I last posted the day that the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. The devastation from these two natural disasters and the continuing aftershocks is beyond comprehension. I could not imagine the fear, sadness and uncertainty that many of those people in Japan are feeling as they search for family, mourn the deaths of family and friends, and face the aftermath of nuclear radiation. I feel very blessed to know where my family is and to know that they are safe. With all of the natural disasters taking place in the past couple of years, it starts to make you think …
When the earthquake occurred in Japan I was in the process of preparing for a basketball game. I did not become aware of the disaster until late that night when I returned home. I am not sure if there was an announcement during the game – if so, it was announced in Chinese and I did not know what was said. After the game I quickly showered and changed before heading to dinner. I was still oblivious to the events as most restaurants do not have TVs playing. It was not until I opened my email and Facebook to see numerous messages stating that they hoped everything was ok in Taiwan and that I was safe. There were reports of a possible tsunami heading east toward Hawaii and south toward Taiwan. Fortunately, there were no tsunamis that reached the shores of Taiwan. If such an event would have happened, I would have been safe in the city as the tsunami would have crashed on the shores 30 miles out.
Sadly, I have encountered many people in Taiwan that either have family or friends living in Japan that have been affected by the disaster. These events are a part of life and we all face different obstacles through our journey.
In the last post I spoke about our team going 0-5 since my parents had left. We apparently, and as a matter of fact, were a team of streaks. Heading into the weekend of March 11-13 we took 3 wins from Yulon (4th seed), Taiwan Beer (1st seed) and Taiwan Mobile. We began playing very good basketball and the guys even developed a bit of a swagger. With the wins we moved into 5th place. This is the first time in three seasons the team has not finished at the bottom of the ladder.
As for a personal summary of the games, the first game I had a line that was 24 pts, 14 rebs, 1 ast, 2 steals and a block. In that game I was matched against Yulon’s import – a 6’7 forward that played at U of Illinois – Chicago. He finished with 8 points and 16 rebounds – the dude could jump. In the second game we faced the number one team (sitting with a comfortable margin over the second seed) Taiwan Beer- we were heavily the underdog. We traded leads throughout the game and TB held an advantage of 6 points going into halftime, but we erased that to start the 3rd quarter and began the 4th leading by 4 or 5 points. They battled back and at the 1:50 mark I scored the game winning basket! Each team had several possessions and neither team could score after I finished a nicely executed pick and roll to put us up 68-66. I finished with 16 points, 15 rebs, 2 asts, 2 steals and a block. In the final game, the 3rd game in 3 days, we were taken down to the wire against a depleted Taiwan Mobile team. We did not play poorly, but I think that it being our 3rd game in 3 days had a major impact on how we shot the ball. I was fortunate to have my friend, Teena, in the stands for her final game. Apparently she is good luck because every game she comes to we win! The game was far closer than anticipated, but we got the win in an 88-84battle. I finished with 20 points, 10 rebs, 3 asts, 2 blocks and a steal.
For my performance over the weekend I was awarded the ESPN Super Basketball League (SBL) MVP. Each week a player is nominated as the top performer and Round 11 was mine! As is the case with all individual awards for players that play team sports, those individual awards are not possible without the guys you play with. Without our team taking those three games over the weekend, there is no way I would be the recipient.
Below is a picture of me with the MVP award. It looks like a tennis grand slam trophy.
Each team in the league typically plays 3 games each week. These games could be played on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights. Sometimes the games may take place Wed, Fri and Sun or Wed, Fri and Sat. In the worst case scenario the games take place Fri, Sat and Sun. When that happens it takes your body a couple days to recover. Fortunately, for the last weekend of the regular season I had the Friday, Saturday and Sunday schedule. That doesn’t make sense does it? I was just complaining about how it takes your body so long to recover after three back to back games. Well, it makes sense when you have Fareast Movement tickets on a Wednesday night!
March 16th the Fareast Movement (like a G6) took over Luxy in Taipei for a show. Jason and I had received tickets in advance and we were golden. The line to get into the club spilled out into the street out in front and the entire sidewalk was a sea of people. We arrived at 10:30 and approached the club thinking that we might not get in on time with that line. Little did we know, but our ticket got us to the front of the line and up through the back without a wait to get into the 5th floor club. To top things off we met up with a friend who had a table reserved in the middle of the club in front of the stage. What tops things off even further is that this friend coordinates all the international models that come through Taipei and that is exactly who we partied with. The girls were from Russia, Brazil and other places that produce beautiful women. Bottles and models! The show ended around 3 am and it was so much fun! The only issue was that practice started in 5 hours.
Before leaving for the show, and any time I wear jeans, my teammates ask me, “Where are you going?” They are always amazed that we get out on the town, meet people and have fun. I could be doing none of the former and only heading to pick-up a pizza but if I am wearing jeans instead of sweats I will be interrogated! Their favorite question is to ask if I am going to meet a girl.
