The art of Cricket fighting is a man made blood sport involving the fighting of male crickets. Unlike most blood sports such as bullfighting and cockfighting, cricket fighting rarely causes injuries to the animals involved. It is a popular pastime in China and dates back more than 1,000 years to the Tang Dynasty. However, the sport has been losing its popularity more recently in mainland China.

Cricket fighting was nurtured by Tang Dynasty emperors more than 1,000 years ago, and later popularized by commoners. In the 13th century, the Southern Song Dynasty prime minister Jia Sidao wrote a how-to guide for the blood sport.

Jia's obsession with cricket fighting is believed to have contributed to the fall of the empire. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) China's Communist government banned cricket fighting as a bourgeois predilection, but it is now undergoing a revival among a younger generation eager to embrace genuinely Chinese pastimes. Learn how to handle crickets, what to feed them, the different kinds of crickets and how they fight.

The first session of the Beijing Cricket Contest has just ended. This contest, which kicked off, or rather hopped off, on September 15 and lasted for seven days, attracted hundreds of cricket fighting fans.

They all brought their greatest fighters to the arena to compete with others in order to find out whose was the strongest fighter.Cricket fighting is more than just a sport in China. It is part of the traditional Chinese culture. Beijingers have a long history of raising crickets and letting them fight. The tradition started in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and became incredibly popular during the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

Cricket fans collect crickets from all over China, raise them very carefully and hope that one day the insect they have come to cherish will do them proud by winning competitions.Shandong Province is known to produce the best crickets and thus many fans buy crickets there.

Some owners cherish their insects so much that they don't want to leave them alone for even a moment. They buy small cages for the crickets and put them inside to protect the beloved creatures from the cold.