B-2 Bomber

These pictures were taken during the pre-game ceremony of Virgina Tech 2005 football season home games opener: Virginia Tech vs. Ohio.

 

The B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is the world’s premier strike aircraft. Only 21 of these bombers exist in the US Air Force inventory, and this marks the second visit of this technological marvel to Hokies’ beloved home field: Lane Stadium, which is recently ranked as the No.1 home field in college football, according to rivals.com.

 

 

The Year of the Yao

The movie’s title, "The Year of the Yao", is kind of misleading. When I first heard of it, I thought it’s about Yao Ming‘s most succesful season so far. However, it turns out that the movie is a documentary of Yao‘s rookie season in NBA. Anyway, the movie itself is interesting and worth watching. If it gets into theaters in China someday, I bet there would be a huge amount of audience.

 

Basically, there are not too many new things in this movie to Chinese Basketball fans, because we had all been through the games during 2002-2003. Although Yao‘s rookie season wasn’t fantastic, no one would disagree that it was really hard-to-forget. Especially, Yao‘s making Barkly kiss donkey’s ass, and Yao‘s beating O’neal in their first head-to-head match, were all very CLASSIC.

 

In fact, all Chinese NBA fans know that Yao is not the first Chinese player getting into NBA. The first player is Wang Zhizhi. Wang joined NBA one year earlier thanYao, and they are of the similar age. But now, the contrast between them is so huge: everyone believesYao is going to be one of the all-time great, while Wang can barely get a minute to play on the field.

 

Watching the movie, I just can’t help thinking that what makesYao so succesful. No offense to Shanghai people, I don’t see Yao present more talent and play more skillful than Wang does. Instead, I would argue that the fundamental reason is Yao is a whole lot more talented in language than Wang. I come to believe that, in America, the famous old saying should now be changed to "It’s easier done than said." I got this feeling from school, from the companies I worked and have beeing working with. Moreover, I found that if you can say it right, it’s very likely that you will do it right.

 

By saying Yao‘s language talent, I am not saying his English is perfect. That’s a too narrow sense of understanding language. Tons of people speak English better than Yao does. But I could hardly see a Chinese guy can speak English so freely like him. All the time, I feel I have no problem discussing work with American. But other than work, all I have is polite yet awkard smiling. The problem is that we Chinese don’t have the so-called American’s humor sense.

 

Now let’s see how Yao showed his humor sense. In the movie, Yao and his interpreter, Colins, attended a press conference after a particular game. All of a sudden, Colins‘s cell phone rang, and he was really embarrased. Yao immediately followed, "Hey, we [he and Collins] are all rookies!" Everybody laughed out loud and happy. A few days ago, there was an article saying that Yao‘s IQ is 145. I tend to believe it.

 

So guys and gals, polish your language if you want to make yourself tick in America. Also, there is another trick that I found quite useful: Become a sports fan. Sports is always one of the easiest ways to make friends with American people.

Proud to be a Bostonian

I finally got a chance to hang out in Boston city after staying in here for 3 weeks. I didn’t expect Boston to be a spectacular city because it’s one of the oldest cities in America. But still, Boston is on top of my must-see list because: 1) Boston is the capital of Massachussets, and even the whole New England area, 2) Lexington, one of the residential suburbs of Boston, marks the beginning of American Revolution War, 3) MIT is the sacred place for every Engineering pilgrim, and 4) I am a New England Patriots fan.

 

Usually the first thing in hitting a city is its subway. People have been long warning me that DO NOT drive in Boston downtown. They said they still got lost even after living so many years in Boston. Well, their words really scare the hell out of me. Boston’s subway route structrue is very similar to DC’s subway, and looks as old as that of NYC. It’s not pretty, but it’s not shabby.

 

However, the most impressive thing to me in Boston is nothing else but the proud of being a Bostonian. The logos of Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics can be seen everywhere. It’s so funny that the heat of this big city has NO difference to that of a college town. In the train, what really surprised me is that I was the only one without putting on Red Sox’s gear. At the "Park St." station, all people got off the train and I was the only one left behind. Only at that moment did I realize that it’s a game day. At the entrances of all subway stations, I can see a very glaring slogan: The City of Champions. Yes, Boston deserves this. The city has seen the Glory of Celtics’ Basketball Dynasty, is experiencing the Sweetness of Patriots’ Football Dynasty, and will start Fighting for Red Sox’s Baseball Dynasty. I am pretty sure I would have been a die-hard fan of Boston if I had lived here earlier.

 

In fact, I am not even a fan of Baseball. But the story of Babe Ruth’s curse on Red Sox, Red Sox’s miraculous come back against New York Yankees, and never giving up in fighting for the championship of World Series in 86 years deeply touches me. Of course, Bostonian’s proud is gained at the expense of Non-Bostonian’s hate. After Red Sox’s winning the WS champion, Bill Simmons  (the popular Sports Guy columnist for ESPN.com and former sports reporter for the Boston Herald) said, "Now I can die in peace!" Guess what New Yorkers respond? "Yes, may you will!"