China's new sports problem

Stop the Linsanity?

Feb 20th 2012, 2:47 by G.E. | BEIJING

Mr Lin has quickly amassed a huge following among Chinese basketball fans (and this country does love basketball). This poses a bit of a conundrum for Chinese authorities for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that Mr Lin is an American who is proudly of Taiwanese descent, which would seem to complicate China’s efforts to claim him (and oh how they have tried already—on which, more below).

But there are three other reasons Mr Lin’s stardom could fluster the authorities. First, he is very openly Christian, and the Communist Party is deeply wary of the deeply religious (notably on those within its own ranks). Second, he is not a big centre or forward, the varietals which are the chief mainland Chinese export to the NBA, including the Mavericks’ Mr Yi; and of course he came out of nowhere to become a star, having been educated at the most prestigious university in America, Harvard.

Mr Lin is, put plainly, precisely everything that China’s state sport system cannot possibly produce. If Mr Lin were to have been born and raised in China, his height alone might have denied him entry into China’s sport machine, as Time’s Hannah Beechpoints out: “Firstly, at a mere 6’3”—relatively short by basketball standards—Lin might not have registered with Chinese basketball scouts, who in their quest for suitable kids to funnel into the state sports system are obsessed with height over any individual passion for hoops.” Even when Mr Lin was still a young boy, one look at his parents, each of unremarkable stature, would have made evaluators sceptical. Ms Beech’s other half happens to be Brook Larmer, the author of the fascinating book “Operation Yao Ming”, which details how Chinese authorities contrived to create China’s most successful basketball star, Mr Yao, the product of tall parents who were themselves Chinese national basketball team players. The machine excels at identifying, processing and churning out physical specimens—and it does so exceedingly well for individual sports, as it will again prove in London this year. But it happens to lack the nuance and creativity necessary for team sport.

What of Mr Lin’s faith? If by chance Mr Lin were to have gained entry into the sport system, he would not have emerged a Christian, at least not openly so. China has tens of millions of Christians, and officially tolerates Christianity; but the Communist Party bars religion from its membership and institutions, and religion has no place in its sports model. One does not see Chinese athletes thanking God for their gifts; their coach and Communist Party leaders, yes, but Jesus Christ the Saviour? No.

Then there is the fact that Mr Lin’s parents probably never would have allowed him anywhere near the Chinese sport system in the first place. This is because to put one’s child (and in China, usually an only child at that) in the sport system is to surrender that child’s upbringing and education to a bureaucracy that cares for little but whether he or she will win medals someday. If Mr Lin were ultimately to be injured or wash out as an athlete, he would have given up his only chance at an elite education, and been separated from his parents for lengthy stretches, for nothing. (One must add to this the problem of endemic corruption in Chinese sport that also scares away parents—Chinese football referee Lu Jun, once heralded as the “golden whistle” for his probity, was sentenced to jail last week as part of a massive match-fixing scandal). Most Chinese parents, understandably, prefer to see their children focus on schooling and exams.

In America, meanwhile, athletic excellence actually can open doors to an elite education, through scholarships and recruitment. Harvard does not provide athletic scholarships, but it does recruit players who also happen to be academic stars. There is no real equivalent in China.

So China almost certainly has other potential Jeremy Lins out there, but there is no path for them to follow. This also helps explain, as we have noted at length, why China fails at another sport it loves, football. Granted, Mr Lin’s own path to stardom is in itself unprecedented, but in America, the unprecedented is possible. Chinese basketball fans have taken note of this. Mr Lin’s story may be a great and inspiring proof of athleticism to the Chinese people, but it is also unavoidably a story of American soft power.

Some authorities in China have responded, as might be expected, by trying to appropriate Mr Lin.The Chinese city of Pinghu, in coastal Zhejiang Province, sent a missive to its recently remembered former resident, Mr Lin’s grandmother on his mother’s side; officials crowed that she was pleased by the attention her hometown is paying to her grandson’s success. Xinhua, China’s official news service, published a fanciful article urging Mr Lin to take Chinese citizenship and join the national team of the People’s Republic.

Mr Lin’s Taiwanese family background seems to pose a special problem. China Central Television (CCTV), the national monopoly that broadcasts NBA games, has not joined in Linsanity. A game featuring Mr Lin a week ago, against the Minnesota Timberwolves, was broadcast on Beijing TV’s sport channel, but the broadcast included the forbidden image of the Taiwanese national flag, held proudly by fans in the stands. (The flag is typically blurred in China if it must appear in news footage). Chinese netizens noticed, and wondered if that would bring a punishment, or a tape delay. CCTV, for its part, told Netease, a Chinese internet portal, that most Knicks games couldn’t be shown due to the “time difference”, “but if time allows, games of the Knicks will definitely be broadcasted preferentially.”

That remains to be seen. Fortunately for Chinese sport fans, the internet provides a ready-made alternative to the state television system. Most of Mr Lin’s games are being made available by live stream on the portal Sina.com. This morning’s game against Mr Yi’s Mavericks was a rather interesting exception, a mysterious little black hole on Sina.com’s NBA schedule. Frustrated Chinese fans had to go looking for dodgier streams elsewhere online. What they found was a closely fought game between the two teams, with Mr Lin again starring and leading the Knicks to victory. More poignantly, they found their countryman, Mr Yi, remain on the bench for the entire game, reduced to the role of spectator. It was a glimpse of the Chinese sport system versus American soft power. Perhaps it was not fit for viewing.

