The Last Leg

Landed in Beijing just before ten a.m. As a rule, I generally don’t check bags when I’m flying, just carry-on. But I’m bringing one back for Tom, so now I’m tethered to baggage claim watching luggage go round and round. The bag arrives and I head over to the international terminal. My flight is at 5:30 p.m., but I might as well see if I can check in really early. I look for Kong on the way to the Air Canada counter, but he’s nowhere in sight. Too bad, I would have had him serve as tour guide in Beijing, would have been nice to hang out with an old friend :-). Air Canada doesn’t open for several hours, so I need a place to leave three bags for several hours. The information desk points me to the ‘Left Luggage” counter. Three bags for six hours for ten dollars. Not bad. Babacar had Pancake write down the name of the shopping area he coached me about. As I’m leaving the airport, I’m thinking it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have Beijing airport written down on something for the return trip. Especially if I get a cab away from a tourist haunt. I head back over to the information counter and they write it for me on the back of a business card. Here’s what it looks like. They also have a map of Beijing, I show them the writing from Pancake, they find it on the map of Beijing and circle it, they also circle Tiananmen Square.

I show the cabbie the writing from Pancake and he’s all over it. It’s supposed to be a 30-40 minute cab ride from the airport. He says how about 100 RMB. From Changchun that sounds about right, I say sure. We get in the cab and head out and he doesn’t turn his meter on. Hmmmm… It’s a cash and carry deal. We get there just before noon, I pay him and head in. Compared to Changchun, it's positively balmy in Beijing. Nearly 40 degrees fahrenheit and sunny. As I get out of the cab, a lady peddling 2008 Beijing Olympics hats accosts me. She won’t take no for an answer. She keeps stepping in front of me and I finally get around her, but she keeps following me, I pull my camera out and she keeps following. Halway across the parking lot I record the last nine seconds of her sales pitch as she finally gives up and heads back to the street to catch the next cab arriving.

If you want it, they have it in this shop and then some. I spend almost three hours shopping, a new record for me. It’s getting a little tight now for sight seeing and returning to the airport. As I head to a cab, the Olympics hat lady follows me again and is more aggressive, if that’s possible. I can’t close the door to the cab, because she won’t move and the cabbie’s just offering a sympathetic smile. Finally, after pulling and pulling on the door, I get it closed.

I ask the cabbie about Tiananmen Square, point to it on the map and he nods. I’m not sure of the scale of the map, but it is quite a drive to the Square, by the time we get there I really have to head to the airport, it’s getting a little late. Tiananmen Square is over 108 acres in size, it’s the largest urban square in the world. It is really impressive, I wish I would have timed it better to enjoy this and the Forbidden City adjacent. Maybe Tom will get a job coaching in Beijing next season and I can make a return trip.

Beijing is a huge city, flat and immense. The streets are very clean and the driving is more like in North America, cars in their lanes and signals being used and obeyed.

I ask the cabbie to take me back to Beijing Airport and he just looks at me. I show him the business card and he nods. The ride back to the airport is all of 40 minutes. I get there right at 4:00 for a five thirty flight. The cab ride has been an hour and a few minutes and the total is under 120 RMB. Less than twenty dollars.

It takes only ten minutes to grab my bags and get to the Air Canada check in counter. I get to the gate ten minutes before they start boarding, gee why did I rush? There was plenty of time. The flight is full and they take one of my carry-ons at the gate for a gate-check. Pretty much the safest way to check a bag because they take it right down the steps and put it on the plane. Flight takes off at 5:30, we are scheduled to land in Vancouver, BC at noon on Thursday, five and a half hours before the time we took off in Beijing. Thursday is never gonna end.

My bags were only checked through to Vancouver instead of Seattle, so I have to clear customs twice. If they had been checked through to Seattle, I could have skipped Canadian customs and gone right to the US customs for a connecting flight. On top of that. I come up one bag short at the carousel. Everything I bought in Beijing, I put into a Jilin Tigers backpack that Tom had given me. I checked that bag along with Toms and then my carry on duffel got gate checked. That’s the one missing. Turns out another lady from the flight who had a gate checked bag is also filling out a claim for it in baggage services. A trend is emerging. In the meantime, I’m missing my connecting flight to Seattle. The lady gets her paperwork done and leaves. Just as I’m finishing my paperwork, she comes back and says her bag just came up the carousel. Sure enough, I check, and there’s mine. Ok, everything’s here.

I get put on a later flight. Instead of getting into Seattle one hour before the time I flew out of Beijing, I’ll be home a few hours after I left. Left Beijing at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, home at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

It never ceases to amaze me how things work out. When I was in Changchun, I couldn’t pull up blogspot on the internet there. I could post, but I couldn’t view my postings. I thought I had read somewhere that the Chinese government was doing something about blog sites but I couldn’t remember exactly what. On the flight from Vancouver to Seattle I end up sitting next to a Computer Sciences professor from the UW. Talk about dumb luck. He confirms that the Chinese government has blocked blogspot from the internet in China and other blog sites. That answers that.

All the bags arrive in Seattle and we head to the car. It’s raining in Seattle and after the weather in Changchun, it feels like a tropical rain shower. Then again, maybe not.

