The Asian Games are going on right this minute, in Guangzhou, China. They stage these every four years. Think of the Pan-Am Games and you’ve got the idea. A hemispheric gathering in which organizers are allowed to introduce sports with regional — but not global — appeal.

Thus, we have men’s and women’s cricket on the menu. (Pakistan just won the women’s cricket gold, Pakistan’s first gold medal in the Asian Games since 2002. A big deal, potentially.)

The Asian Games have some other, uh, odd events. Such as a martial art known as wushu, which is not part of the Olympics program.

But the weirdest thing going on?

I vote for sepak takraw. Really. I didn’t just invent those words. They come from the Malay language and are what they call a game that is, essentially, soccer volleyball. Or soccer in which the object is to never put the ball in the net.

Contestants have to get a smallish ball (smaller than a volleyball, bigger than a softball) over a net without using their hands.

It helps that the net is about waist-high. But still. Consider volleyball … without hands.

Yeah.

If you followed the wiki link, above, you saw that the game apparently is popular in southeast Asia. Popular enough that it made the Asian Games schedule.

To give you an idea of what it looks like, check out this video clip. Wild,  huh?

I don’t have a problem with the game … it just seems ridiculously difficult to play. All those kicks from a horizontal position, and blocking with your chest and face … Seems like it is best suited to skinny little guys. Like soccer, except moreso.

We’re back to the American problem with not using our hands.  Which is why our game of football almost never involves the foot touching the ball.

And, being a reporter/writer, how difficult must this game be to cover? And what sort of terminology does it use? Must be names for those sideways kicks, and a block with your nose.

Anyway, I didn’t know this game existed until The National ran a standalone photo of it the other day.

It does have the feel of something a couple of kids invented at the beach. Maybe I should invent a sport of my own. Naismith did it. Mr. Sepak Takraw did it.

Hmm.