(Picture credit: AFP)

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Stop the Linsanity?

Feb 20th 2012, 08:37

I approve the view of anzik, who points out the ideology concerned. If we look back on Chinese (or Taiwanese) in America about sport for the last decade, both Wang Chien-ming and Yao Min, the most prominent examples separately in baseball and basketball, had been criticized under observation for at least one year, even facing some unreasonable difficulties during their growing up in their teams. Moreover, Wang’s skill had been full of maturity in Taiwan before he was invited to work in Major League Baseball (MLB). With the really strong base, Wang’s technique, nearly equal to Japanese Suzuki Iro’s, let Wang play the represetative role in Taiwan ACER’s laptop successfully.

Rather than Wang and Yao, the New York Knicks sensational point guard Lin Shu-how (Jeremy Lin), an undergraduate in doctor degree’s process in Harvard University, is famous too soon after showing some records not too much or not too surprisingly but there are more and more kinds of “product” on stock. According to the last week’s report of NBC’s Robert Windrem, Lin has quietly sought trademark protection for "Linsanity" as well as for his name on file at the US Patent and Trademark Office. For instance, “Linsanity” includes the followings:

Clothing, namely, shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hooded sweatshirts, jackets, hooded jackets, coats, headbands, sports jerseys, nightshirts, pajamas, pants, rain coats, rain wear, robes, scarves, shorts, socks, sweaters, sweatpants, underwear, warm-up suits, wristbands, sweatbands, belts; footwear, namely, shoes, slippers, sandals, athletic footwear, sneakers; headwear, namely, caps, hats, visors and bandanas.

Wow, it’s beyond anyone’s imagination and description. Undeniably, Lin is very hot at the present American sport as well as in his parent’s Chang-hua, Taiwan. Taiwan’s medias has been spending more than two weeks reporting anything about Lin, which almost occupies other classified news. Both Wang and Yao never surpass Lin while accounting numbers of products. It is strange to see these kinds of product. And Lin is affiliated with Knicks, which is now just on the brink of the eight certifications or tickets of the advanced level and, overall, has so-so expression among NBA.

So, in addition to his Christian identity, I think that Lin few affects China’s sport field. China’s sport forum cannot provide a good surroundings for Chinese youth to show their abilities. By the way, there are some mistakes among Chinese officials with each other like Xinhua’s this kind of report. As Yao once talked to me, China’s official sports game lack of respect with each other and exists the uncertainties of rules and cultures. Therefore, the only possibility of helping improving China is to play basketball in the Olympic Games. By and large, the shooting star may be observed in other aspect of sports, for him and overall China. It is difficult to say one’s achievement in his life by using just less than one month’s record or news.

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以下是回筆者回文的評論 的回文，就是經濟學人注意一個中國原則不錯和筆者又再說教一次。筆者附帶提已故古巴領導卡斯楚總統和馬英九父親馬鶴齡先生的私人律師王可富先生的女兒王效蘭女士認識，她有數年在紐約市活動擺攤推廣台灣人民共和國的說法，並曾為當地媒體和自由時報自由廣場投稿者提及。

Stop the Linsanity?

Feb 21st 2012, 17:02

Come back, really come back, Taiwan.

According to the prologue of China’s constitution, “Taiwan is China’s holy territory, which cannot be conceded.” Anyone including YOU has to abide by this “One China Policy”.

Possibly from your sayings, you may use Chiang Kai-shek’s China to say Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party, saying all things about China are ugly. Chiang and Kuomintang, who deteriorate Taiwan too much, are of course not Chinese Communist Party. You can directly support Beijing and don’t care Taipei’s anything.

Uuuhm, you take Cuba’s example. Maybe you hear of Fidel Castro or Wang Shiang-lan’s thoughts and relationship, I know. But Taiwan’s affair has nothing to do with them, very sorry. Just enjoy the next leadership of fifth-generation Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jin-ping and Li Ke-qiang. To do so can get the real benefit.

Finally, Taiwan is part of China, having to belonging to Beijing’s CCP. But Lin Shu-how (Jeremy Lin) is American, which lives under American law because of Lin’s birth location. There is no link between these two sentences. You are awful to use error sentence ending your entertaining show, very boring.