Elvis Has Left the Building, "My little good luck charm"

Before the game with the Beijing Ducks Wednesday night, the coaches had a pre-game meeting at 4. DT and BB were in their rooms resting, Tom had taken a nap when he got back from the ice park. I’m packing and trying to squeeze in some blog writing and burning some ice park photos onto a cd for DT and Rahrah. It occurs to me, I’m the only one not sleeping here. They’re tag teaming me. I brought two carry on bags to China, I’m going to take a bag back for Tom, so he won’t have to ship it or pay an extra bag charge. I went by DT and Rahrah’s room to pay them back some money they loaned me in the shopping district. Since I arrived in China, I haven’t been able to find a cash machine that will do anything but spit my bankcard back at me. The Canadian teacher I met when I first arrived, Nick, said the only bank atm that worked for him was Bank of China. I finally found a Bank of China within walking distance of the hotel. It was just above freezing, didn’t need to wrap my face in the scarf, and actually had a pleasant stroll. It was nice to be flying solo for once. And it was comforting to finally have my own source of funds. When I knocked on DT and Rahrahs door, I noticed a number of fire extinguishers in the hall. I made a joke about the hotel being worried about them. Dajuan explained that it was their fire escape system. He wasn’t joking. I took a photo of it. There are several fire extinguishers there and then to the right is a box that contains a fire-proof cable. You pull the cable out of the box, break the window (the old shattered glass thing), connect the cable to the hook in the floor to the right of the box and then climb down the cable on the outside of the building. Their room is on the tenth floor. Coach Tom, BB and I are on the 13th floor. I’m thinking about checking to see if there is a room on the second or third floor. The survival rate of a third floor fall from a building is about fifty percent. If you get above that, the odds of survial decrease dramatically.

We get down to the lobby for the team bus at 5:40. It arrives about five minutes later and we’re off. The team bus parks on the side of the arena and we walk through a back alley to enter. I got a photo, a little blurry, I tried to use a flash as little as possible. I was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. The arena seems a little warmer than the first game. That could be because I’ve experienced the bitter cold of night in Changchun and anything is an improvement over that.

Not having to meet and greet before this game, I get a chance to explore the arena. I head up to the concession stand and buy two hat and scarf sets and a silk tigers scarf for 60 RMB. Roughly nine dollars. Total. Two hats, three scarves, nine dollars. The food concession tables are just open tables where they’ve taken two liter bottles of pop and poured it into cups. There’s wrapped clear bags of goodies. I’m not sure what they are, but they are colorful. The one thing most everyone in the arena has is sunflower seeds. At the end of the game when you walk around the stands, all you hear is crackling under your feet from sunflower seeds. I was told the top ticket to the game is 70 to 80 RMB. 11 Dollars. The Ducks have arrived and are warming up on the half court in front of the Jilin bench. I get a photo of the warm up from the corner of the arena.

When I get down to the bench again it’s old Seattle home week. The Ducks have two players with Seattle ties. The starting center 6’ 10” 240 pound Olumide Oyedeji was a second round draft pick of the Seattle Supersonics of the NBA in 2000. Tom introduces me to Oyedeji, who goes by Oly, and we talk about Seattle. He played 56 games with the Sonics over two seasons and played 26 games his final NBA season, 02-03 with the Orlando Magic. Here's Tom and Oly courtside before the game. The other center for the Ducks is also from the Pacific Northwest. Seven footer Michael Fey. Fey graduated from Olympia’s Capital High School and played four seasons for the UCLA Bruins from 02-06. Injuries and bad luck kept the footer from reaching what many people thought his potential should have been. Fey laughed when Tom introduced us, because he saw me wearing a University of Washington baseball hat and was wondering what was up with that. Our chat ended prematurely when he had to head off to the Ducks pre-game drills.

The Tigers used the same strategy of starting all Chinese players and saving the five quarters of foreigner time for Dajuan in the last three quarters of the game and BB for the full second half of the game. The Ducks start Oly and he proves to be a force in the middle. A monster. Beijing leads 20-14. The Chinese post, Bear is putting up a great battle, even though he’s seriously over matched. It’s a really physical game and Oly is working the refs like a pro. Not mad, just a serious flash on his face, then an eye roll and a smile. He’s really a polished pro working the officials.

I enjoyed watching Bear play in the first game I saw and he’s holding nothing back again. Despite his best efforts, Oly has over half his team’s points and seems to be getting every rebound in sight. DT hits the floor in the second quarter and the game changes. Beijing doesn’t have an answer for his slashing drives. In one sequence he drives the right baseline elevates and feathers in the shot. Oly comes from the oppposite block for help defense, gets there late and crashes into DT. Dajuan skids back along the baseline, where he just came from, and no foul is called. One of several times that happened but he still puts up 12 points in the quarter and the teams are tied 41 at the half. But the pounding is wearing on his psyche and he starts chirping at the refs. Oly on the other hand is still working the refs like a Vegas lounge singer who’s act is long gone but still has an adoring crowd. He just keeps showing them the love while discreetly pointing out what they need to look for. A veteran move. Oly has 20 of his team’s 41 at the half. DT has 12 in one quarter.

Babacar hits the floor in the third quarter. Surprisingly Michael Fey is still on the Beijing bench. BB is more of an offensive threat than Bear and Oly really has his hands full. He also has to concentrate on help defense when DT penetrates. This leaves an opening for Jilin’s top Chinese players Wang Bo. Bo is on the Chinese National team. The bad news is DT picks up another couple of fouls and after trying to make peace with the officials through Pancake the team interpreter at halftime, is getting irritated again. Oly just keeps smiling and singing his old song to the officials. At the end of three Jilin is up 72-68 and seemingly in need of just a couple of defensive stops to put the game away. At the end of three DT has 19, BB 9 and Oly has 33. Bo has become the unwatched player and has 21.

