從運動與體育是現代產物的觀點出發,本文首先將探討與「運動」相關的身體文化在西方歷史土的演變軌跡,釐清傳統與現代的斷裂何在,並據此審視、區辨華人文明與西方傳統的同與異。其次,本文將探究體育與運動爲何分別是代表國家與市民社會的傳統,各自有著怎樣的發展軌跡,爲何後來又會在回民教育系統中匯聚。最後,循著中國與日本如何繼受西方的體育與運動的過程,本文將說明體育與運動如何在台灣與本土文化匯聚,造成介於體育與運動之悶的混雜狀態:由因家主導,以規訓爲取向的體育一直佔有上風;同樣模仿、習自西方,以遊威、競賽爲核心內容的運動,始終欠缺良好的土壤而未能全面發展,但最多的人口實際上是以養生、健身的本土傳統爲取向。
This article examines first the locus of the western physical culture from the perspective that both phyisical education and sports are products of modern societies. After clarifying the rupture between traditional and modern physical cultures in the West I explains what the similarities and differences between Chinese and western civilizations with reference to their physical cultures. Then I describe the development of physical education and sports that represents respectively a tradition of state and civil society as well as their conjunction in the compulsory education. Finally, I trace the processes that China and Japan learned and imitated western phyiscial education as well as sports to explain the contempory physical culture in Taiwan as hybridization between physical education, sports and the indigeneous tradition ”yangsheng” (the cultivation/nourishment of life).