Once in a while, Sports Illustrated will run some lengthy articles on the past events. This Ping-Pong story is interesting, as if the American star Glenn Cowan had inadvertly set US-China partner or relationship in motion by flaggering down the wrong bus in Japan – a busload of Chinese athletes. And the Chinese star Zhuang Zedong had guts to give him a gift. America at that time, 1971 was still billed as US Aggressors and All Their Running Dogs, 🙂 .. still remember this?
Archive for Sports
The Moneymen
Ana Ivanovic said that she won’t be where she is (or at least this quickly) without Dan Holzmann, a Switzerland based businessman. They met when she’s 14 and he funded her career since, now becomes her manager. This leads me to Dream Girl – just wondering where Yuan Meng now and will she play the US Open this year? Talent aside, Ana is far more lucky one than the rest. I first saw her play at Rogers last summer, then suddenly she was everywhere. At this year French Open, her shots were just so lethal and unbelievable. Not sure Yuan Meng has Ana’s talent, but a wise moneyman could have furthered her career. I’m sure Dan Holzmann would not just fund anyone who can swing a tennis racket. Come to think, Zina Garrison didn’t learn to play tennis until she’s 14 years old! Each of us have our own destiny that’s coutured by our desire, drive, chance and timing.
The finals
Oh .. it turned out, the ladies final beats out the men’s. I didn’t even bother to watch. So landslide tilting toward Nadal. Yesterday’s final was a better deal, although I found Ana Ivanovic has too many celebratory gestures, keep is to the minimum, girl. But she’s great to watch otherwise, doesn’t scream as loud as Maria. I actually cheered for the amazon or tuna Dinara Safina, kind of reminds me of Lindsay Davenport, down to earth and gentle hearted girl. To fill the time slot, the NBC showed the last year’s Wimbledon where Federer beat Nadal in four sets. The green grass is decidedly soothing and elegant than the red clay.
An American in Paris?
Not a single one by now. The French Open is dominated by Vic (Serb) and Va (Russian): top four seeded men/women have 3 Vics and 2 Vas. Nikolay Davydenko ranked 4 is a Russian too (men’s name don’t end with -va). There is a total of 18 Russian girls in the drew. Where are my Chinese tennis dolls?
Ana Ivanovic is pretty, so is Maria Sharapova. Between these two, I prefer Maria (needs to clean up her face ..) who’s look is bit refined than Ana. Too bad Anna Kournikova isn’t around, I like her the most.
Not sure which one is worst: enduring Maria’s scream or watching Svetlana Kuznetsova and Jelena Jankovic play. This picture .. however briefly ranked – she’s #1 tennis player.. .. not a porn star .. ..
Go for the gold
Front page coverage on China’s quest to lead in the gold medals this summer. Rowing has improved a lot and quickly over the past few years. The formula seemingly predicable: poor kids hauled from rural areas sweating it out, 7 days a week, 7 years and counting. I often wondered is there a fairness even in Olympic. On one hand the best gets to compete in the O every four years. On the other hand, can you pit an athlete that has to making a living wait tables (or other kind of day job) against another who’s entirely funded by the government, all he or she has to do is to perfecting their game without worry to make ends meet? Is it fair to include professionals, especially like tennis and basketball when the players all make very comfortable living, have their own well publicized tourneys throughout year? Shouldn’t we give this opportunity to amateurs? Any one still remembers the Americans (amateur and collegiate players) win over Russians (the best professionals in the world) in 1980 in Lake Placid (up state New York), that dabbed Miracle on Ice?
12:5
Pumpkin’s lacrosse team finally won their first match. She scored 1 and Sharon the Ace Lee doubled it – way to go girls!
Good education but poor upbringing 有教育没教养
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
By Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
~ . ~ . ~
Chinese has good education but no upbringing. Ok, let me rephrase it, Chinese who with adequate to excellent education lack the social grace or basic upbringing, severely. (file 21628)
There are moments that left me exasperated. Like, a good buddy who opens a new can of tennis balls, but so routinely discard the thin tin lid on to the ground. I didn’t know to pick it up or left it laying there. If there isn’t a garbage can in sight, why can’t the player put it back to the can??? I found litterbugs on private court too – cap, tin and tissue.