Oly has played all 36 minutes and is still out there as the fourth quarter gets underway. Early in the fourth quarter BB drives and out jumps Oly for the first time in the game. Oly’s legs are gone. DT penetrates and elevates a good foot over Oly as he drops another basket. Beijing is calling timeouts, I think they realize Oly is done and they try to give him a rest before their offensive sets, they need him. I notice that the Jilin coach doesn’t diagram any defensive sets when Beijing calls timeouts. He only diagrams when he calls an offensive timeout. Come to think of it, in two games the Jilin coach has never called a timeout when he had a chance to do so for a defensive set. Come to think of it the only coach shouting defensive instructions in both games was Tom.

And then disaster. With 6:54 to go in the game and Jilin leading, Dajuan gets his fifth foul. DT had started low on the left block come around a screen through the key and popped up high above the three point line to catch the pass. His defender had fallen onto his back when he started to move and the ref on the back-side of the play called an offensive foul. The crowd erupted and water bottles rained down onto the court. The players all huddled on the court, away from the officials, facing the crowd to watch for incoming projectiles. The coaches stood up and started waving at the crowd to stop. The arena was over half full for this game and it was a boisterous crowd. I got a video of the ‘bleacher bums’ waving their flag and chanting. It was pretty much non-stop. They cleared the court and things settled down. DT came to the bench and Pancake told him he was going back in two minutes later. DT asked Tom about the foul and Tom told him, that was the defender he had warned him about who flopped to draw fouls. It worked.

Jilin kept the lead until DT got back into the game. The Beijing coach had Oly lay off of Babacar and cheat to Dajuan’s side to block the lane, several times DT had penetrated and dished to BB for layins. There were a couple times when Oly got back to BB late and tried to block the shot from behind and got just enough of it to alter the shot. He picked up two fouls doing that, but they didn’t call a foul consistently so he kept doing it. There were ‘several blocks’ that could have been fouls too.

At 3:14 to go, with Jilin leading 93-89, DT picked up his sixth foul and was done. He was guarding the Beijing guard, who was holding the ball right out front. DT slapped it away and as they scrambled to grab it, he was called for a foul. It looked like less of a foul than anything called or not called that night. DT was not happy and Tom was trying to explain to him that with only one foul to go and the game on the line, he can’t take chances like that.

DT fouled out with 21 points in essentially one half of basketball. In this game, the fact he was in his first ever professional season got the best of him and his team. He’ll learn, he’s a sharp young man.

The turning point of the game came when Oly, stuck on 34 points, he had only scored one point the whole fourth quarter, was fouled with just over a minute to go. He scored to cut the lead to two and was at the free throw line. He was running on fumes and you knew his free throw was probably going to come up short, because he had been short on free throws the whole fourth quarter. Sure enough it clangs off the front of the rim and bounces right. Unbelievably, Beijing gets the rebound and scores to tie the game. Jilin comes down tries to feed the ball to Wang Bo on the left baseline, he drives and misses his shot, third consecutive time they had run that play with the exact same result. Oly got the rebound everytime. Beijing goes into their set and Oly scores to give Beijing a two point lead. The Jilin coach calls a timeout to diagram a play. In the second quarter of the game I watched him draw a play that had a double screen above the free throw line and a pass to a player who curls around the screen. I sat down next to Rahrah and said this should be interesting. When they inbounded the ball a shot went up within a couple of seconds, I turned to Rahrah and said, “That bore absolutely no resemblance to what he drew.” Tom later mentioned that about 80 per cent of the time that’s the case.

During the timeout the coach drew a play that looked similar to what Jilin had run the last three times down the floor. Just under thirty seconds to go in the game and the Tigers get the ball over mid court and the point guard, Hip-hop, stops to let some clock run off. He starts moving with ten seconds to go and ends up penetrating the lane, misses the shot and gets fouled. With five seconds left he makes his first free throw. Jilin down by one. The second free throw hits the right side of the rim and bounces to the left corner, Oly beats everyone to it and throws it long. Beijing grabs it and lays it in at the buzzer for a 99-96 win.

Water bottles rain onto the court. When I look up the refs are gone already. Tough loss. Oly finished with a monster, 38 points and 21 rebounds. DT had 21, Wang Bo scored 26, BB had 15 points. Beijing out-rebounded Jilin 36-22. They owned the boards.

BB, DT and Rahrah head to their rooms. Tom and I head into the lobby bar to grab another tuna fish sandwich and some fries. As we go over the game, it’s amazing how similar our philosophies are. Defense wins championships. I told him, my string as a good luck charm was over. He said if they had won, they probably wouldn’t have let me leave. He also said despite losing, it was one of the best games they had played all season.

We went up to the rooms and I finished most of my packing, it was 11:30. Wake up call at 5:30. It turns out the team is leaving on a road trip in the morning and has to be at the airport about the same time as me, so I’m going to ride the team bus to the airport. The bus will be at the hotel at 6:20am. It’s a forty-minute ride to the airport. The cab ride from the airport was 100 RMB. Roughly 14 dollars for a forty-minute cab ride. Everywhere we went from our hotel was less than ten RMB, or two dollars. Many of the cab rides were less than a dollar. Screaming deals. Most of the cabs are diesel Volkswagen Jettas. Volkswagen and Audi have a manufacturing plant in Jilin, which most likely explains the abundance of Jettas. That’s all the cabs are.

Thursday morning, I get packed and post my last blog from Changchun. Tom brings by the bag I’m taking back for him. DT, Rahrah and BB are already in the lobby when I arrive. Most of the players are sleeping as we get on the bus. As we drive to the airport the sun is coming up and I get a better view of the trip than the night I arrived.