In the last two weeks I have been able to experience some of Taipei’s fantastic variety of foods. Since the team has shown pretty substantial improvements this year compared to previous years, the management of the club has taken very good care of us. The team captain, our national team player and I went to a two hour lunch with the team president and coaches. The lunch was at a Japanese sushi restaurant. For the two hours we were served various plattings of raw tuna, salmon, caviar, crab, lobster and oysters. The lunch was concluded with a hot fish soup where the entire fish; fins, scales, eyes and all are in the pot that sits over a flame and continues to cook while it is served. The fish is completely intact when the soup is served, so do not think that there are random scales and eyes floating around. You spoon a decent amount of broth into your bowl and then slowly cut away the meat from the fish. The soup is very common and always served at the end of the meal. I have also had similar soups featuring duck and chicken prepared the same way.
In addition to the sushi, we ate as a team at the Sheraton’s restaurant. This was an incredible buffet and I was thankful that I was starving prior to. It featured the traditional salad bar, desert bar and hot bar. The only difference was that the Sheraton’s versions were on steroids. In addition to the previously listed bars, they also had a sushi bar with a sushi chef continuously preparing different dishes. At the hot bar they had the traditional Taiwanese dishes, Indian dishes (I love curry), a meat section that included prime rib, barbeque chicken and sausages, but most importantly they had a section that had mashed potatoes and lasagna! This was the first time since being in Taiwan that I had a proper meal with American style foods.
The other dining experience I had was at a Mongolian BBQ. This was my farewell dinner with the team. A bottle of whiskey, which later turned into a couple bottles of whiskey, was placed on the table to start the night. It is customary for the person for whom the party is in their honor to leave the event intoxicated. Success.
If you have never eaten at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant, I highly recommend it. An individual piles their desired frozen raw meats into a bowl and then tops it with vegetables, oils and spices. After piling as much as you can into/onto a small bowl, you bring the bowl to the cook who prepares the food on a large, round, solid iron griddle at approximately 500 degrees. After watching the cook toss the food around the griddle, he swipes it all off with a large rod into your bowl. The prepared food is very similar to stir fry.
Whenever there are team functions, like the dinners mentioned above, the entire team shows up together. We all leave the dorm at the same time on mopeds and cruise as a group through traffic. There can be 15 different mopeds in our group and we look like the Hell’s Angels pulling up together. Everyone gets off their bikes, parks them and we all remove our helmets. It is quite hilarious as we all take off from a stop light like we are in a race. We travel 2 or 3 minutes before stopping at the next light and in that amount of time the distance that has separated us is erased as all the mopeds weave between cars to get to the front of the line. The light switches and the process is repeated. Since I ride on the back of 200’s bike I tend to let my ADD kick in and I watch all the guys and put my arms out like I am flying… that is until 200 yells at me that a police officer might stop us because that is what drunk people do. Keep in mind that I am sober when this happens. I have asked 200 if I could drive the moped, during off-peak hours, and he answers very sternly with a, “No.” He fears not only for his life, but mine as well.
Now back to basketball. In the final weekend we played three games. We entered the weekend in 5th place. The top 4 teams advance to the finals. The 4th place team, Yulon, had a 1-4 record against us. We were a better team than they were. In order to clinch, factoring our head-to-head record into things, we needed to win all three games and Yulon had to be swept. It was a long shot, but the famous saying from the comedy Dumb and Dumber definitely surfaced, “so, you’re saying there is a chance!” Unfortunately we lost our first game against KKL. KKL was the bottom team in the league and we have continuously had trouble matching up with them. They have great guard play, and their import can flat out shoot the shit out of the ball. He got going and that was all she wrote and we lost by 11 points. I finished with 16 points, 13 rebs and 3 assists.
In this game I had a very memorable experience. The Taiwanese players tend to flop and exaggerate any contact to try and draw a foul. To their credit it often works. I went to crash the offensive boards on a possession and was met by two hands in my chest. I tried to pull the old “swim move” to get free and my elbow caught the player’s head. That is just a part of basketball in my mind, but to this guy, he felt like he was wronged. He got in my face and started to swear at me in English. He first told me to, “Kiss his ass.” I was not about to back down to his verbal abuse.
With all of my exposure to the Chinese language, the stuff that really stuck was not the useful conversational pieces, but rather the inappropriate trash talking stuff. I responded to the player, in Chinese, by saying, “shut up.” He continued the onslaught again in English with something a little more personal. I think he was just as impressed with his ability to talk trash in English as I was to be able to counter back in Chinese. I again went back at him with something a bit more vulgar. This went back and forth in front of my bench about four or five times. The Taiwanese player swearing at me in English and here I am swearing at him in Chinese. The guys on the bench could hear everything and were just rolling in laughter and cheering me on. I’ve never backed down from a good trash talking session on the court, so why would I let a language barrier stop me from participating…
In the second game we were squared us against the Dacin’ Tigers, the 3 seed. This was a heartbreaking loss for us. In our last meeting, Dacin’ came from behind to force double OT and stole the victory from us. This time it was us coming back in heroic fashion pushing the game to OT. It, however, was too little too late. I fouled out and we dropped the game 87-90. I finished with 17 points, 14 rebs and 3 asts. We could never quite get over the hump against Dacin’. They were the only team that we did not beat during the season.