One day the four of us playing. The wife of one player started to jump (warming up) around, next to the court. When the owner who sat outside of the court watching, asked her to do it elsewhere, she replied,
“It’s ok, I prefer it here.”
During the match, she would give comments and critics, mostly to her husband. It’s very annoying. Even her hubby asked her to stop.
After the match, Peter and I walked out of the court. His face turned purple from anger.
“这个女人真没教养.” .. This woman has no decent upbringing ..
Pause.
“She’s too much.”
The couple are from the most elite university in Beijing. She’s a decent player, ought to know the etiquette or acceptable social behavior.
Well, Irene reckoned, anyway.
..
Lou travels to China so often that he’s grievances are arm long: people in China would never holds the door for the followers, and as you can see, there are plenty followers in China, 1.3b to be exact .. thinking Manhattan is packed? Multiply that crowded four or six times.
When someone cut line, he would yell out loud, and the line cutter would look at him surprised, why does this man act so rude?
The ladies in Shanghai would still go out in their PJs and hair in rollers.. and they talk loud ..
Oh, about the spitters.
“They all have good qi gong.” Sucking it up from their stomach to their throat and spit it out so professionally, that they’ll make Leonardo DiCaprio looked amateurish on that Titanic.
“And they can do it so clean” not all over their face. And when they clean their nose, they don’t use tissue, they use one figure close off one side of their nostril,
“Man, they can do it so clean” not all over their face.
Some one told me that when the the school bags were passed out at the earthquake area, the kids would mobbed the truck.
“Can’t they wait on line one by one?? Every child will get one!!”
Shanghai has enough hardware that people often find Manhattan looked like the third world. Beijing has a face lift that makes DC looked like Baghdad. But you know what, I love living in the third world where people has more culture and decent upbringing.
My cousin once chatted with me, saying how modern Shanghai is, then ruefully said, “.. .. the air is bad ..”
You know what, there is a certain cost in building a sky scraper, only that much, compare to replace the air. How do you do it? I don’t think US$300m could even filter it.
The first time I landed in JFK, I had a draw string handbag and was lazy to tie it up – maybe I just trust NY that much. In the short distance from the seat of the aircraft to the line at luggage pickup, there were four people with various accents (New York too) reminded me to be careful.
First day at Village (in downtown), I was too busy snapping pictures and looking at the street vendors, I bumped into few people (one was a bus boy because later I sat at a cafe where he worked), and all of them said “I’m sorry”.
If it’s were in Hong Kong, people would stare at you, then goes
“Why the heck you got into my way” was more likely the out come of the clash.
One night at a reception where 40 or so (predominately Chinese from main land, the Consul General Peng Keyu was on hand too) raise US$88k for the earthquake victims. At the end, the speaker stood around entertained few questions. One good looking woman who works at a hedge fund with an eye popping diamonds was being assertive, kept on talking to the speaker beyond tolerable time. Few times the speaker tried to end the conversation – he first did it sutley but eough for everyone to notice, but she just kept on throwing more irrelevant questions. Finally he lost his patience, aburtly turned to me, held out his hand,
“Hi, I’m Joseph Fuller ..”
Woman, we weren’t listening to your insightful world view. Didn’t your husband pay enough attention to you? We were waiting for you to take your exit voluntarily and in a timely fashion. Like eating at a table, you shouldn’t hugging up all the food and should always ask when you want to take the last piece – my teenage kids know. Why would those people invite humiliation? They all seemed education. But where is the good manner? No social grace at all.
If I see a Chinese in front of me (about to enter a door), I’m kind of prepare to fend for myself with it. If I’m the one who’s holding the door for the Asian that follows me, I won’t be surprised not to hear a ‘thank you’.