The airport in Jilin is about the size of a commuter airport at a US city with a population of 500 thousand or less. The metro area of Jilin is 2.6 million. When their economy takes off and people can afford to fly, they’re going to need some serious infrastructure upgrades at the airport.

My flight leaves at 7:50 and we arrive at the airport just after 7. Got a photo of the departures drive as we’re unloading from the bus. I get checked in and through security by 7:30. Turns out, the team is taking an 8:20 flight to Beijing. I say goodbye to Tom and the other ex-pats and a few of the players and Pancake and head for my gate. Here’s a photo of Tom and Pancake sitting on the Jilin bench.

I settle into a window seat and get to watch the plane get de-iced. The flight is scheduled into Beijing at 9:40 a.m. My connecting flight to Vancouver is at 5:30 p.m., so I’m planning on doing some sightseeing and shopping. Babacar had Pancake write down the name of a shopping district for me. It just occurred to me that I’m probably not going to be able to post this until I get back to North America. Oh well. I’ll do another post of my day in Beijing.

So Much for Resolve

Eleven hours into New Years and two resolutions blown already. Be more organized and be more time efficient. The team had a video session at 10 am New Years Day. Must have been the loud music and dancing the night before that made my head so fuzzy. Tom is so thoughtful. He stopped by and pounded on my room door on the way to the video session. Some people are just so giving and filled with compassion. As I popped the door open, I heard a growl down the hall, “Stoneman I’ll see you about eleven after the film session.” If my hearing had been clear, I might have heard stifled laughter. But at that moment, I could have cared less.

When I rolled out an hour later, I remembered that I forgot to get DaJuan’s camera to load his New Years Eve photos for the blog. There would be no post in the morning. So much for organized and efficient.

Good to his word, Tom stopped by after the film session and we headed out in search of a new laptop power cord, to replace the one he left on the roadtrip. This has become our holy grail quest.

Did I mention it’s cold in Changchun? Actually the last few days the high temperature has been near freezing or possibly slightly above. Which is nice for exploring the city, but really bad when the melted snow on the roads meets the bitter cold at night. Sheet ice on the roads everywhere. There was a spectacular crash in front of our hotel. A brand new Audi had it’s right front passenger tire on the sidewalk. It looked like the rim had bent and the tire blew out. The other party in the accident, a cab has some minor front end damage, but was facing the wrong way. Here’s a passing shot of the second accident from our cab. The road outside the hotel has a minor downhill grade, which of course contributes to mayhem. Our cabbie dodged two more accident scenes on the way to the OHYA (or something like that) shopping center. I think Tom just enjoys the exercise of going up and down floors in this place. That and shaking hands with everyone in sight. I swear, he’s already met half of them. Like I said, the man knows how to work a crowd.

They’ve moved the time of practice up (short notice changes regarding team schedule are quite common, I’ve come to realize, in the short time I’ve been here) so we’re on a pretty tight schedule getting the cord and getting back to the hotel. And then he sees it……. Tom saw THE laptop, and the negotiations started. They finally seal the deal with a deposit, and Tom tells them he’ll be back to pick it up after practice. I got a photo of Tom standing at the counter of the computer place. You can see all the store cubicles there, now imagine 8 floors of this. And each floor is huge, the photo is of just a really small section of it.

I grabbed a little video of the traffic on the street the store was on, complete with honking and traffic jam. We score a cab within seconds and the pronunciation is flawless (3 for 4 and climbing) we’ll make it back in time. Some interesting sights along the way, apparently there is some sort of winter festival going on and they made this huge wall out of ice that circles the event. An unbelievably cool looking wall. Tom thinks we might be able to swing by Wednesday, but the schedule’s getting tight already.

We get back to the hotel, head up to the rooms, change and head down for the bus. DT and Babacar are in the lobby already and the bus is a few minutes away. The accident is still on the street in front of the hotel and now there’s a mild skirmish right at the hotel door between people in two cars. One of the cars near the door looks like a cab and the driver’s hand is bleeding. He’s showing it to the guys from the other car, which is white, and they keep trying to press two or three, hundred RMB (yuan chinese money about 7 to the us dollar)bills into his hand as an appeasement of some sort. He keeps refusing the money and keeps showing them his hand. There are about three guys from the other car trying to hand him the money, very loudly. He’s refusing, very loudly, and then suddenly another guys bursts out of the back seat of the white car screaming. He opens the door so hard he hits the cab and the guy with the bleeding hand goes nuts. The loud guy from the white car gets restrained by the other guys and eventually gets body slammed backwards to the ground. Tom, DT, BB and I are just watching this in amazement. And then the bus pulls up. We glide past the encounter and head for the bus. DT stops to have me take his photo by a four passenger, three wheel car. Different looking vehicle.

We pile on the team but and head to practice. Practice is at the game arena. The owner of the team, Mr Qu, a dapper local businessman is on hand to greet the team. Pancake explains that, because it’s the new year, the owner is there to show the team he wants to get the year started on the right foot. Mr Qu’s nine year old son is there and is in awe of the players. It’s fun to watch the interaction.

Tom is running back cut drills to start this practice. Here’s a video of it. It’s interesting to listen to Tom describe it, then have Pancake translate it simultaneously. Overall the practice is very spirited, a stunning contrast to the last session. A lot of the on court decision making by the players hasn’t changed, but it is highly spirited. Tom points out that the players are rested, practicing only once today instead of the usual two workouts. One two hour session in the morning and another in the afternoon is the norm.

