On the eastern edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown on a recent Saturday morning, Mike Fan waited as a group of women with gray-tinged hair maneuvered through their tai chi poses on an asphalt volleyball court with a thick yellow outline. Mr. Fan, 31, kept one eye on the slow-moving choreography over the rough ground as he adjusted his knee-high black socks.

“This is the only court in the United States with nine-man regulation lines painted in,” he said. “But we don’t kick them off until enough folks get here.”

A modicum of patience is necessary, even for a game known for its unrestrained speed and swagger.

Summer in this neighborhood has never been about sand and sun and beach games. Since the late 1930s, Chinese men have been playing nine-man, their own intense and dynamic variation of volleyball, in the streets, alleys and parking lots of Chinatown. What began as a way for restaurant and laundry workers to escape backbreaking work and broader social hostility has turned into a cult sport played by Americans and Canadians of Chinese descent celebrating the grit of their roots.