August 16, 2008 4:59 AM
A.M./P.M.: JET-her?
A brief story that, by no means, should be considered a journalistic effort to report here in Beijing:Last night on line 10 of the subway, I met a group of Brits who had been to the USA-Cuba baseball game earlier in the day. After explaining to them why the U.S. doesn't feature its top baseball players in the Olympics, I decided to ask a pressing question.
See, one of the Brits was wearing a Derek Jeter t-shirt jersey. But at the same time, he didn't seem to have any idea about the general rules of baseball. This confused me.
"Do you know who the guy on your jersey is?" I asked him.
"This guy?" he said, pointing to the word "Jeter" on the back of his shirt. "No, I've never heard of him."
"So why are you wearing the shirt?"
"A friend of mine from America gave it to me."
"So you have no idea who Derek Jeter is?"
"Derek? That's news to me. I didn't know his first name. And I thought his last name was pronounced JET-her."
This enlightening baseball conversation was punctuated by one of the Brits yelling "No one cares about your bloody baseball!" in my ear every three seconds.
And for the record: no, they had no opinion on whether A-Rod is better suited for shortstop. Of course, they weren't aware which position shortstop was in the first place.
Conversations like these do remind me why the Olympics has/needs three official beer sponsors.
It's 7 p.m. in Beijing, and 5 a.m. in Denver. Here are the stories that are making Olympic headlines on this Saturday evening/morning:
>Aruba's Jan Roodzant (100m freestyle) and Fiderd Vis (81k judo and the country's flagbearer) were both at the popular Holland Heineken House last nights. Two thoughts on them:
1. Aruba's national uniform is made by Lacoste, and in their white suits with multi-colored pastel trim, they look kind of like deck hands on the Love Boat.
2. With only two athletes, how do they decide who gets to be the flagbearer? A game of rock-paper-scissors?
>Also at the Holland House: Qi Fei-Long, a ninth degree black belt -- one of only six in the world, apparently -- who currently lives in Flushing, New York. He's a two-time world kung fu champion, master of the 31th generation of the Jingang One-Finger stand, founder of the famous "Shao Li Chan Mi Gong" style of qi gong and president of the Flying Health and Nutrition School. I did not make any of that up. Weirdly enough, in person, he doesn't look like someone who could kick your ass.
>The first Olympic baseball game to go to 11 innings -- and the crazy new extra-innings rules -- happened yesterday. Cuba beat the U.S. 5-4 in 11 innings. The teams combined for 3 runs in the 11th under the modified rules.
>Swimming's governing body refuses to release images of Michael Phelps' latest gold medal win to the New York Times.
>With the 100m dash tonight, check out Usain Bolt's world record run from earlier this year.
September 5, 2008
11:28 AM
shi xing bin writes:
very good too hear you met my teacher. Qi Fei Long