On the way back to the hotel, DT and I get off the bus to do a little shopping on some side streets. Now this is the kinda exploring I like. Narrower side streets, locals, a new adventure around every corner, plus a real flavor of the city. After about an hour of shopping we head for the hotel, but the sun has gone down and it’s getting really cold. DT suggests stopping in a store for a heat break. It’s a marvelous idea and we keep repeating the process. At one point walking down the street, I swear the hairs in my nose were freezing. Finally we make it to the main road and hail a cab. The phrase is nailed again. We grab some food, and head to the rooms for an early night. Shoot around Wednesday morning is at nine for the game at 7:30 with the Beijing Ducks.

The phone went off at 7 this morning. Tom was calling to make sure I remembered we were having breakfast with the team owner, Mr. Qu. We meet him in the hotel lobby and head upstairs for breakfast. The man is a sharp dresser and has a presence about him. Pancake the translator joins us. Before we start breakfast I’m presented with a couple of token gifts from his entertainment company which owns the basketball team and hotels. We covered a number of topics at breakfast. The Tigers have not had a very successful season. He was explaining how all his friends in government respected him as a business leader before he got into basketball and (to paraphrase here) he’s just another carpetbagger owner who wants something from the government for a franchise no one really cares about or does anything for the community. He’s planning a new arena for his club. I swear, I’m not making this up and we could have been sitting in Seattle or any other US city listening to a club owner there describing how the politicians wanted him to take over the team and then turn their backs on him after a losing season. I really like this guy, he’s very down to earth. Our breakfast is running long and the team bus is on the way, he tells Pancake that he’ll drive Tom and I to the arena for practice.

As we are winding down breakfast, Mr. Qu tells us there is an old chinese saying, “Another friend, another way.” He says he has two new friends and two new ways. And we each have a new friend and a new way.

We finish breakfast and head to the lobby, Babacar is there and we get a photo with him, Tom, Mr. Qu and me.

The ride to the arena is translatorless, but the three of us end up singing Karaoke to a cd he has playing. The song turns out to be an old Chinese standard that rough translates to one heart or same heart. Short but entertaining drive.

The shoot around starts at nine. The Tigers quickly run through a few sets then shoot and just before ten the coaches for the Beijing Ducks arrive. We are out promptly at ten. Game time tonight is 7:30.

4PM Wednesday. DAY on the town. We get back to the hotel after the shoot around and the five ex-pats head to an ice park at South Lake. They have a castle wall around the park made entirely out of ice. We buy tickets to go inside and it turns out to be a Disney theme exhibit. Rahrah is in heaven. The theme is the duck, with heavy promotion of Donald Duck, who just happens to be Rah’s favorite Disney character. Turns out growing up she had an uncle who was perfect at speaking like Donald Duck. Walking through this park, we come around a corner to two guys guarding a gate and they see DT and BB and shout, “Hey, CBA!!!” Then they both run over and bear hug DT and Babacar. I almost fell over watching those two try and extricate themselves from their adoring fans. A little further on Tom and Babacar get cold feet, literally and decide they’ve seen enough. They head back to the hotel. We press on taking photo of the ice and now snow sculptures. There was also a penguin exhibit. What that had to do with Disney, I haven’t a clue.

We finally finished the tour and got a cab. We stopped in the back street shopping district again. Spent another hour there then went back to the hotel so DT could get a little rest before the game tonight. I’ve already started packing, I fly out of Changchun at 8 tomorrow morning, back to Beijing. The team is heading out at the same time on its last road trip of the year.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. Got a little bit of a late start yesterday. Wrote the blog, got dressed and read some papers on the internet. Tom and I were going to head out shopping with DT and Babacar (BB), but they were gone by the time we got rolling. Tom’s blog has been idle the last couple of days, his laptop ran out of power and his power cord is at the last hotel they stayed at on the road. He’s supposed to have it back today. So yesterday, he checked his e-mails on my laptop and it took close to an hour for him to get through to AOL, we tried several different browsers. When he finally got to his inbox, I almost fell over. I thought I got a lot of junk mail. On a big day I’ll get 25-30 messages with only five keepers. Tom had 418 messages. That’s not a typo, that’s four hundred eighteen new messages. Gives new meaning to ‘you got mail’.

When we finally got everything sorted out there was only an hour and a half til practice, so we hit the lunch buffet at this hotel. The clouds broke yesterday, it was sunny and clear in Changchun. This is the view out my room to the north. In the morning several kids were in the court yard building snowmen. The air is really dry here. My sinuses are starting to bark at me a little. They need a little Caribbean humidity. I told Tom if he takes another job coaching in China to sign up with a warm weather team.

The team bus rolled up at 3:45 for practice. The Chinese players stay in a separate dorm, while the foreign players stay at the hotel. The practice site is closer to the hotel than the arena. Only about five minutes away. But you’re not going to walk there without a full thermal outfit. Walking to and from the bus was enough.

The building they practice in is a state owned facility. It has big inspirational messages on the walls. I only got photos of two of the four messages before the battery ran out in my camera. (As a side note, it was the initial charge on a rechargeable battery that I was supposed to run all the way down. It’s demise was a fabulous testament to Murphy.) I had Pancake translate the messages for me. The first one said something to the effect that good players become great through intelligent play, the second message was a tribute to the Tigers finishing in the top three in the league a few years ago and how players should try to play up to that legacy.

