PGL Kicks Ass & China isn't so bad (Long&Bloggish

I like Canadians except one
Emlary, May 25

I like Alanis Morissette and Steve Nash. I like Canadians except one.

The very early memory of Canadian came from a Hong Kong soap opera when I was five or six-year-old. I remembered one male character in the soap opera was from Canada and married a HK girl; what he bought for his mother-in-law after their honeymoon trip in Canada was a can of AIR from Canada. That’s hilarious to me because I could not understand why people gave AIR as present to others at that time.

Oh, yeah. Canada may be the country with the cleanest air in the world. It's OK. If I make a journey to Canada, I would like to take a DEEP breath of its clean air. On the contrast, if a Canadian visit China, visit Beijing, probably the city with the worst air condition of the country, does he (or she) have to put on a mask to prevent potential infection? In case that he can afford, he has the right to put on a mask. Chinese police will never trigger a gun on your head if you put on a mask which makes you look like a bank robber.

We need some humor. My big boss, an American guy who spent over 20 years in China, often flies between our NYC headquarter and Beijing office, and visits our Shanghai office once a month. He makes fun by shouting in our Shanghai office that "You guys should take some air pollution of Beijing". We all laugh. He knows China because he wants to know the country. He understands Chinese people because he wants to understand these people. He has an open heart; he sees shitty things as well as glamorous things in China. (Btw, I personally live in Shanghai right now and I don't like Beijing very much either.)

20-year experience seems too long for a 15-day tournament.

That's right. Shitty hotel and polluted air will make you sick. You can't even think about your strategy for the next game in a logistic manner. What should you do?

Tips!

Your time is precious. And you have no patience to complain the bad condition of your room to someone who are unable to speak the fucking English and to wait for they arrange another room in a five-star hotel such as Ritz-Carlton. Try to find the closest budget hotel called Home Inns (pronounced as Ru Jia in Chinese). Why budget hotel? Because you are not a rich man! Home Inns is a budget hotel chain in China, which has been listed on NASDAQ (quota from Yahoo Finance: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=hmin) and runs 28 chain hotels in Beijing. All their hotel rooms look exactly the same with free broadband network access and 24-hour hot water. The average price per room per day is really cheap, which I'm sure is less than 200 Yuan (25 US$). Hopefully, civilizations will find themselves at home in Home Inns hotel.

Working at a foreign company, I met a lot of foreigners in past one year. They are "odd" when compared to the Canadian I dislike. They are proud that they can speak some Chinese and they are willing to speak Chinese. They even give themselves decent Chinese names. These foreigners have not forgotten their own countries. They felt proud when speaking Chinese because they know they stand their foot in China. I may feel proud when speaking English in Canada, but speaking English in China means nothing.

Oh, I can speak a little French. I think some Canadians speak French. If I have a chance to talk to Steve Nash, I would like to say SALUTE to him.

I really feel sorry to you. Lose, and get back to wherever you don’t resent. You have been looked like a loser.