CBA Shuffle: China's Professional Basketball League

The Xinjiang (far left) has some serious
traveling to away games

This week marked the beginning of the CBA finals between the Beijing Ducks and the Liaoning Flying Leopards.  Who knew leopards could fly, right?  The Chinese Basketball Association has gained a lot of traction on the relatively small Chinese sports circuit, particularly in Beijing.  The Chinese love a winner and the success for the capital's team over the past two seasons, they were champions last season, has done a great deal for a domestic league which is usually overshadowed by the much flasher NBA in America.  I've compiled just a few of the many reasons for groundswell of interest in the CBA.  Enjoy!

Suck it Liaoning.  Go Ducks

1.  NBA Star Power Doesn't Necessarily Equal Dominance - When it comes to sports, the Chinese love winners.  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  If you need evidence just look to the massive amount of Miami Heat gear thrown away in this country after Lebron left for Cleveland (Lebron 回来Cleveland).  Without a dominant team with a arrogant, charismatic player leading the league this season, the CBA has experienced heightened visibility this year.  With a more competitive field of teams this year relative to each other than the NBA, the race to the CBA finals remained a barnburner all season long.  It's refreshing to see a homegrown Chinese institution expand its base without the help of government protectionism.  

Marbury with a Chinese translation of his name

2.  Ex-NBA Players Adding an International Feel - Ex-NBA players keep creeping their way on to the rosters of CBA teams.  In a that guy is still around moment, Stephon Marbury is the current star player for the Ducks.  He was named one of Beijing's 10 Model Citizens this year, becoming the first foreigner to win (or be singled out for) the award.  He's even becoming something of a propaganda tool, staring in a musical about his own life.  That's right, sings and dances and everything.  Checkout the link below.  Foreigner players help bolster a domestic talent pool that honestly isn't very strong and give name recognition for foreigners with a passing interest in the league, such as myself.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/5-amazing-moments-from-stephon-marburys-chinese-musical-20141002

3.  National "Face" and Soccer Prowess - Ask most 18-49 males their favorite soccer team and 9 times out of 10 they will tell you some super successful European team.  Often the question is quickly followed by the statement that Chinese soccer teams aren't good enough.  China (people and government) simply hate the fact Chinese soccer hasn't developed into a global powerhouse.  The President of China recently announced a massive initiative aimed at improving the soccer fortune of the nation.  This attitude of course affects support for the domestic league.  For a number of reasons basketball is less affected by the lust for "face" on the national stage.  The CBA might not have the talent of the NBA or European soccer, but your average Zhou seems to care less about this fact in relation to basketball than soccer, and this has helped the league greatly over the period I have lived here.  

Some CBA Cheerleaders

Reason for My Person CBA Interest

The Pacers Terrible Season - The NBA has predictability and competitive parity problems.  There I said it.  It's basically been a foregone conclusion who'd win the conference championships during the last few years, and this has made me tune out as soon as the Pacers are out of the running.  Granted the league has been a lot more interesting this season than in years past, some teams still lord over the competition.  I stopped paying attention when I realized the Pacers season was over 5 minutes after it started.  The CBA gives me an opportunity to get my professional basketball fix without having to bandwagon onto some NBA during the playoffs, or support the NCAA.      

Bowled Over

Classic

It's an unassuming bowling alley.  It has lanes, bowling balls, and snacks just like any other.  The shoes still sport that characteristic bowling shoe appearance with the sizes on the back.  However, something important was missing.  Something every bowling alley has was conspicuously absent.  Then I realized that it was much easy to breathe than it should have been.

Me in action

Believe it or not, a bowling alley without the smell of smoke is a troubling thing.  The comfort you get from the smokey smell and your familiarity with it go a long way to making you feel safe.  When it isn't there, something just doesn't feel right.  My trip bowling the other night was a bit of a surreal experience.  After spending my morning watching the Colts get beat down by two guys that are the sports equivalent of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader (Belichick and Brady), I needed to blow off some steam at the lanes.  