The practice was interesting, very different. The first part was a lot of cardio. Lots of running, then a run through of the offensive sets, then shooting. The head coach, Coach Gao, never stopped practice to make adjustments. I thought some of the drills and offensive sets weren’t quite as crisp as maybe they should have been. But what did I know and he didn’t say anything. The players went to lift weights and then they gathered at the end of practice and Coach Gao critiqued practice. He mentioned the things I’d noticed and I couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t stop and make corrections then. DT and BB said that’s just the way it is. And not just in Jilin. They talked to all the foreign players from the other teams and all the teams handle practice the same way. Interesting.

DT shot extra after the shooting drills and before heading downstairs to lift weights. I noticed before the game what a pure shot he has. Smooth, quick release, beautiful, precise consistent rotation on the ball. I was actually able to make myself useful standing under the hoop, catching his shots and passing them back out. The shot looks even better up close. Tom says DT’s shot reminds him of Dale Ellis when he was with the Sonics, can't argue with that.

After practice we headed back to the hotel to get ready to celebrate New Years at Shangri-La. Tom and I grabbed a cab and our cabbie from the day before was a good teacher. As we were climbing in Tom said Redbuds Hotel and the driver had a glazed, blank stare. As I piled in I said, “Szoo zjing kwahn” He smiled, nodded and repeated it back. Nailed it first time, boo yeah…. I’ll try to upload the original cabbie video again.

We met in the lobby at 8:15 and headed over to dinner, the five ex pats. Good food at the Shangri-La buffet again. Jenny, the wife of the chef, came by our table to say hi again. Tom is a people magnet. It was great getting to know DT, Rahrah, and BB.

After dinner we were planning on hitting the New Years party there, but the place was a little subdued. The players wanted to go to a pilgrim bar. No, wait, it was the Mayflower. I always get those two confused. :-) When they suggested that, Tom looked like they just asked him if he wanted a root-canal. Without novicaine. But, he came around and off we went.

We got there about 40 minutes before 2008 and the place was packed. Chinese, Russians, Brits, Germans, Arabs, Africans, and of course Americans. It wouldn’t surprise me if people from six of the seven continents were present in that bar. It was an amazing confluence of humanity. And everyone was there just to celebrate a new year. Common ground.

We brought in the new year in fits of laughter and it continued for a couple of hours. Coach Tom even wowwed them on the dance floor. Well actaully there really wasn't a per se dance floor, you just turned around and joined the pulsating crowd. It was memorable. At one point, this girl asked me to dance and I thought what the heck. Her name was pronounced Doe-tay. I just callled her Dottie and she was fine with that. As we were dancing, she asked how old I was. I asked how old she thought I was. She held up four fingers and said, 40. When I shook my head no, her eyes got wide and she held up three fingers. I laughed and held up five. Her eyes got bigger and she sounded amazed as she said, “Fifty?” Then she added, “You're ten years older than my dad.” Thanks for the dance…….

Jumped into a cab with DT and Rahrah, but it must have been the loud music and laughter that affected my pronounciation. I pretty sure it wasn't the Havana club cuban rum. The cabbie couldn’t understand the name of the hotel. Rahrah tried it and he didn’t get it then either. I tried once more and that look of enlightenment appeared. OK, to quote the Poet/Philosopher Meatloaf, 'two out of three ain’t bad'.

Finally crawled into bed about 2:45. The team has a film session New Years day at ten am. I think I might pass on that. But there is practice in the afternoon for a game Wednesday against Beijing. Thanks to DT and Rahrah for handling the photo duties.

New Years Eve Morning

MONDAY, December 31, 2007

New Years Eve Morning. Hooked up with Tom at ten yesterday morning and headed off to Shangri-La. The Shangri-La Hotel in Changchun, that is. Nice five star hotel with a great brunch buffet. We had a two hour sit down and catch-up session while repeatedly grazing the buffet, especially the dessert pastry section. On the way out the door, Tom made reservations for a group of us to return there for dinner tonight and the new years eve party in their club. We walked off brunch across the street at about a 12 floor shopping center. I was surprised at how expensive things were in the stores. Electronics were unbelievably expensive. The chinese currency is the RMB, it’s about 7 to the us dollar. The prices were twenty to thirty per cent higher than what you’d find back in the US. The clothing stores were on a par or a little more expensive than what you’d find back home as well. Tom bought a couple of Hugo Boss shirts, one of which he ended up wearing at the game.

We finished shopping and had to get back to the hotel, Tom had a coaches meeting at four. Traffic was incredibly gridlocked coming out of the Shangri-La, so we headed across the street to catch a cab already on the road. Here’s a photo of the way you cross the street in Changchun. Tom hailed us a cab, next photo and we were off. We drove right past the arena where the Jilin Tigers play their home games, it’s only about a five to ten minute cab ride from our hotel. The street lights in Changchun have a clock next to the signal lights. It counts down how long you have til they turn red and then how long til they turn green. I got a short video of that. Not that lights really mean anything. It’s very much like that line in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean about the Pirate Code. “They’re not really rules, they’re more guidelines”. When we jumped in the cab, we had to show the cabbie our room key so he could read the name of the hotel. I figured it might be a good idea to learn how to say the name of the hotel in Chinese, so I took a little video of the driver teaching us how to pronounce the name of the hotel. We’re still working on it. 

A little geography lesson might be appropriate. I never did fill in the exact location of Changchun. It’s 90 minutes northeast of Beijing by plane, in the Jilin Province. It’s located just west of the North Korean border. A google maps search of Changchun, China will bring up the city.

