I saw a basketball court beneath a highway ramp near the Osaka airport. There’s one inside a manicured park in Kyoto, beneath a pagoda’s shadow. Around the Philippines, backboards hang on electric poles and hoops are drilled into steel roofs. But, every couple of blocks, there’s a clearing in the concrete jungle where the boys play full court in flip-flops. In Bundang, I’d dribble to my headphones beside the Tancheon River passing two courts and countless cattails, until I arrived at Ori Station, where the court lights stayed on until 11. Back in Busan, I’d bus to Kyle’s then we’d chat on the way to the dual courts next to the Oncheon-chan River. Now, I play Friday nights in Saigon. If we’re running short on time, I get the scooter, Eli gets the waters, and we’re there in 5 minutes. But usually, we walk the 15 minutes to warm up.

I’m not used to basketball being this easy. Growing up in Toronto, playing basketball was hard. I remember getting excited when a house on my street put up a hoop. Then I remember being devastated when they took it down a month later. They said it attracted the “wrong crowd”. Desperate to play, my neighbours and I hooped on a stop sign. Then the adults complained about the noise. Luckily, my friend Kyle lived a 10-minute walk away. His slanted driveway was too small to host two teams, but, when both his parents parked in the garage, we had enough space for one-on-one. Sometimes we’d battle for hours. Sometimes we wanted to team up, so we pretended to play five-on-five games: passing and dribbling and hitting game-winners against invisible opponents. But even our imaginary games were suspended when we ruined his front lawn grass and broke the eavestrough on his roof. In middle school, we begged our teachers to use the gym outside of PE class. They told us to play on rims at the back of the school. And we definitely did in the fall and spring, but the winter was long and it was hard to shoot in winter gloves. To play 5-on-5, we had to pay admission to a community or fitness centre. Since we didn’t have much money, we forged guest passes or just snuck in. In high school, we played at a nearby private school (calling it “The Church”), but the janitor started chasing us away because we occasionally left our trash on the grass and broke into the indoor gym a couple of times.

My friends and I loved basketball unconditionally. The adults—parents, teachers, neighbours– liked it, conditionally. As soon as it affected their peace, quietness, and/or wallet, they were out. This made me feel like basketball just didn’t belong in Canada. To me, it belonged to America, which I guess is because I was obsessed with the NBA, an American league, where American media mostly covered American players that spoke in American accents and promoted American brands. Yes, there were some great non-Americans, but they got lumped together as “foreign players”. They were called “soft” and less likely to “have what it takes to win” and the stories I read about them were about how they were adjusting to America. All of this convinced me that the basketball gods had picked the USA, and only the USA, as the perennial hosts of their game.

So, when I packed my bags for Korea, I didn’t bring my basketball shoes. What was the point? First, I wasn’t going to America. Second, my back was starting to hurt. Third, I was going to be busy with my first full-time job, and all my free time was going to exploring a new country. If I was already getting annoyed by the inconvenience of hooping in Toronto (which, on a map, looks like it’s trying to be in America), there was no point in even trying in another continent. I wanted to leave things behind, and I was ready for basketball to be one of them.

Three and a half years later, I’m happy I was wrong about basketball on this side of Earth. I’m happy I didn’t stop hooping. I bought a new pair of ball shoes in Busan, and I’ll probably need to buy another pair soon since my soles are losing their grip. I play at least once a week–usually twice. And I plan to keep playing because, unexpectedly, basketball has become one of the most meaningful pieces of my expat life.

***

In Asia, basketball courts don’t stand alone. They live in concrete parks, which are areas dedicated to all sorts of physical exercise. Concrete parks exist because the East’s metropoles are cramped for space. Most people live in apartments, even in the suburbs. The uber rich are the only ones with backyards, and, unlike Canada, you don’t see grass fields. Finding an area to freely kick or throw a ball around is no easy task. So, for the sake of the population’s physical health, governments carve out spaces in the cityscape, set up equipment, and designate them as public exercise zones.

During the day, the concrete parks are dead. The sun is too much and everyone’s busy, save a couple active retirees. But, come dusk, residents of the nearby building pour in, forming a dance of muscle and metal. Young men raise their chins above pull-up bars. Middle-aged men sky walk on elliptical trainers. The oldest men heave rusted dumbbells and barbells. Old women slalom on hip swingers and 180 on torso twisters. Young women jog-walk around a track. Families swat at shuttlecocks on badminton courts. Old rivals serve on tennis courts. Tai Chi and dance aerobics share the same stretch of obstruction-free pavement. And on the side, there are benches where people wipe sweat, do obscure claps, or just stand around and enjoy the night air. Somewhere in between all of this: the basketball court.

While courts come in all kinds of rectangles and shades, the typical concrete park court is a faded tennis-court green. White lines mark smaller-than-regulation borders. White arches mark college distance three point lines. The deck is flat concrete, and most rims have just enough mesh.

I’ve never seen a flashy court: Plexiglas backboards and a cushioned surface with a design at half-court. But, at the same time, I haven’t seen many bent poles, broken backboards, crumbling concrete floors, or missing rims. The court, which is under the umbrella of the concrete park, gets fixed up when it doesn’t fulfil its societal service: host a respectable game of hoops. Nothing more. Nothing less.

When I get to the concrete park, I glance at all the physical activity but rest my eyes on the court. The side lines are scattered with bicycles, bags, bottles, and sweaty bodies. The guys who’ve finished playing are shirtless and in sandals, lounging next to their unlaced shoes. When they stand up, they leave a sweat imprint on the ground. The guys who are playing next have their hands on their hips, scouting, sometimes laughing or murmuring something to their teammates, sometimes walking over to their girlfriends, who are sitting on a nearby bench on their phones. I put on my shoes. I call next. And after watching the game for a bit, I look back at the concrete park.

Amidst exercise, everyone’s looking at everybody—neighbours peeking at neighbours. On a concrete park night, I feel the neighbourhood is revealed. I finally get a good look at who composes my area instead of forming my opinion from a glance collage: elevator side-eyes, lobby door holds, smoker pit passes, etc. I finally get to view the block instead of feeling as I’m being viewed as the block’s token foreigner. And, for a brief moment, I understand where I’m living.

Yet, out of all the places to look in the concrete park, I’ve noticed everybody rests their eyes on the basketball court. Why? Do joggers pause for all the lunging limbs around one ball? Do bored parents peak because of the game’s complexity? Do old drunk men spread their legs, lift their shirts over their bellies, laugh, yell, cheer, and critique because it’s the nearest show of live competitiveness? Do young kids stare at the ball just because they want to see if it goes in the circle? Or is it just because basketball is relatively new to Asia? I’m not sure.

I’d like to think people watch because there’s an inherent beauty in basketball, but it’s impossible to know what’s going on in a stranger’s head– especially when they’re from a different culture. Being an expat is often being a detached observer, and one can get lost in observing. But I don’t go to the concrete park to people watch; I go to play. And when I step on the court for a game, I am finally on the inside: just another player, just another person who lives in the area.