10.13
Last weekend I met up with an old friend and he took me over to his cousin's house. His cousin is about 16 and in the throes of preparing for next year's examinations which will determine what high school he goes to, which in turn will greatly effect which university he will go to. To put it mildly he's a bit stressed but Sunday was his day off and he was quite relaxed and talkative. Like many teenage boys around the world he is into sports. My friend told me that he is most particularly into basketball. But I had no idea how much he was into it until I saw his room. As you walk to his room you are greeted by a life-sized poster of Kobe Bryant holding an award and showing off his phat championship ring. Then as you pass through th porta,l your eyes are confronted by another five or six pictures of Kobe in various action poses, slam dunks and fierce stares. But that is not the end of it. Standing at the door while scanning to the left, your gaze is met but smaller posters of Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Dwayne Wade, Shaq and Jason Kidd. Amazingly, there was no Bron Bron. I mean, if I didn't know I was in China, I would think that I was in Suburbia, USA. But what really was interesting to me was not the posters on the wall but the kid's knowledge of basketball, basketball stats and more specically his knowledge and ease at understanding the African-American culture that underlies much of what is the NBA. Again, we are not talking about a well off kid from Beijing or Shanghai but a poor kid from the countryside going to middle school in a small, dusty, industrial city in the Chinese Northeast. Still, it is not to say that American culture is being imbibed unadulterated by Chinese youth. It is not. The fact remains that it is being discovered through a Chinese prism that adds an intersting layer "China" onto it … call it "Amarican culture with Chinese characteristics" (more on this later). But still, my guess is that China will be a very, very, very interesting place when my friend's cousin's generation comes of age and power.
Interesting! Still, when I go to places like Lijiang or Dali, I still get that uncomfortable long and fixed stare. Beijing is not so bad as it was 7 years ago, but I was in Yunnan province just 2 weeks ago.
You provided an interesting extrapolative analysis of an Asian youth interested in the NBA. However, your stretch of that analysis is inane at best’ if you think that his perception of basketball scratches the surface of African American culture. Nothing on American TV, movies, or docudrama could significantly increase your knowledge of the Black man experience in American. However, I will give you a start by sending you to the past. Read “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison to wet your appetite (if you have one). If will puzzle you and may spur you to journey to learn a sliver of knowledge about African American. It is not just about sports.