Tang Qi ready to roll

Absolutely nothing in the alley gave any indication I was in China.  It was as if someone had picked up a bowling alley from suburban Indiana and dropped into the basement of a Dongzhimen building.  Even the measurements were in Imperial standard.  My shoes said size 11 instead of 46, and the balls proudly featured their weights in pounds instead of kilograms.  Everything was in English.  You often encounter this "copycat" phenomenon in China where their sole goal is to copy something so exactly from America that you can't tell the difference.  This concept certainly extends to the food here too.

Just like in America, it was a great way to spend a night out.  And just like in America, my bowling skills need work.  

In China, a good deal of socializing
is done with your phone

      

Royals vs. Giants: All Cards Are Wild

The World Series starts today, or yesterday depending on where you are in the world, and I am excited for this year's matchup.  Both wild card teams will meet in this year's Fall Classic and their respective paths to the postseason highlight all the things that make the sport so great.

Kansas City enters the series undefeated in this year's postseason.  Amazing for a team that had the longest postseason drought in any of the Big 4 sports.  Royals fans had to wait 29 years for a trip to the postseason after Kansas City's victory over their instate rival, the Cardinals, in the 1985 World Series.  The Royals finished last in home runs during the regular season and usually rely on stolen bases to score runs, making them both incredibly exciting and boring at the same time.  The team barely escaped an all-or-nothing wild card playoff game with the A's that went into extra innings.  They then swept the Angeles, who had the best regular season record in baseball, and went on to sweep the heavily favored Oriels.  The Royals have earned the title of "America's Team" this year.  A scrappy bunch of players you couldn't pick out of a police lineup who don't look old enough to buy beer for the post-game party have captured everyone's hearts with their run for the Commissioner's Trophy (Bud Selig's last by the way).  

The Royals opponents, The Giants, are no strangers to this situation.  They are hoping for their third World Series in five years.  This is the point in the post where I formally declare my support for the Royals.  The Giants, along with a handful of other clubs like the Yankees and Red Sox, seem to have it all.  Sustained on field success, a gigantic fan base, and what many consider to be the best stadium in baseball, if not all of sports, make it difficult to support the Giants in this situation.  Especially when you consider the underdog Royals are such a young team in a mid-western city starved for sports success.  

Certainly looking forward to watching this one.  Sorry there aren't any pictures for this blog.  I failed to secure written consent to retransmit images from the MLB and not both written and oral consent....sorry.          

Seventh Inning Sushi

Ironic sunset in the the "Land of the Rising Sun"

The Japanese wife of Comic Book Guy, the iconic character from The Simpsons, once said, "In Japan, no one ever says what they think.  We know our game shows are degrading and our baseball fences are too close.  But no one says anything."  

The Girlfriend and I travelled to Japan last week and seeing a Japanese baseball game sat number one on my list of things to do.  Most Americans know the league for its famous differences from its American cousin; team names are corporate sponsors not cities, choreographed cheering sections, and ties after 12 innings.  Tokyo's home to six of the 12 teams in the league, and most foreigners with a vague familiarity of the league will know the Yomuiri Giants and the Yakult Swallows.  Many people consider the Yomuiri Giants to be the Yankees of Japanese baseball, and the team has a strong rivalry with the Hanshin Tigers.  I decided to checkout a Swallows game for a few reasons.  One, I didn't want to indirectly support a team labelled the "evil empire" of Japanese baseball, and second the Swallows have a great stadium.  Only one of three remaining professional stadiums left where Babe Ruth played, the stadium sits next to a large Shinto Shrine dedicated to the spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife.  

It isn't baseball without cheerleaders

One of the official cheer coordinators 

I got tickets in the outfield section for around 15USD a seat for a game between the Swallows and the DeNA (sic) Baystars.  Warning, I don't advise buying outfield tickets to a Japanese baseball game.  While it seemed like a good idea at the time, the outfield bleachers are home to the choreographed cheering sections.  Tickets here mean standing while the home team bats.  The cheers are, of course, in Japanese, so don't expect to pick them up halfway through the game.  We ended up moving about halfway through the game, but it's certainly worth a trip to the outfield bleachers to checkout the spectacle.  The sections even boast full-time cheer coordinators.  Its here you can see some of the game's great quarks.  For example the people sitting in front of us wore matching Swallows kimonos.    