It’s perfectly fine, I’m just a door man. It’s my job.
I always say thank you to the door man, even it’s his job.
One day at the subway, a lady with a baby and stroller was at the end of the long stairs. Two Asian men passed by. I walked up and held one side of the stroller. As on cue, Pumpkin went to the other side, helped out. It’s weekend, and what’s so hard to help? Don’t you feel great that you can be of a help? Givers are always happier than takers!!!
不是三代做官不知穿衣吃饭, so true.
They annihilated us
Last Tue was Pumpkin’s Spring concert. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3 was one of three pieces they played. OMG .. was great! In support of all the kids that night, I stayed till the end – Pumpkin’s orchestra was the second of the night.
Lacrosse season is on, she’s scored almost every game abut her team has been losing: new pair of goalies. The very first game they played, ended up 5:20! “They annihilated us” she said. The weather had been unpredictable, so far I haven’t attended a single game yet.
Lastings Milledge
What a name. Mets traded him last season, due to .. he’s too flashy. Too flashy, in NY? Got to be kidding. I think it’s more to do with him not being proven more than high-fiving fans. Michelle Wei hasn’t proven herself before she started to compete with da boys. Gosh, baseball .. I stopped watching since Bobby Valentine skipped to Japan.
A sneaky Indian
I know many people (across a wide range of ethnic groups) don’t like Indians, because they’re sneaky. They have the caste system, and they had the British. From time to time, I found some Indians to be hard to swallow.
This morning, we were having a doubles at Andy’s court, an ungated condo community south of LIE. There are only four courts, we were on the second. The door that’s behind our court opened, three men looked like three generations came in. They left the door open and walked toward the court to the left most. I found people to be rude in this manner, regardless they know the tennis etiquette or not, but common sense would have that you opened a closed door, after entering it, you close it. Isn’t this courtesy universal? As usual, I said,
“Please close the door, Sir. Thank you.”
They paused. Kevin who’s closer to the door opposite from me, retreated few steps and closed it.
As we regrouped, getting ready to serve/receive, the middle aged man came over with a smile but asked condescendingly,
“Are you the owner of this place?”
As we stopped, stood up (from waiting positions), he fired away,
“If you’re only a guest here, you should be extra nice.”
Sorry Andy, if I have brought any trouble. Doors to the courts are locked, and every owner that paid their due receive a key. We’ve been playing there for three years. And 98% of time we were the only players.
“How do you know that I’m not an owner?” I asked.
“Because I’ve never seen you here.” Did this sound stupid? It’s a large compound.
“Which unit are you in?” He continued. Uhhhhh it’s getting ugly.
“Are you checking? Where are you from?” Andy cut in.
“Do you have the right to check?” I challenged.
Threateningly he replied with a snarl, “ok, we’ll see” then walked back to his court.
I found the little mean man’s questions, especially the opening one to be very coarse and low. Is he just migrated from a jungle or inner city – please allow me to borrow Putin’s phrase, a little bit savage still or just climbed down from the trees? We have plenty public and private courts around the other side of LIE, and never question our fellow players. I’ve never seen an owner posting such rude comment to another in an association or club setting. What I found him to be distasteful is he’s wrong and get caught, instead of learning from the short coming, he wanted to have a fight. Man – both male and female – of decent education and upbringing, wouldn’t start a senseless fight. Doesn’t short man have larger ego?
Andy commented that perhaps he didn’t like the fact that a woman was telling him what to do. Possible. Knee-jerk reaction? It wasn’t a call out, by any measure! Sweetheart, if you’re so good, then be perfect, dot your Is and Ts.
They left the court earlier than we did, and of course left the door open. This isn’t the way to have the last laugh. It further proved that you’re a savage, need to have the dirt washed out of your beards and hair. We had the last laugh, shorty.
.. ..
.. ..
In all fairness, one of our 4-some would ask Andy for his key when Andy went on vacation. Reluctantly I played once then stopped. It wasn’t right. I would feel deeply embarrassed should the association come to check.
