Pablo, who has been in Hangzhou for three years and is currently the coach of NBG Youth Basketball Club, cares about the development of basketball in China. "Many Americans possess private basketball courts, but it’s rare in Spain. We usually play in neighborhoods, schools, or clubs. I didn't expect to see this in Hangzhou."

In Louta Town, the ancestral hall of this thousand-year-old town has a unique horizon behind it - a basketball court. The slogan on the wall, "Brazil's football, Louta's basketball" reveals that Louta is the "hometown of basketball".

Yu Wei, a villager here, owns is a basketball court in his three-story villa. The highly erected basket demonstrates the family's enthusiasm for basketball.

Yu Wei told reporters that his 13-year-old son is crazy about basketball. "The basketball court at home played an important role as a recreation when the COVID-19 was severe."

Coincidentally, there is another home basketball court owned by the resident Yu Loufu. His daughter in her twenties used the basketball court the most, and she is also the best basketball player in the family.

Lou Chanqiao, a local official who once won second place in the basketball tournament of Zhejiang Provincial Farmers' Games has a requirement for both his old house and the new house: they are supposed to be equipped with a basketball court. "The court costs at most 3,000 yuan, not much."

Small as basketball is, it subtly changes people's way of life. The men and women, old and young all joined in the sports rather than immersed in mahjong or online games.

Gradually, more and more villagers in Louta build their own basketball courts in the yards, most of which are the halve basketball courts.

Wang Xingjiang, a publicist of the town government, helped the reporter to make a statistic. Currently, there are 43 standard basketball courts of level two in Louta Town, including 32 light courts over 12 administrative villages.

Besides, there are more than 30 private courts, and the first one was built in the late 1990s with a single rack.

Wang Xingjiang told the reporter that in Louta, which has a permanent population of 26,000, most people know about basketball, even some 70-year-old ladies.

"Brazil’s football, Louta’s basketball", is not an exaggeration.

(Compiled and translated by Xu Yuhong)