9-MAN
- Venue: IFC Center
- Address:
323 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY United States
Update: A/P/A sponsored tickets are no longer available.
Co-presented with the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and Asian CineVision
Join Stranger than Fiction, the A/P/A Institute at NYU, and Asian CineVision for a screening of 9-MAN, a documentary about the gritty streetball game played competitively in Chinatown since the 1930s. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ursula Liang (Visiting Scholar, A/P/A Institute at NYU).
During the Chinese Exclusion era, the Chinatown community was largely a Bachelor Society, ghettoized by extreme discrimination and distrust. Restaurant workers and laundrymen were forced to socialize exclusively amongst themselves and nine-man offered both escape and fraternity to men who were separated from their families in China. Today, some 80 years later, the game provides a lasting connection to Chinatown for a community of men who know a different, more integrated US. Nine-man punctuates each summer with a vibrant, aggressive, exhausting bragging-rights tournament that unites thousands of Chinese Americans and maintains traditional rules and customs–sometimes to the malcontent of outsiders.