Awesome team kimonos

Aside from the differences that I expected, some other things peeked my interest. The seats in the ballpark fill up the opposite they do in the United States with tickets for the outfield (cheap seats) selling first.  Not many people sat in the grandstand at the game we attended.  Also, the teams downplay individual stats.  I don't remember seeing anyone's batting average or ERA posted on the jumbotron.  The event truly reinforced my perceptions of Japanese society as "collectivist", though I stress this isn't a bad thing.  They play as a team, win as a team, and lose as a team, and the fans share in the success or failure of the team.  

After the home run

The game we saw was awesome.  Down by one run in the bottom of the eight, bases loaded with two outs, a Swallows player hit a home run over the right field fence.  I let out a loudly obnoxious, "YEEEEEahh," only to hear my voice echo in silence for a full second before the choreographed home run cheer started from the Swallows fans.  That is the great thing about Japanese baseball, the game is the same, but the atmosphere made it sometimes felt like they were playing on another planet.  

Post game cheerleader show

So maybe the fences are too close, but the game ended up being the highlight of my trip.  It really got me excited for the start of the Royals-Giants Worlds Series next week.  But more on that in a future post.   

        

Global Epidemic: World Cup Fever

Suck It Ghana

I am very excited for the start of the World Cup this week in Brazil.  Like all red-blooded Americans, I have a very minimal interest or knowledge of soccer, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying America's 2014 campaign.  You kick the ball around, it's boring, and I usually just wait for it to end.  My favorite part of the match is timing how long the announcer can yell, "GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLL," before he runs out of air in his lungs.  However, cities across the United States continue to start professional teams, so it will become my duty to support Indiana's new minor league soccer team, even if I don't have much interest.  I think of it as the summertime equivalent to caring about the Indiana ICE hockey team.  So even if I don't understand why they occasionally kick the ball in from the corner of the field, I plan to catch every second of this year World Cup....at least until the United States gets knocked out, then I can go back to not caring.  But until this happens, it's my patriotic duty to support the 美国 team. 

去美国 (Go USA)

I will certainly own up to the fact that I wouldn't feel obligated to watch any of the event if America didn't make the tournament.  Team USA involvement is my sole motivating factor for waking up early to watch matches, and my non-American roommates find my attitude towards the global game hilarious.  Who even won the last World Cup????  I have no clue, because it wasn't America.  My personal attitudes sit at the polar opposite end of most educated Chinese.  China didn't qualify for the tournament, and support for the team seems solely based on their success rather than any kind of patriotism.  It is an interesting cultural difference.


Most of the people I've talked to about the national team claim to support the national squad from some other nation, such as Brazil or England, rather than that of their home country.  I wholeheartedly expect to see many Chinese sporting England, Brazil, and Spain jerseys over the next few weeks, and there is no doubt in my mind that sales for the winning nation's jersey will skyrocket here in China following the event.  This has shown me a great deal about how China's educated view their homeland.  Wearing the jersey of some other nation would probably get you heckled, or worse maybe even beat up, in the United States.  Justifiably so in my opinion (supporting the heckling not the beating here).  No matter how bad the Untied States soccer team might be compared to other global powerhouses is irrelevant to the vast majority of us.  It's the United States squad, and it deserves support regardless of its national ranking.  The whole phenomenon has shown me that I and my fellow countrymen are far more patriotic than I though before my move to the Middle Kingdom.  

I can't even make this stuff up people

I found out recently that North Korean soccer fans at the 2010 World Cup were actually paid Chinese actors (not a joke).  I am considering hiring a few of them to give me the motivation that I need to finally clean the dishes in my sink, but their newfound fame after the event has raised them out of my price range.


The World Cup is one of the few international events where it is probably more American to lose.  I stress "probably" here.  We'll start worrying if Puerto Rico defeats the US basketball team again (God forbid).  I mean, how do you celebrate a World Cup victory anyway?  Half the time, I don't even know what is going on during the game.  However, until the final whistle blows, here's to hoping America dominates Group G.  And even if they don't, "Meh."  I wouldn't really know if no one told me anyway.    

