Last week I saw a video of Mark Zuckerberg conducting an interview at Tsinghua University of China entirely in Chinese. That was quite impressive and unexpected. The audience was surprised and delighted. I give Zuckerberg a lot of credit and I think more businessmen going to China should learn the language. It certainly create good will and by learning the language, one can better understand the culture and thinking of the people. This would help immensely when negotiating and may help when the other side is speaking in Chinese to each other in say, the bathroom!
Having given Zuckerberg kudos for learning Chinese, I must say that there is a double standard. When my brother in law who is white goes to a Chinese store in LA and starts to speak in Cantonese with the clerks, immediately he is surrounded by Chinese women googoo and gaagaa over him. They are surprised that he speaks fluent Cantonese. Now I walk into a GAP store and speak fluent English and no woman ever comes up to me, all delighted. Isn't this a double standard?
The World Series was a good one this year. But I must say the Giants and Royals are the two worst teams among the ones who were in the playoffs. I understand the teams that are hot at the right time deserve to win. But when every series in this playoffs was won by, I think, the inferior team, then there is something wrong with the game. I means the Tigers killed the Royals during the season and the Dodgers killed the Giants. OK, enough sour grapes. I will salute the Giants who won for the third time in five years. That is hard to do in this era. And they did it without an extraordinary payroll. Plus Madison Bumgarner won games 1, 5 and saved game 7 on two days rest. That reminded me of Mickey Lolich winning games 2,5 and 7 in the 1968 Series. So maybe we can go back to depend on a great starter more in the future instead of endless change of relief pitchers.
Funny you should mention Tsinghua. A girl I was dating went there to study for the summer back when I was in college. I even got a shirt from there. I wonder if Zuckerberg really speaks Mandarin fluently or if he read off a teleprompter with phonetically written words.
ReplyDeleteHe's pretty smart so I actually think he knows some Mandarin.
As far as the double standard goes, maybe you just speak English very well?
Kudos to the Giants for winning 3 of 5 World Series. That's an incredible feat. Can you call them a dynasty? Can they be mentioned with the all-time great teams? I don't know. But the argument can be made.
Kudos to Bumgarner too. It was good to see him do well and do it the way he did in this age of baseball.
I really wanted the Tigers to sign Maddon after he left Tampa. I think he's one of the best managers out there. Hopefully he proves me correct in Chicago. If he can win there, he can win anywhere.
-LBOAYM
Zuckerberg was really speaking Mandarin since it was a Q and A format where the host and audience asked him questions. He was not speaking from a prepared speech. He had trouble understanding the questions a couple of times which is normal. It is a lot easier to speak than to listen to a native speaker who maybe using terms you are not familiar with or maybe speaking too fast. He joked about that when he mentioned his trouble listening Chinese to his wife, she said that he doesn't listen well in English either!
ReplyDeleteI would not consider the Giants a dynasty. They have done very well with their budget. But if you are the 4th or 5th best team in the league during the regular season and win the World Series, I don't think you are a great team. You can't be compare with the Yankees teams and others who won several World Series when only the top team in each league can go to the World Series.
I think Ausmus deserve at least another season. But are the Tigers going to be able to keep Scherzer and Victor Martinez? Are Verlander and Cabrera on the decline? How can they improve the bullpen. All these are tough problems to solve no matter who is the manager.