September 26, 2007 4:37
Yao Ming came out and
apologized to his team
yesterday. So what it exactly did the big one do to merit such contrition? He will miss some pre-season training and a media day because of his obligations to the Special Olympics, which will be held next month in his hometown of Shanghai. Given the sort of behavior that usually leads to an apology from an NBA player--punching a fan, cheating on a spouse, homophobic insults--Yao's behavior seems like it should be rewarded, or at least the league should drop the automatic $30,000 fine. (The Yao Mania! blog
raised the question of his fine
last week.) As player fines go to charity, perhaps this one could go to ... the Special Olympics.
My favorite hoops players have always been oddball types like Dennis Rodman or Kurt Rambis, guys who can't really be counted on to score or even dribble but are obsessed with defense, rebounding, chasing loose balls and generally annoying the other team and the other team's fans. In other words, the opposite of Yao. But I'm starting to appreciate the big man for his off-court moves. Not only does he work with the Special Olympics, something that everyone can support, but he's taken on bolder causes too, like combating the stigma surrounding AIDS and trying to convince Chinese
not to eat shark's fin.
Sure, Yao's not likely to be joining the small group of
NBA players who signed a letter
calling on the Chinese government to do whatever it can to urge Sudan to end the crisis in Darfur, but he's not exactly taking on easy causes either. Now if he could just be that bold on the boards.
September 23, 2007 4:24
FREDERICK.J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images
Visiting China’s ancient capital of Xi’an for the first time I am reminded that however much you read and hear about a place the reality is always far different. Having spent quite a while researching a novel that was set in part in Chang’an, as the city was called in the Tang dynasty, I assumed that I knew something about what was once (ok. 1200 years ago) the world largest and most sophisticated metropolis. But Xi’an is a wonderful surprise. For one thing, though everyone goes for the breathtaking terracotta warriors of Qin Shihuang, China’s first emperor, the wealth of other historical sites, some of them only discovered a few years ago, would be astonishing even without those iconic warriors. The site at Han Yangling, for example, burial place of an emperor of the subsequent Han Dynasty, also features row upon row of terracotta warriors. Of smaller stature than their Qin counterparts--as you can see from the photo above, which also illustrates what they looked like originally when they were dressed in silk robes and still had there wooden arms intact-- these warriors date from the western Han, some four centuries after the Qin Emperor was finally buried in the tomb which he had spent his whole life building. You can actually walk among the exhibits here and over glass ceilings suspended above the warriors, giving a much more intimate look at the excavations than the enormous pits of the Qin soldiers, as the picture below shows.
FREDERICK.J. BROWN / AFP / Getty Images
I didn't actually see this myself, mind you. Because it was just a weekend trip we didn't have the time to get to both and visit the excellent Shanxi Museum. We also weren't fully aware of just how spectacular the Yangling site is. Perhaps because it was only discovered in the late 1990s and the city hasn't had time to market it yet, the site isn't particularly well known. The same was true of the Xian's city walls, the only intact walls of any major metropolis in China. Having spent years being repaired and partly reconstructed, it's now possible to cycle or walk along their entire 14 kilometer length. Below the walls is a moat and the city is gradually landscaping gardens along their entire length, creating a unique urban park. As you can see, we went at sunset.
Peter Guider / Rood Lane Images
It's sad to reflect that Beijing's even more massive and extensive walls could have been transformed in the same way. After the Communist victory in 1949, the architect and urban planner Liang Sicheng presented plans for just such a park to be built on and around the capital¹s walls and gates, which were arguably even better preserved than those of Xi'an. But Mao Zedong was having none of it. He wanted, as he supposedly remarked at the time, to see a "forest of smokestacks" on the Beijing horizon, not the feudal walls, however beautified for the masses. The decisions taken about Beijing in the 1950s and 1960s have to be looked at in the context of the time, when shaking off the country¹s smothering historical legacy and forging to the future was certainly something many Chinese aspired too. But given the tragic excesses of the Cultural Revolution, which included the dismantling of Beijing¹s walls, it¹s hard not to look at Xi'an's example and wonder what might have been. On reflection, it's probably just as well that the Qin Emperor's silent army wasn't discovered until 1974, when the Cultural Revolution had run out of steam. You couldn't ask for a much better symbol of everything the Red Guards were attacking than the terracotta warriors, the smothering, feudal past and bourgeois, "expert" sentimentalism all rolled into one. Could have been ugly.
September 21, 2007 2:05
Survivor
, one of the most popular TV shows in the U.S., has just kicked off its fifteenth season, this time in China. The show claims to be the first major American TV series to be filmed entirely in China. Here’s how the
episode re-cap
describes the show: “Transported back in time, 16 Americans from various walks of life begin the adventure of a lifetime in the mysterious land of China.”
Survivor
has a colorful history when it comes to race and culture. Last year, in season 13, the show ruffled plenty of feathers when it decided to divide contestants into four teams based on race: the African American tribe, Asian American tribe, Hispanic tribe and white tribe. At that time, host Jeff Probst said he thought all Asians liked each other due to ethnic solidarity. He also admitted he did not know that the term “Asian” comprised several ethnicities. “When you start talking to a person from Asia, you realize--wow! They have all different backgrounds!"
he told reporters in a conference call.
15.1 million Americans tuned in Thursday night to watch the first episode, which sent the group to camp out near the Lake of 1,000 Islands, or Qiandao Hu in Hangzhou. After being split into two teams?the Flying Dragons (
Fei Long
) and Fighting Tigers (
Zhan Hu
)?each team was given a copy of Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
“for tribe motivation.” So will
Survivor
teach Americans more about China or help reinforce existing stereotypes? I must admit I am worried.
September 20, 2007 10:47
While we are alerting you to more of our wonderful prose, be advised that my latest effusion on Beijing and the Olympics is
here
, there's a nice accompanying photo essay about Beijing
here
.
September 20, 2007 10:29
Earlier this month Ling
wrote here about an upcoming auction
of a statue of a horse's head looted from the Summer Palace. Now gambling tycoon Stanley Ho has purchased the head for $8.84 million and donated it to China. Our
story is here
. Also, Geoffrey Fowler has
an interesting piece
over at the Wall Street Journal on gaming moguls and philanthropy in Macau. Next time you lose at the tables, isn't it nice to think it's all for a good cause?