Cuju: Beixinqiao's Favorite Hutong Hangout

Everybody has that place they don't make it too often enough.  Maybe it's the location or you're just tired after a long day of work, but you never seem to find the right time to visit even though you want to go.  For me it's a bar called Cuju in the hutong behind my apartment complex.  And despite its small size, the bar has a big following in the expat community.  

The composite featured on their website

Quite possibly the world's smallest bar, Cuju is one of those places that you have to know where it is to find it.  It is isolated on a winding hutong alleyway, standing as an oasis in an otherwise bar-less area.  The place is famous in the expat community for showing notable sporting events live.  In the case of the East Coast of the United States, this means 12 hours later, so picture a bar that is willing to open at 4 in the morning for some events.  I watched the NFL playoffs here back in January at 4 am, and the crowd was standing room only.  Considering the place holds about 20 people, this might lessen the accomplishment, but hey this is Beijing, so I’ll give it to them.  The place also has a Moroccan food menu.  I am not entirely sure what the Hell Moroccan food is, but I know enough to know that I like it. 

Intimate space

NFL Playoffs Live.  Look in the left-hand corner
 and you might recognize the dashingly handsome lao wei

Though I love the place, my roommates hate it.  Honestly their hatred for the place, encouraged by my unrelenting praises, has crossed the line to becoming a running joke.

Me:  “Want to go have a drink at Cuju tonight?”

Roommates:  “I'd rather have a cavity filled.”

I must concede that one of their complaints is certainly well founded.  For a dive bar, it is very expensive.  The only thing on the menu below $5 is the happy hour beer.  However, if you like rum, and we all do, they have the most amazing selection in the capital.  They just started stocking Kracken rum from my home state of Indiana.  Though a shot of it will cost you an arm and a leg, you can't really put a price on home.

The bar even hosted a Mardi Gras event featuring cajun food.  And keeping with the general theme of this piece, I missed that event, but I heard through the lao wei grapevine that it was un bon temps (my French is about as good as my Chinese).  

I plan to rekindle my love affair with the place during the NBA playoffs.  Go Pacers.  Any Beijinger looking for a fun place to watch some games, matches, and tournaments can't go wrong by checking this place out.  Don't let the small size fool you, this place is big fun.        

http://cujubeijing.com/


  

India: Cultural Exchange from a Nation at a Crossroads

My new roommate is originally from Mumbai, and as a result, I am having a great deal of fun learning about India and Indian culture.  It might seem counter-intuitive; go to China….learn about India, but life is funny like that sometimes.  And the timing couldn't be better considering all the interesting things going on in that country.

Elections – The world’s largest democracy is going to the polls.  Mountbatten and the British might have taken a lot with them when they left in 47, but the Westminster system remains.  It has been pretty cool having someone who knows the details about the Indian political system, especially considering the ceaseless coverage by the BBC.  The outcome of this election will have a significant and long-term impact on Indian politics, especially considering the troubles of the Indian National Congress and the rise of the anti-corruption party.  It will also have a significant impact on Sino-Indian relations.  India is due to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation in the near future, and despite their strange and often strained relationship, not one Chinese person that I have talked to seems to know that the two countries fought a war in 1962.  This is especially interesting considering China won the war.

Google "India Cricket" and you'll likely get a photo of Sachin Tendulkar.  I think this is him.....

        

Cricket – The Indian Premier League began earlier this week, and from what I understand, the real drama takes place of the field.  Most of the owners in this league make Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban look like passive observers, and as a result, the league’s one month (that is right....it only lasts one month) season tends to have the atmosphere of a carnival.  Due to the elections, the first matches were held in Dubai this year.  Though the world’s second most popular sport remains an enigma to most of us in the United States (they literally break for tea during international test matches....hilarious), it continues to boom in the Commonwealth and is growing in popularity as mainland China experiences Hong Kong-ization.  My roommate is a fan of the Mumbai Indians, and despite my jibes about having the world's least inventive mascot, he is very excited about this season.     