Our final game was against Pure Youth. I was told and was expecting to play limited minutes this game. I had played approximately 75 of the 80 minutes in the first two games. Pure Youth had clinched the # 2 seed and we were expecting them to rest their import and other star players. This is what we had expected against Dacin’ the day prior because they had done so on Friday night. Both teams, however, came out looking to get ready for playoffs. I ended up playing 38 o f the 40 minutes.
With 6 games left in the season I had yet to attempt a 3pt field goal. I had taken 3 shots in desperation as the shot clock expired that were 3 pointers and were registered to me. These were not set shots, but rather shots where I turned and heaved. You can count them as attempts if you’d like, by definition, but I won’t. Anyway, with 6 games to go a teammate wagered a bet to me. He said if I do not make a 3 pt shot by the end of the season I have to buy him a bottle of Johnny Walker. If I do make a 3 pt shot, he would do the same. The third possession of the last game, with no 3pt shots attempted since the bet, I had an open look from deep. I thought about it, but passed the ball to my betting friend. I signaled for a ball screen and he rejected it and drove baseline. As the player defending me sunk to cut my teammate off, my teammate looked for me on the roll. I was nowhere to be found. I was still on the 3 point line looking to seize an opportunity. The ball game out, I didn’t even hesitate and splash! The crowd and bench erupted.
After the game the team went out to KTV – Karaoke if you will. It is HUGE! It is like walking into a very nice hotel and each room has its own lounge and bar area with a large projection screen. The servers bring food, drinks and anything else you may desire. I did not partake in the singing festivities due to my inability to maintain the proper tone and key.
We actually have players on our team with the names Hu, Huy and Wen. They are pronounce Who, Why and When. We are just missing Where and What.
The crazy thing about going out in Taipei is that everyone smokes and it is allowed in bars and clubs. It is miserable not only for the clouds of smoke that hover over your table or the smoke that is blown into your face indirectly but for the next day when your hair and clothes have been saturated in the smell. The city of Taipei needs to take note.
Due to the stench of my clothes on a Sunday morning from the previous night’s exposure to cigarette smoke, I have been unable to attend church as regularly as I would like. That is not the truth, there is usually practice or game conflicts on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Church services in Taiwan can either be in Chinese or translated in English. Attending mass is only a matter of finding out what time, where and if the service is in English. As a Catholic, I am not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. This has not been a problem at all as the majority of the food I eat is from the ocean anyway. Being an island, a large portion of the local diet comes from the sea. What has been more difficult is staying away from the Snicker bars I crave. I gave them up for Lent and I have been successful so far.
My last night in Taipei was a bit of a spectacle. Having to pack my life into two duffel bags- something I did with no trouble before Taiwan but found extremely difficult this time because of all the things I accumulated while I was there. I was determined to get it all in the bags and was quite successful despite a few things being left behind. The plan for the evening was to grab dinner and head to Luxy with my teammates where we had arranged a table thanks to a couple guys that host the evening at the club. The bottle of Johnny Walker that was owed to me was paid in full and we enjoyed the music, the time together and shared stories from my time with the team. The night was capped off with me being invited to the stage to judge the Sexxxy Wednesday (ladies night) contest. Girls are pulled from the crowd and compete for the evening’s sexiest girl. After a few moments trying to earn the crowds support a few girls move on and some are sent back to the crowd. In the finals, there were two pairs of girls. Based on the crowds response it was a tossup and a winner could not be determined. This is where I came in to cast the most important vote, the winning vote! After a couple pictures with the winners I was back with the guys, who by the way did not know where I went until I appeared on stage to vote. I came back to the table and they were like, “who are you?”
After a rough night out in Taipei I was thankful that I packed everything the night before. I knew that waiting until the last minute was not going to work very well based on previous experiences in going out late the night before traveling.
I am always amazed at the words that are in these guys’ English vocabulary. They speak fairly broken English, but sometimes they pull out a word in context and I am like how do you know that word but not the 1,000 more words that are 100 times more common and applicable. I asked a news reporter how it felt to go against Chien Ming Wang (a Taiwanese pitcher in the MLB) in a simulated at-bat at the batting cage and she said it was like---Hell. Not the word I was expecting, but ok!
As a summary of how basketball went for me individually, I finished in the top 10 for the league in Points per game ((#8) 16.9)), Rebounds per game ((#5) 11.0), Assists per game ((#10) 2.5), Steals per game ((#10) 1.2) and Blocks per game ((#9) 0.8). These were enough to get an invite back to the club for next season, so we’ll just have to see what happens!
Just after I was starting to feel settled I am off to the sunshine, beaches and laid back atmosphere of Australia. I enjoyed my time in Taiwan immensely and it exceeded every expectation I had. Now Australia is on tap and I expect nothing but the same! I am blessed.
