In the booming Chinese city of Tianjin, an hour outside Beijing, a snow machine has been blowing artificial flakes across a 300-meter-long field for the past several weeks. It’s not for skiers or snowboarders. This marathon preparation is for a six-day snow polo tournament.

Around 2,000 guests were expected to attend the event — a variation of standard polo that originated in Switzerland and involves three riders on the field, instead of the usual four, as well as a bigger ball. Teams of polo players, flown in from France, New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and Argentina, will play against a backdrop that resembles an Alpine village, complete with a sleigh rides and an ice-skating rink. The games — which began on Wednesday — will be broadcast on Chinese television, and winners will receive a trophy made by Asprey, the jewelers to the British Royal family.

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Asia held its first ever snow polo tournament this week at China’s newest and largest polo club, with six top teams promoting the luxury sport to the nation’s new and growing ranks of wealthy.

Though an early form of polo was once popular with China’s upper classes during the Tang dynasty more than a thousand years ago, the sport of kings died out almost entirely until a recent surge of interest in foreign sports seen as being high class.

The first generations of new wealthy spawned by China’s economic reforms are likely to view golf and Ferrari as symbols of prestige, but many of the newer generation are looking for something more.

“We have so many international players from all over the world coming together in this area,” Chevy Beh, a 23-year-old player on the Hong Kong team, told Reuters Television.

“I think that is a good way to promote polo in China.”

The “Snow Polo Challenge,” which kicked off last Tuesday, is being held on a pitch covered with artificial snow in the Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club in Tianjin. (more…)