IPL Clubs

   

Economic Growth – Beijing is famous for its smog…..but it has a new challenger for the title of smoggiest capital.  New Delhi’s population is emblematic of the country’s rapid industrialization.  While the Chinese are betting on Commonwealth Africa becoming the next “workshop of the world” many others are betting on India.  The economic fortunes of India and China seemed intertwined as rising wages and slowing economic growth are forcing manufacturers to look outside China for the next “gold rush” economy.  Both countries are also going through military build-ups with China’s love affair with its first carrier and India continuing its program of naval “indigenization”. 

I have always found the sub-continent fascinating, especially considering its different approach to plurality from the United States.  For example, different religions are governed by different laws in some cases.  India’s complicated relationship with China has only made it more interesting to me during my time in Beijing.  Then again, what nation on earth doesn't have a complicated relationship with Beijing?  The interesting people you meet in Beijing really help put the world in perspective, and I have learned a great deal about many of the other lao weis’ homes during my time here.  It just shows that a good cultural exchange doesn't always have to be between your home country and the nation you are living.

Stealing Home.....and Taking It Abroad

I cannot wait until baseball season starts this spring.  Baseball has the honor of being the first sport my parents let me quit, which means I hold the least amount of resentment toward the sport.  As a result, my friends in college experienced far more success attracting me to baseball than other professional sport.  I also lacked any nominal geographic allegiances like I hold for the Pacers and the Colts.  How about those Pacers by the way?  They are kicking ass right now. 

I created a fantasy team last season with some friends from college, but only one friend and I actually played.  The sad thing is I finished 3rd and he won the league.  However, both of us had a ton of fun doing it.  We’re both joining a more serious league this upcoming season with some fraternity brothers of ours that are still in college.  This is the big leagues people.  They don’t allow you to auto draft here.  If you know of any underrated players that I should pick up, please let me know.

Great season last year overall, I must say.  Tigers (my team of choice) finished well, and there were some really exciting last-to-first division titles.  I remember giving a friend from college shit back when the Dodgers were in last place in April.  He is originally from LA, and man was he excited at their impressive playoff run.  And how about the impressive NL central?  Man those wildcard races are exciting.  I have a cousin who is a Reds fan and I saw a Facebook post about his disappointment at their wildcard loss to Pittsburgh.  That is the magic of the game.  You win, you lose, but there is always next year (see Cubs fans for advice on this phenomenon).  But let’s be honest the wildcard playoff is a gimmick, though one I whole heartedly support.  On any other day, the Reds might have pulled it out, but that is part of the magic of baseball.  Can a one game playoff tell us anything besides who is better that day?  No, not really.  But the Reds played a good season, and I look for the NL Central to be the most exciting division in baseball again this year.

The Chicago and New York baseball slump is quite funny, though I consider the Mets my backup (or in some cases NL) team.  Let’s be honest, no one wants to see the Cubs win the World Series because the space/time continuum would collapse.  Seriously though, most of my close friends are Cubs fans and sometimes I feel that I share their pain.  It is tough to keep supporting something that is doomed to fail.  The Cubs struggle is clearly the baseball equivalent of my love life, and for that, I hold out hope, however small, for the team from Chicago’s north side.  I think that the 1st and 2nd city slump is also good for smaller market teams, but that is my pragmatic side talking.

Speaking of the Cubs though, I took my mom to see a Reds/Cubs game last year when I went to Chicago to get my Chinese visa.  She was ready to go by the 3rd inning, and she bought merchandize for a team neither of us support, but I think she had an okay time.  I hope they never put the three remaining classic stadiums to the bulldozer.  I include Dodgers’ stadium because I have mad respect for it.  When it was built, people shit themselves because they thought it was too modern, now it is considered an old-school classic.  It’s pretty amazing what time can do to our perceptions, especially in a game as timeless as baseball.      

Despite my open-mindedness and progressive nature, I think we all can agree that interleague play is an abomination unto God that should be done away with.  I like it to a certain extent, but it is destroying some of the magic of the game.  I don’t really know how to effectively get rid of it while keeping the divisions balance though.  Maybe add some expansion teams.  If the Yankees and the Mets play every year, what is really so special about a subway series?

