What is amazing about Yao is that someone that tall and goofy can even play basketball at all. I was watching
some basketball highlights at Windows Scoreboard tonight, and at the end they go through the top 5 moves
of the last few games from around the NBA. And there are, as you’d expect, some stellar moves. Vince Carter spinning in the air, twisting from one side
of the basket to the other. Steve Nash dishing it to his teammates for windmill jams. That kind of thing. Of course, the number one
move was Yao Ming: he gets the ball low in the post, near the baseline, gets fouled and throws it up with his back facing the basket,
and miracle of miracles, it goes in. So the basket counts and one.

Of course it wasn’t at all spectacular. If you’ve watched Michael Jordan play you know that this is a special genre of Jordan moves:
the ones where he get fouled and just puts it up so that the foul is made in the act of shooting. But the difference is that those moves
are elegant, beautiful and involve that masterful agility for which he is known. So this Yao “move” is nothing special, and I doubt it
even deserves to be called a highlight. And compared to the other moves, where you see people flying high above the rim, dunking rebounds and
getting some major hang time, Yao’s move seems positively pedestrian.

But he is Yao Ming. And this is China.

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I was watching the Australia-China women’s basketball last night and listening to the commentary, I finally snapped: I’ve just become to sick of hearing them say the same things over and over. Most of the time it’s stuff along the lines of:

我们在跟世界一流的队的对抗中可以发现自己的不足。
我们跟世界一流的篮球对还是有一定的差距。
亚洲人不能光靠速度取胜，外国队也很灵活的。
经过跟世界一流的队的对抗我们可以不断提升我们各方面的素质、水平。

yadda yadda yadda. It’s like they barely talk about the game. They don’t try to be funny. Some commentators do, and I appreciate that, but that sure was not the case last night with the Australia-China game. Whenever China is really far behind—Australia had a twenty point lead most of the game—they have to talk about why this is, they have to take on this developmental perspective which is fine and valid in itself but really detracts from the viewer’s (or should i just say MY) appreciation and enjoyment of the spectacle (game+commentary) as a whole.

And it’s been repeated throughout the Games, and forms the standard interpretation of events at any sporting event where China loses or gets its ass kicked by another team. In that sense, it’s nothing new and why I’m yammering on about it is beyond me, and perhaps beyond you as well. It just irks me.

While I’m in the mood for getting things off my chest, I might as well add that I hate the whole “1.3 billion” (十三亿）business, which usually modifies something like “dreams of”, as in “the dreams of 1.3 billion people” (十三亿人的梦想）or in “the Olympics of 1.3 billion people.”

I’ve been traveling to China throughout my whole life, starting in 1980 at the tender age of three. I’ve been around Chinese people my whole life, though not necessarily mainland Chinese. And yet, because I grew up in America, where the individualist ethos is so strong and ingrained (the pioneers and explorers are part of our cultural-historical narrative), I simply just cannot fathom this collective ethos, this insistence on the unity–indeed, homogeneity—of the group. Everyone is their own person, their own individual, but somehow when you get to these public announcements, like ads on TV or the speeches of China’s leaders, you have to adopt this “1.3 billion” rhetoric, snap your fingers and somehow they all fall into line into some intellectual phalanx formation. I just think it completely laughable for anyone to speak of the entire nation as one. I would find it insulting. Even in the aftermath of 9-11, when we were all New Yorkers, this kind of rhetoric was not present. There was a kind of national unity and solidarity, but that was in response to attack and tragedy. You could never imagine anything like “the dreams of 300 million people” intoned the same way it is over here.

As I write these last sentences, I am watching a Toyota commercial where the audience is told: “You are no like no one else. But you have to have your own style.”

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According to an article on netease, Chinese insurance company Ping An of China offered Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang a 100 million RMB insurance policy on accidental injury to his body; now Chinese netizens are talking and voting on whether or not Liu Xiang ought to get his 100 million RMB check or not. The company states that injuries of this sort are not covered because they only cover accidental injuries, and one could argue that Liu’s current injuries are the result of shit luck and/or over-training. However, most netizens (58%) believe that Ping An ought to pay up. The article points out another interesting fact: Ping An has worked Liu and other athletes in a variety of ways before, and most of the athletes have some kind of insurance with them, but for most of them it’s only worth one million RMB whereas Liu Xiang got the VIP one-year, 100 million package, which is good until October 31, 2008. The article then mentions that insuring body parts (eg Beckham’s legs, J-Lo’s booty) is a more common practice in the west, but not many people do that in China. However, in the spirit of promoting Chinese athletics, Ping An hopes to develop this kind of service.

Liu Xiang’s policy is an accident-type policy and doesn’t cover his Achilles tendon or any other body part in particular. For his part, Liu has decided to not pursue the money.

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This guy had it all going for him: the Cat in the Hat hat and the Sichuan earthquake relief T-shirt…but could not, for the life of him, get 500rmb tickets. Last night, talking to scalpers, it seemed the going price for most events is 1000+ for most tickets, regardless of what the face value is. My friend managed to get a track and field ticket for 500rmb, which is a minor miracle. They wanted over a 1000 but there was only one (most people are selling in groups of two or three, adjacent seats) so let it go for 500. The ease with which we got it this one after spending a fruitless half hour going through the scalpers market made me somewhat suspicious. I guess tomorrow we will know if it all worked out or not.

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伊拉克女队员穿二手跑鞋参加奥运(图)_网易奥运 via kwout

Pictures of the old shoes and T-shirts that the Iraqi team are using have been circulating around the internet. Here are some supposed pictures of the pair of shoes that Dana Hussein is going to use. Chinese netizens were also moved by the Iraqi rowers that are using second-hand shirts and equipment from China, some of which doesn’t even match (as in the two people in the boat might be wearing clothes of different brands or designs).

Iraqi athletes, a shameful waste of madhouse time salutes you!

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刘翔 – 诗歌 – 红袖添香 via kwout

The irony is that i was looking for poems by the poet Liu Xiang, whose name is written with the same characters as that of the famous athlete. Clicking on a link I found this poem written on the occasion of Liu Xiang’s victory at the 2007 World Championships. I personally don’t think much of the poem, because i don’t believe that people ought to write poems, even privately, about athletes winning races. I know that there is great significance for Chinese people, for them he’s a hero—as you can see from the last line of the poem. I find the whole concept somewhat revolting, to be honest, symptoms of the cultural inferiority complex+mass mind+patriotism which is perhaps the part of China that, intellectually speaking, I hate the most.

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