{"id":38528,"date":"2011-12-27T04:09:48","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T04:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=38528"},"modified":"2015-03-15T22:35:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:35:35","slug":"prologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=38528","title":{"rendered":"Prologue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Game, Set and Match\u00a0\u00a0or<\/span> \u00a0Why Do Sports Have Rules?<\/p>\n

\u6ca1\u6709\u8c03\u67e5\u7814\u7a76 \u5c31\u6ca1\u6709\u53d1\u8a00\u6743
\nNo investigation no right to speak
\nBy Mao Zedong<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

_______________<\/span>
\n.<\/span>
\n\u201cLay on your back. …
\nLegs up. …\u00a0Open your legs. …
\nPut the ball between your thighs.\u00a0 …
\nSink it low. …
\nSqueeze. …
\nSqueeze it harder. …”<\/p>\n

Jonathan’s\u00a0deep\u00a0voice\u00a0reverberates in the air\u00a0and\u00a0moves\u00a0closer and closer as he speaks.<\/p>\n

“Honey,\u00a0 you can’t play by yourself here,” he says\u00a0to me.<\/p>\n

I look up at him with resignation. I\u00a0so want to obey but I couldn’t because my lower\u00a0back hurt terribly. The thought of lifting them up, even\u00a0an inch sends chill down my spine.<\/p>\n

A cougar lusting over a handsome yoga instructor,\u00a0is not. Actually I wish it were for sex. Easy. Private. Painless. And free. Instead, I am\u00a0at Equinox’s yoga studio\u00a0laboring hard at an hour long yoga. Or is it Pilates? I get confused between the two in the beginning while discovering that going to gym is not<\/em> a cake walk; beside, it cost me an arm and leg.<\/p>\n

Jonathan’s\u00a0soothing voice send the thrill\u00a0up\u00a0my head, not for the impending orgasm but\u00a0my realization that\u00a0my long battle back to health might be shorten, if I follow his instruction.<\/p>\n

Joining a health club is a surprise, if not a desperate move for me because\u00a0my long held misinformed stance about gym has always been that it is for sissies. Real men do real things for fun, like tennis, cycling or swimming. When\u00a0storm Hurricane Sandy left us without electricity for nearly two weeks. I took refuge at the club for the hot shower and to recharge my phone, using\u00a0their\u00a0week long trial membership. When staff approaches me at the week\u2019s end, my inner voice, laces with guilt, urges me to join, in an effort to repay the kindness\u00a0the gym has extended to me. I have a weak spot for the Americans and their ingenuous capitalism.<\/p>\n

My\u00a0ulterior motive to join is\u00a0that my back\u00a0was in pain\u00a0from overdoes of\u00a0tennis and the new tennis season has just began. At that point, If\u00a0one tells me that he would sell my the Brooklyn Bridge, I would have gone to raising fund.\u00a0Twisting torso in order to see my\u00a0side thigh although is only the beginner\u2019s pose, but I already find it difficult to emulate. However, the tennis\u00a0bum in me urges, if the yoga or Pilate could nurse [rehabilitate] my back health enough to step back onto the court\u00a0I am\u00a0even willing to turn 180 degrees to see my own butt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am a total tennis bum if you have not figured it out by now. Since 2009, I have\u00a0captained\u00a0nine recreational\u00a0United States Tennis Association\u00a0teams\u00a0and made playoffs eight time when an outright discrimination against me happens\u00a0in 2013,\u00a0that prohibits me from participating. It left me outraged and confused. And\u00a0two subsequent unsuccessful appeals\u00a0are\u00a0the last straw to break the camel back.<\/p>\n

The injustice the League meting\u00a0out\u00a0is in such stark contract with what this country stands for\u00a0and aligns with the country I fled. This was the fuse that stuns me and stings\u00a0me the most, because I thought I had buried my past. It is painful to remember the painful past.<\/p>\n

Initially I\u00a0write an\u00a0essay trying to right the wrong but\u00a0could not\u00a0get it published on a newspaper.<\/p>\n

What’s the big deal? Find another league to play!<\/p>\n

It is very true but it only solves half the equation. To be very honest, I am surprised at my\u00a0own anger\u00a0over such a trivial matter too. I could not adequately articulate my own anger.\u00a0Then,\u00a0at each subsequent revision of the short essay, I dig a little deeper, to examine myself more, evaluate what I had been through and expand the essay longer. I realize the discrimination is mere an igniter [fuse \u5bfc\u706b\u7ebf] to the larger problem. It\u00a0strikes\u00a0my core where it hurts the most.<\/p>\n

I was abused as a child by my relatives when my dad did not come to my rescue. I had no one to turn to, feeling\u00a0vulnerable and abandoned, very much like the tennis situation. My\u00a0tumultuous childhood left me depressed. I have trouble holding on jobs and maintaining relationships. But the Chinese in me, I never wanted to admit that I suffer depression and I did not want to talk about\u00a0my sorrow past. It was my double faults.<\/p>\n

Decades\u00a0living in New York, had taught me\u00a0that each of us has right, has a place in society\u00a0and is protected by the law. It also gives me an understanding that USA is great but at times, it commits unforced errors just like we all often do on the tennis court. There are bad apples even in the Big Apple.<\/p>\n

In the end, the double fault compounds\u00a0with the unforced error, that\u00a0one page\u00a0essay evolves into this book.<\/p>\n

I share my journey candidly because it is therapeutic and cathartics. If my experience could help a teenage too see their future or an adult not to give in in their predicament, then my suffering was not in vain.<\/p>\n

I have not attended any schools in the USA, except a couple of ELS classes. Not writing in my native tongue is just as a challenge as my self discovery journey, I am determined to tackle both and win.<\/p>\n

This kind of discrimination is not uncommon in the USA. I immigrated\u00a0to this country because I thought it prizes on\u00a0meritocracy, advanced technology\u00a0and human right. Quite often I\u00a0see otherwise. America, please give me more reasons to defend you righteously. \u7406\u76f4\u6c14\u58ee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game, Set and Match\u00a0\u00a0or \u00a0Why Do Sports Have Rules? \u6ca1\u6709\u8c03\u67e5\u7814\u7a76 \u5c31\u6ca1\u6709\u53d1\u8a00\u6743 No investigation no right to speak By Mao Zedong _______________ . \u201cLay on your back. … Legs up. …\u00a0Open your legs. … Put the ball between your thighs.\u00a0 … Sink it low. … Squeeze. … Squeeze it harder. …” Jonathan’s\u00a0deep\u00a0voice\u00a0reverberates in the air\u00a0and\u00a0moves\u00a0closer and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}