Tom took off for his meeting and I headed up to the room to read the Seattle papers on the internet and rest before the game. At 5:45 we met in the lobby. In the photo is Tom, Babacar Camara, Dajuan Tate and DT’s wife Rasheeda, who goes by Rah-Rah. The team bus arrived moments later. We piled in and I sat in the second row across from Babacar. Tom rode in the stairwell, up front next to the driver. The bus trip was a whirlwind of introductions and welcomes. Things didn’t settle down much when we arrived at the arena. After shaking hands for ten minutes, the names and faces were a blur. It’s either an old brain or jet lag. I’ll take jetlag for a 200, Alex…. Reading Tom’s blog, familiarized me with many members of the team, but meeting them in person all at once was daunting. One person I was looking forward to meeting was his interpreter, Pancake. He was everything billed. Many of the players and personnel who deal with the foreigners have english nicknames. Pancake, Spider, Cash, Hip Hop, Frog……

The arena was a quaint (and cold) venue that holds about six thousand. An hour before game time, music was blaring, a small band was warming up and the cheerleaders were arriving. Some things are universal.

It’s been a long season for Jilin and tonight’s opponent, theShanxi Zhongyu Dragons. Each CBA team is allowed two foreign players. The Tigers have Babacar who played at Cal State Fullerton and Dajuan Tate who hails from Columbus, Ohio and played at Mountain State in West Virginia. The Dragons feature Major Wingate, who played college ball at Tennessee and Damon King. The foreign players are only allowed to play a combined total of five quarters each game. That puts an emphasis on substitution strategy.

The arena fills in about half full by game time, but it’s still cold. All the fans watch the game with their hats and coats on.

Tom has raved about DT in his blog. If I had a nickel for everytime a coach called his player a world beater but forgot to mention said player’s inability to play defense, pass, set a screen or just plain hustle, I could buy most of the tea in China. But Tom was right. He’s the real deal and he’s a great guy. In one game this season Tate scored 68 a points. One game. Tom had told me that at some point in the game DT would make a move and you’d shake your head and go, “Did I just see that.” Again he was right.

Here's a photo of Tom with the team for the pregame huddle.

The Tigers started an all chinese lineup while the Dragons started Major Wingate. The Dragons led 22-16 at the end of one, but the Tigers still have five quarters of foreign time left on the books. DT led a huge scoring run in the second quarter and Jilin led 53-44 in the half. The Tigers could use both Babacar in the middle and DT for the whole second half. The Dragons had burned two foreign quarters in the first half. At the end of three Jilin led 85-64. They built the lead to 23 with a few minutes to go in the game and cleared the bench. When the subs came in, the game deteriorated and jet lag really set in. Fortunately, I managed to stay awake. The final was 110-94, DT scored 27 in less than three quarters of play. He really is the type of player you pay money to see. I felt lucky to have a front row seat for it.

After the game, Tom looked at me and said, “You’re good luck, we haven’t won a home game in almost a month.” Some of the fans must have thought that too, because for some unknown reason I was asked for autographs. One guy actually signed a $5 RMB note (about 80 cents) and gave it to me, I’m going to have Pancake translate it.

Team bus dropped us at the hotel and Tom and I had a couple of great Tuna fish sandwiches to cap the day. Finally got to bed about midnight. I was out before my head hit the pillow.

Practice at 4 on Monday then off to dinner at 8 and the new years party. I’ll be spending the new year at Shangri-La. Apparently there is a problem with the videos uploading. The links are there, but they won't play. Sorry about that.

Landed in Beijing on to Changchun

Saturday, December 29, 2007 4pm Landed in Beijing. I’m a lot more scatterbrained than usual on this trip. Most trips I go days with the feeling that I forgot something and it usually turns out to be some minor thing. This trip, I left home without the Mandarin Chinese book and cd I bought. I have a gift for picking up survival language skills quickly with the aide of a translation book. After a week I can usually pick up enough of a language to get into trouble, but not enough to get out of trouble. As the saying goes in French, “Je parle a assez francaise pour creer des l’ennuis, je ne parle pas a assez francaise pour sortir de l’ennui”. I realized the Mandarin Chinese books were at home as my wife and I were sitting at the gate in Seattle, getting ready to fly out. Then when I landed in Vancouver, I left my coat on the plane, the flight attendant chased me down with the jacket. Then after I wrote the first blog, which I spent a little too long doing and had to hurry to the gate, I left my laptop at the bar. Helen brought it to the gate just before I boarded. So when I landed in Beijing, I took several minutes double checking all the contents of my bags.

Clear, cold day in Beijing. Here's a view of the approach into Beijing. Flat, brown and a huge layer of smog. I've added a video of the landing in Beijing on this post. Just under freezing on landing. Met a girl getting off the plane who is a mathematics student at Umass and was heading to central china for a month. She had an unusual name, Macrena or something like that, didn’t get the spelling. We teamed up to successfully navigate immigration and customs and search the concourse for flights. I had to head to another terminal for the China Southern connection to Changchun. I had two hours til departure. As I was walking the concourse, an ‘official’ looking fellow asked me for my ticket, “Ticket, sir”. It was pretty random. Turns out his name was Kong and he would take me to the right counter. Funny thing was everytime a uniformed offical was near, he would blend into the woodwork. Usually I navigate on my own, but I was enjoying his company, even though his English was only slightly better than my Chinese. After about 20 minutes of strolling together, hitting a cash machine, buying a water bottle and trying to converse, he got me to the counter. It was five dollars well spent.