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這篇就是應應景，筆者陪著瘋新興起的林書豪浪潮。「林來瘋」浪潮蔚為風潮而使林書豪順著錢潮，在2012年2月13日委託律師Pamela Deese付1625美金，向美國的商標專利局遞件申請「Linsanity」、「Jeremy Lin」。在那最近的NBC報導曾經全部列出這兩項的週邊商品項目。「Clothing, namely, shirts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hooded sweatshirts, jackets, hooded jackets, coats, headbands, sports jerseys, nightshirts, pajamas, pants, rain coats, rain wear, robes, scarves, shorts, socks, sweaters, sweatpants, underwear, warm-up suits, wristbands, sweatbands, belts; footwear, namely, shoes, slippers, sandals, athletic footwear, sneakers; headwear, namely, caps, hats, visors and bandanas.」

筆者舉王建民和今年要退休的鈴木一朗的能力例子，不過小舉錯一題，就是王建民是登上過時代雜誌百大人物的投手，鈴木是美國大聯盟單季262全壘打打擊手世界紀錄保持人。

這裡提到中國網友和官營媒體如中央電視台或新華社的態度，似乎會避免一些基督教教義及台灣出生背景的問題。經濟學者雜誌刻意以這張照片提林是台灣（彰化縣）出生的背景。沾上了政治敏感讓林來瘋浪潮惹議，不過這不減球迷的興致及熱情。姚明曾和筆者當時提過中國球員甄選雖然不再黑箱但仍保守，很重學閥之別，以及怪型考題。另外雜誌原文適時小探討美國高等教育甄選人才之開闊及美國職業球員的來源，並沒有菁不菁英學校出身之分或是是否畢業於相關科系的限制。而這句引起迴響「Mr Lin’s story may be a great and inspiring proof of athleticism to the Chinese people, but it is also unavoidably a story of American soft power.」

*附下一期相關文章一篇

Sporting heroes

Adopted son

Jeremy Lin’s basketballing fame crosses the Pacific Ocean

Feb 25th 2012 | BEIJING | from the print edition

CHINESE sports fans had been looking for a new hero to call their own. Their top football league was upended in the past two years by a vast match-fixing scandal (39 players, referees, owners and officials were recently sentenced to jail for their part in it). Chinese basketball had seen no heir to Yao Ming as international standard-bearer. Then along came Jeremy Lin, a Taiwanese-American phenomenon who has been the story of the season in the National Basketball Association (NBA). American basketball is hugely popular in China, as are successful foreigners of Chinese origin. Mr Lin ticked both boxes, as he set about amassing an awful lot of points on the court. On February 20th Chinese time, Mr Lin’s team, the New York Knicks, played a game against reigning NBA champions, the Dallas Mavericks. The game appeared to pitch two very different players against each other: Mr Lin against the once-hyped, Chinese-born-and-trained Yi Jianlian of the Mavericks. Mr Yi, it had been hoped, would succeed Mr Yao as a Chinese star in the NBA.

Mr Lin’s popularity in China exposes a number of curiosities about the country’s attitude to sport. Most obvious is that he is an American who is proud of his family’s roots in Taiwan, an island that China claims—and a fact that complicates China’s efforts to claim Mr Lin (and they have tried). But there are three other reasons Mr Lin’s stardom could fluster the authorities. First, he is openly Christian, and the Communist Party is wary of the deeply religious. Second, he is not a big centre or forward, the varietals which are the chief mainland Chinese export to the NBA, including the Mavericks’ Mr Yi (who stands at 7ft, or 2.13m tall). And third, in a sporting sense he emerged from relative obscurity, having been educated not in a hothouse American sports college but at Harvard, a prestigious but somewhat less sporty American university.

Mr Lin is everything that China’s state sports system seems unable to produce. As a young boy, he might even have been denied entry into China’s sports machine because of his modest height (he now stands at 6ft 3ins). One look at hisparents, each of unremarkable stature, might have made evaluators sceptical. The Chinese machine excels at identifying and churning out physical specimens, rather than point guards (Mr Lin’s position), who must be quick-witted, tactical maestros.

Indeed, Mr Lin’s parents might never have allowed him anywhere near the system. To put a child (usually an only child) into the Chinese sports system is to surrender his upbringing and education to a bureaucracy that demands sporting success at any cost. If a child were to be injured or fail to make the grade as an athlete, he would for nothing have been separated from his parents for lengthy stretches—and given up his chance at an all-round education, to boot. Although poorer parents from rural areas may welcome the chance for their child to attend a sports school, with the chance of upward mobility, most middle-class Chinese parents prefer to see their children focus on schooling and exams. So China almost certainly has its own Jeremy Lin, but there is no path for him to follow.

China Central Television (CCTV), the national monopoly that usually broadcasts NBA games, has not joined in the “Linsanity”, as American commentators have called the fever surrounding Mr Lin. CCTV told NetEase, a Chinese internet portal, that most Knicks games could not be shown owing to the time difference. But if the timing allows, it said, the games “will definitely be broadcast preferentially.” It remains to be seen if that will happen.

Fortunately for Chinese sports fans, the internet provides a ready-made alternative to the state television system. Most of Mr Lin’s games are being made available by live stream on the portal Sina.com. The game against Mr Yi’s Mavericks was an exception, a mysterious black hole on Sina.com’s NBA schedule. Frustrated Chinese fans had to go looking for dodgier streams elsewhere online. What they found was a closely fought game between the two teams, with Mr Lin again starring and leading the Knicks to victory 104-97. More poignantly, they saw their countryman, Mr Yi, remaining on the bench for the entire game, reduced to the role of spectator. As a glimpse of the Chinese sports system versus American soft power, it was perhaps deemed not fit for viewing.

from the print edition | China

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