's fair to compare it to traffic on the roads, though. Because, yeah, in Canada, on the highways, we do have this kind of unwritten rule. The left lane is for passing and the right lane is for people who are maybe traveling at speed limit or slightly below. But I'm not sure if that's an apples-to-apples comparison because if you think about...

How crowded subways, especially Beijing subways, how crowded they can get in the morning and the lines to even just go down or come up the escalators. It can get really crowded and it can lead to increased wait times, perhaps. Is it? Is it? Is it?

It sounds like the theory makes sense for us to try to get people in a different mindset, use both sides. It's not being rude if you're using both sides. I know, but it's not easy to convince everybody to get on board, to agree that it's efficient overall for everybody to use this way as compared to the other way. I mean, you can't convince everybody to get on board. Well, just put a sign up in the subway stations and people will follow that, no? And when we put that sign up...

I hope we can put a sign, we can change the sign occasionally. Like for the next three months, maybe you stand on the right side and having people walk on the left side. And for the next three months, maybe you can stand on the left side just because. Now you're just toying with people. Yeah, yeah. Because I am thinking. There's more confusion. You might as well change the direction of the elevator. The escalator. Today is going up and the other way is going down. Oh, that's smart. We can do that.

Because I'm thinking about standing always on one side and having people walking on the other side might cause some problems with the facility and making it less safe. So my concern was directed towards that area. Yeah, and I do know what you mean because if you're going down...

then standing on the, if you're going to stand, standing on the right side and leaving that left lane open, it does make sense. It is polite because some people do rush down the stairs. But conversely, when people are headed up, people tend not to run up an escalator, right? So it wouldn't make as much sense to have that need. So, but then one policy for the

escalator that's going up and another policy for the escalator that's going down that's confusing too. Too confusing yet in society we see these kind of common sense or common understanding about things all the time like turning off your light for one hour every year some people say it saves electricity some people say it does not and it even cause problems to the entire electricity system and here's the elevator so I guess

sometimes we just need to talk more about these so-called common sense. Yeah, it's funny though, isn't it? That it's a worldwide thing. Should we finish with a little escalator humor? Sure. What do you call a broken escalator? Stairs. Yeah. Rest in peace, Mitch Hedberg. I stole that joke. That's it for today's roundtable. Thank you to Lai Ming and Yong Lin. And thank you as always for your time as well. My name's Steve and please do join us again next time.