At the China Southern counter things took an unexpected turn. Turns out my ticket didn’t have the $10 Beijing Airport departure tax. The China Southern ticket counter and check in counters are in two different areas. When I got to the ticket counter I got my first take of Beijing culture. If you stand in line waiting to be helped, you’re going to grow old before you are helped. After the fourth person slid to the counter in front of me, I pulled my ticket out with the Chinese writing on it that said I needed the departure tax, stepped up to the counter and held it out to the ticket agent. I was the next person helped. When I got back to the check in counter, the line had exploded. I now had 40 minutes til departure and it would take all of that to get through the line. I saw the guy who first sent me for the tax, I slid sideways to his line through another line and showed him the tax. He nodded and pointed to the end of his line. Through a stroke of good luck, the next guy in line spoke fluent english and asked what the problem was. When I explained it in detail, he motioned for me to go ahead of him and I got checked in just before the 30 minute before departure cutoff. I thanked him profusely.

Turns out it didn’t matter. The flight was delayed two hours. But I did meet a guy from Kitchener, Ontario, Nick, who was on the same flight to Changchun. He was returning from Christmas in Canada. He’s lived in Changchun three years and teaches. I learned a lot during the layover. He taught in Korea before he moved to China. He had some interesting insights into the order or lack thereof in the Chinese society. He was pretty dead on in explaining how things would go on the flight. It was amazing how many people were coughing and sneezing on the flight and not one person covered their mouth. It was just bombs away. He said that’s really common. Waiting for the flight, I walked around the terminal a bit. I had read that the Chinese were converting a lot of their signs to English in preparation for the Olympic rush in 08. I also read they were having some interesting translations. I got a kick out of this one, hope you can read it in the photo. The bottom line says to "use this emergency medicine kit when only you incur the trauma".

Landed in Changchun just after ten pm. Lots of snow on the ground. Cold, really cold. Minnesota midwest cold. Nick said ten below freezing, but I think that was celcius. Didn’t ask, was too cold. The name of the hotel is the Redbuds in Changchun, but it’s a different name in Chinese. Nick helped with the translation with the cabbie, a round of thanks and farewells and off to the hotel.

The roads have lane striping, but that really is of no consequence to the drivers. Horn honking is constant, but it’s used more of an alert to drivers in front of you that you’re passing and also to warn pedestrians and even bicyclists in the snow that their demise is imminent. There is no malice in the honking, it generates awareness sot of a form of being socially responsible.

The Jilin Tigers are returning from a road trip. I’m sitting in the hotel bar just after midnight writing and Tom expected to be here a couple of hours after I arrived, which should be just about any minute. They have a home game Sunday, which I’m really looking forward to seeing and catching up with Tom.

SUNDAY, MORNING 9 AM. Cooooollld Changchun. I'm having a little trouble getting onto the blog, hopefully the posts are going through, I can't confirm it by viewing it. So we'll fly by blind faith. Got an e-mail from Tom, the Jilin Tigers basketball team got back to the hotel at three this morning. Tom and I are going to hook up in an hour and hit a brunch. I took a photo out my hotel window just after sunrise this morning. Lots of snow on the ground. The Tigers have a game tonight, at home, starts with a team meeting at four this afternoon. Really looking forward to that.

Halfway to Beijing from Vancouver

Flying on an Air Canada flight 029, a 767. Interactive entertainment AND a plug-in on the seats for the laptop. That means five and a half more hours to write. 

Lot of movies to choose from, The Bourne Ultimatum was the first pick. Other than the title and the name of the main character, the movies have little in common with the Ludlum books. But they are really fast paced and good entertainment. The second movie was Ratatouille. For some reason, I skipped the theatre showings. What a huge mistake. What a great message movie. A mouse chef in Paris.

Five years ago, my daughter and I spent a week in Paris as part of a round-the-world jaunt. We stayed in a thrifty hotel on the Rue de Rivoli the first night, then moved to a Best Western by the Pont Neuf bridge and Les Halles for the rest of our stay. Paris has a very special place in our hearts. The food, the history, the people.

The food is…..well heck it’s Paris. I can’t really think of an adequate adjective. We were there at the end of June, so we would dine in the afternoon at the sidewalk café’s on the Rue de Rivoli and savor the sights, sounds and smells of the city. And of course, we would watch the people.

The history….when we were there we did a Hemmingway self-tour. We visited the apartment he lived in during the 1920’s and the bars he wrote about.

In Ratatouille there’s a great line, “That was rude, but we’re French, it’s ok.” As for the people, well I’m still waiting to experience the ‘rude’ factor. Everytime we went anywhere, I would speak French to them and they would give a knowing smile, nod and answer me in English. My daughter would pat my arm and say, “That’s ok dad.” My French is brutal at best, but making the effort to speak the native language endeared me more than once. I guess that’s the way to get over being the ugly american when you’re travelling. Respect the other culture and make an effort. I remember watching an episode of Rick Steeve’s travel show and how he was talking about service in a restaurant and how some cultures view slow service as good service, as opposed to the standard on the north american continent. After last year’s trip to St Vincent, my wife and I ended up in St Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles and found a restaurant, Kontiki, on Orient Beach on the French side that we always dine at when we’re on the island. After several trips there, we got to know the wait staff and the customs. We would always have a bottle of wine and relax before we ordered our meal. The pace was relaxed and slow. Not something you would ever find stateside. Frankly, many americans, with their fast food mentalities would be upset with the pace. It’s different, but it’s not wrong.

Watching Raratouille brought me back to Paris, maybe I’ll head home that way.