Brookline High School in China

China 15: BBall Jones II

weird food: red carrots (These are truly carrots except as red as a raddish with a white inside too, but the taste is entirely carrot.)
interesting topic brought up in eng. lit: TIME. For most of us it's been both an incredibly long time and a surprising short time in China. It's been almost a month here, and we've begun to develop into daily students and citizens in Xi'an. However, we still can't put our lives on autopilot. The amazing thing is the variety of attitudes about home at this point. For some, they miss home and they're family, but love Xi'an. Then there are some who would are completely at home in their new enviroment, and to some extent would even want to remain here. Then there are those who can't figure it out, like me. We are just living.

Yesterday was the first and last real basketball game I'd play at Gao Xin High because we lost in the first round. The game was very close; it even ended up going into overtime with the score tied 18-18. (Quite a low scoring game.) To put it bluntly, my team would've been slaughter had I not been on it. I scored probably 14 of the 18 points. Everytime I'd pass the ball to a fellow teammate they'd either drop it or shoot it in the direction of the basket. The latter of the two options was actually the uglier because their shots would entirely miss the basket and rebound off a teamates head. Don't get me wrong though, this wasn't a nonbasketball team. They loved the game. We ended up losing the game 23-20 in overtime after the other team triple teamed me.

Yet I wrote an entry about a week ago, that said how much I loved how the Chinese kids played here because they played with the love of the game, not individual glory. And here I was, yelling at my teammates and thinking in my head, "Why don't they just give me the ball instead of shooting these airballs?" For some reason, even in the US, I've always believed I was above that selfishness.

The captain (who I call Kobe) of our basketball team was bawling after the game. Apparently this game was very important not only to him, but to the whole team. I mean, all the classes in the school come out to watch these games. They're a big deal. I was able to decipher among Kobe's sobs something like he only got to shoot the ball once. I went up to the class room and found the entire six person team crying. Needless to say, I felt very at fault for losing the game. I even began to feel tears in my eyes, not because we lost an extremely close game, but because the rest of the team was upset. I went up to a couple and hugged them, telling them in broken Chinese they shouldn't feel bad, but they kept on saying "I only had one chance."

I came to China and discovered that I am the best basketball player at the Gao Xin High School, and I have disappointed myself. Not because I failed to win. Because I did not carry out my position as the most talented player with the respectibility I've always dreamed of carrying it with. I came to this school at another level of basketball than everyone else, and yet here I was playing with this class as if it was my game to play. In fact, I'm 18 and they're only 15 or 16. What right did I have to interfer with their team, their game, or their tournement. Maybe it would've been better to not have played and let them lose their own game. Just b/c I was better than everyone else did not mean I could simply make myself the key component of the team. Perhaps I stole their "one chance."


Here are some pics of me and my various hair styles over the past few days. I had my braids for the basketball game, so i looked like a true baller.

Getting Braided






Braids


Taking Braids out

posted by dAVID @ 11:55 PM