The idea of shuffling teams around brings up another good point.  There are some teams in the league that ought to move.  Look at the Rays for example.  Their recent success has made the community of Tampa Bay look like a pretty lethargic bunch.  For God’s sake, they play in a dome in Florida.  I’ll say this again.  They play ……in a DOME……in Florida.  Who the Hell thought that was a good idea?  And the A’s, one of baseball’s most historic and successful franchises, are still sharing a terrible stadium that is haunted by the ghost of Al Davis.  Why not move them to better markets that will embrace the team?  Maybe baseball ought to look at expanding the big leagues into Latin America.  Again, I am pretty open-minded, but for some reason I have a much easier time with the idea of a Latin American team winning the World Series than one from Canada……..Don’t judge me though.

So this opening day, I’ll be in the local hutong sports bar checking out the games on a 12-hour time difference.  Just please don’t rob my apartment.  

Super Bowl: An American Holiday

Living abroad means celebrating important cultural events in unorthodox ways.  My Super Bowl experience this year truly embodies this practice.  It started with a 6:00am wake up call, followed by a cab ride to one of my favorite Beijing bars, The Local.  That is right folks, the game started at 7:30am Beijing time, bright and early.  Of course we had to leave even earlier to get good seats, and to be fair, we got some badass couch seats right in front of the tv.  It was a difficult struggle to find the motivation to wake up early during my Chinese New Year vacation, but the thought of chicken wings and beer propelled me forward like a pass from Peyton Manning into the hands of the other team.  Probably shouldn’t be so hard on Peyton, but I just couldn’t pass….and neither could Manning.

The top floor of The Local in Beijing

I went with my two roommates, a Seattleite and an Austrian expatriate, to watch the game.  There are some obvious differences between watching the game back in the US and watching it here in Beijing.  For starters, we HAD to go to a bar……at 6am to watch the game.  We really didn’t have the option of going to someone’s house or apartment to watch the game.  This does take away from some of the magic of Super Bowl Sunday, but considering the circumstances it was the best option.  The Chinese New Year fireworks in our neighborhood made our apartment sound like Damascus, so we thought it was best to get out of there before the 8am lightshow started again. 

Watching at a bar also meant we were forced to pay for food.  I know…I know; one of my favorite parts of the Super Bowl is mooching off of all the great food and drinks people bring to parties.  However, I have to compliment The Local, they managed to replicate this atmosphere to a certain extent.  They had multiple screens, including a giant projector, and the owner came up with a way to play the Super Bowl commercials instead of the ones on ASN (ASN stands for American Sports Networking and the entire channel has like three commercials).  Watching with a few Broncos and Seahawks fans also did a lot for the atmosphere.  Especially considering that as a Colts fan, I didn’t really care who won the game.      

Explaining the rules to foreigners is an important part of watching sporting events abroad, and doing a terrible job explaining the rules is an even more important part of watching sporting events abroad.  It all seems so simple and logical in your head, but when you are forced to explain “intentional grounding” to someone, it becomes borderline rocket science.  I am sure my Austrian roommate got frustrated during my feeble attempt to explain the difference between a forward and a lateral pass.  In this case, it wasn’t the rule that was the issue, but the effect the rule had on whether the ball was a fumble or an incomplete pass.  It definitely highlights how we take sports knowledge for granted.  I can’t wait to confuse the Hell out of all my foreign friends when baseball season starts.  Why are strikeouts denoted with the letter “K”?……I don’t know.  They just are man.     

American game, Austrian enthusiasm

All in all, it was good to celebrate my cultural heritage.  All jokes aside, I consider the Super Bowl and the World Series to be important American cultural events, maybe even holidays.  Sort of like the American version of Oktoberfest or Mid-Autumn Festival, and I was glad to get to celebrate it with some friends.

As for the game itself, I did not see that one coming.  I lost a 20 Yuan bet as a result.  Oh well though, that is what I get for gambling.  Also everyone, including myself, is being too hard on Peyton.  Let’s see you take a hit from a 400 pound defensive lineman and break NFL records when you’re 37 years old.    

Great seats on the couch

Freaking Out the Neighborhood

Note: The title comes from a song by Mac Demarco, a musician (that I'd never heard of before) who I saw play the Mao Live House a few months back.

