Friendly Competition

The roots of badminton can be traced to ancient Greece, China and India and was derived from a children’s game known as Battledore and Shuttlecock.

The game is named after Badminton which was the country estate of the dukes of Beaufort in Gloucestershire, England, where it was first played about 1873. The sport was then promoted in Malaysia in the early 1900s by the British mission schools in Penang, Melaka, Ipoh and Singapore while the territory was under British occupation.

Just a short 120 years later, I found myself sweating head to toe in a seemingly heated gym in Malaysia playing the same game.

Shirley (a friendly KPMG colleague) asked me early one week if I would like to partake in some friendly exhibition matches on a Thursday night. A quick shoutout to Shirley:

Shirley is one of the most inclusive people I have met here in Malaysia and I admire her greatly for that trait. Everyday around 12:15, Shirley is the one who consistently gathers the troops for lunch making sure that everyone is invited and accounted for.

Shirley’s first day at KPMG looked slightly different. She described to me how on her first day, nobody went out to lunch together. People either packed a lunch, grabbed something quick to-go, or travelled home. Now several years later, the CR department without fail is sharing lunch together due to her efforts to bring people together and form relationships outside of the normal working day.

Happy to be invited to the weekly Badminton occasion and craving some competition, I gladly accepted the offer and invited Craig to join along.

9PM that Thursday night rolled around and Shirley picked Craig and I up from the hotel; the commute to the local gym was a quick 10 minutes. We arrived and entered the gym lined with badminton courts; it was packed.

The hot and heavy atmosphere was filled with grunts, shouts, and many sweaty individuals. My expectations for the night were a casual get together filled with socializing and very little serious badminton. I was way off.

Craig and I quickly realized that this wasn’t your average gym class badminton game. Strategy, speed, flexibility, and creativeness was strongly at play and Craig and I fought hard to keep up to speed with the veteran players.

After two hours of hardcore play, we were drenched head to toe, my white shirt was see-through, 2 liters of water were consumed and our shoulders aching.

Some words of wisdom: if asked to play badminton in Malaysia, bring an extra shirt, lots of water and expect to pummeled.