I cannot say enough good things about my apartment and the area where I live.  I won’t say exactly where I live, because I like having both of my kidneys inside of body.  However, I will say that it’s near the Beixinqiao subway station.  The neighborhood is at the intersection of Beijing’s two coolest neighborhoods, Gulou and Lama Temple.  I know what you are going to ask…What makes it so cool?  The short answer is proximity.  It is centrally located near restaurants (Chinese and non-Chinese), bars, and night clubs, and cultural destinations.  Don’t want to brag but I made Monday’s Good Morning Beijing blog post of The Beijinger.  I went and watched the NFL playoffs, at 4am mind you, at a local hutong bar, called Cuju, very close to my house.  However, the bottomless coffee proved more dangerous than any form of booze.  I drank so much coffee that at one point time literally stopped.  The proceeding 12 hours passed in a matter of seconds, and Einstein’s theory of time’s relativity was proven before my eyes. 

The point is….I was able to wake up at 4am and walk there, have a goodtime, and come home and get to work on time.  Coming from a suburban wasteland, the idea of using my legs as a method of transportation over short distances is still a novelty.  Word of advice to whomever may be reading (don’t worry, I am realistic.  I know no one reads this shit.lol).  There are only three sorts of places to live; middle of nowhere, small town, or big city.  The suburbs are where originality, fun, and excite go to die.  Back to the topic at hand, I have had so much fun exploring the neighborhood over the last few months.  A good neighborhood can make all the difference.  Beijing has the worst traffic in the world, they most delayed airport, and the smog is taking years off my life, but that doesn’t matter so much when fun and excitement are right outside your door.  Remember, they aren’t paying me to say these things.  However, if a representative for the area would like to compensate my unintentional sales plug, please don’t hesitate. 

The Ashes from an American Perspective

Last night, I caught a few hours of the Ashes at an expat bar with a friend.  That's right, I have friends (my parents are just as surprised as you are).  The bar was filled with Australians quietly watching the poorly streaming video feed from SkySports.  For those unfamiliar with cricket, the Ashes is the semi-annual meeting of the English and Australian International Cricket Teams.  One website yesterday referred to the event as the greatest rivalry in sports that won't end in a nuclear exchange (I think this is a reference to India and Pakistan, and a quite good one at that).  As a general sports fan, I love going to things like this.  Learning about the game is half the fun of going.  That is especially true for a sport as unique as cricket. It resembles baseball in both its game play and the cult-of-the-game that surrounds the sport.  The match was played at Lord's (the birth place of cricket) and I have actually been lucky enough to attend a match there myself.  To the uninitiated, cricket probably looks like a bunch of foreign people, hitting a ball and running pointlessly back and forth, and this is pretty much true.  Sometimes, they even break for tea to further reinforce cultural stereotypes (not a joke).  The most noise the bar crowd generated was when the video feed from the shady website the bar was streaming the game from inexplicably cutout.  The strange atmosphere of the bar mirrored the slow pace of the play on the pitch.  We eventually left (I don't think my friend cares much for cricket, or sports in general for that matter), but seeing expats so far from their home nations support their national side made me oddly homesick.  All the more reason to check out the American baseball games tomorrow morning when the all-star break ends.        

Sports

I am currently trying to find a local bar/venue to watch my favorite sports teams, but am not having much luck.  It is definitely more difficult than I though it was going to be.  For one thing, Beijing is 12 hours ahead of the east coast, and 8am isn't exactly the greatest time to crack open a beer (however, there is no time like the present).  Also, and this is a very broad generalization, sports aren't as big over here as they are in the United States and Europe.  Still, some expat bars have sports on during the afternoons.  I actually caught some of Wimbledon the other day, not on purpose though.  I don't really care about tennis.  In the meantime, I am trying to adapt by following Beijing Guoan in the Chinese Super League.  They are currently fourth in the table, and it's nice to root for a team that doesn't always lose (I should mention that I am a QPR fan).  Likewise, China has a baseball league believe it or not, and I intend to check out the Beijing Tigers play on the south side of town.  If anyone knows of a good bar that shows American sports, make sure to let me know.