With Friday being Chinese Labor Day, Megan and I were more than happy to have another 3-day weekend to enjoy. After sleeping in on Friday I headed into Huangdao with Kerstan as he had stumbled upon some sort of basketball league with some of his other Western friends in town. Apparently last weekend they were playing at an outdoor court and were invited to play an organized game with some sort of official club team. Of course they accepted and had the chance to play a full court game with officials and a scoreboard and everything.
They were promised another game on Friday but needed more players, so I was happily recruited to play. One of the players on our team also managed to buy us uniforms for wholesale price, though they feature an image of motorcycles on the front with the words "Bangbang - Live Action Live Life" on the front. Nonetheless, we all looked "uniform" so we were ready to play. Our team features 4 American and 3 Chinese players, most of which speak pretty good English. Team Bangbang was born.
The game on Friday was a full four quarter game which our team won 87-73. It was close at the beginning, but towards the end we wore the other team down as we had 2 subs while they only had 5 guys. Also, their cigarette breaks during time outs and half time couldn't have helped. The whole thing was organized by this 50ish year old Chinese man who rolled up in a shiny new car (a clear status symbol), honked and waved to everyone on the court, and then got out and blew a whistle to signal 5 minutes till tipoff. We immediately dubbed him "the Godfather."
After the game, Kerstan, Kyle (another player and the owner of the Western bar Catch-22), and I went to a driving range nearby. For 40 RMB (US$7) we could hit about as many balls as we wanted. The driving range was placed right at the base of a few small mountains and is quite removed from the city so it was quite pretty and peaceful. Plus, I haven't hit golf balls since I've been here so I was glad to get that chance again. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but if I go back I'll be sure to take some photos.
Kyle has recently decided to turn his "Bar & Lounge" into a "Bar & Grill" so he has been experimenting with serving food. As he's just starting this, he offered to bring us back to the bar to have a free meal so his employees could practice serving groups of people. We met up with Megan and Karen and the five of us had a nice Western style meal. I'm pretty sure we all ordered bacon cheeseburgers, which is something I've been craving for a long time. It hit the spot, and it helped that it was on the house. Kerstan was so hungry he ordered a second bacon cheeseburger, which he intended to pay for, but it arrived without the actual burger. Kyle told Kerstan not to pay for and then explained to his cook that the whole point of a burger was to have the beef in it. Apparently it was still a pretty nice BLTish sandwich.
Saturday evening we were invited to the home of a Canadian couple who teach at the local international school (which is about 95% Korean apparently, and only has 6 or 7 kids per grade) for lasagna. This couple had been friends with Kerstan and Karen for a while and Megan and Karen had ran into them the day before which got us the invite. They have two really cute daughters who were about 6 and 8 years old and adopted from China, which is why the couple decided to come to China for a few years to teach. Also, the woman, Bernice, was first generation Dutch-Canadian, so we had quite a bit to talk about. Also, you can't go wrong with lasagna. It was a great evening, and one that made me forget for a while that we are even in China.
This afternoon we had the second game on the schedule for team Bangbang, this time against the Godfather's team. We had heard that his team is the best in Huangdao, so we were eager to play them. The game, while a lot of fun, was pretty rough from the beginning. I had flashbacks to my days playing at SAS with Chinese refs and Chinese opponents who seem to be in cahoots.
With the deck stacked against us (at least from my perspective), the game was pretty close throughout. Towards the end of the third quarter or beginning of the fourth quarter our team had built up a lead of 8 or so. Before long, however, and seemingly without a big run from the other team, the score was tied. We tried to fix the scoreboard but everyone insisted it was correct. So, we kept playing, after being told there were 6 minutes remaining in the game. We had possession and scored to take a two point lead. After a possession for each team without scoring, our opponents scored to tie the game, 53-53. We brought the ball up court like any other possession, but as soon as we crossed half court the refs blew the whistles to signal the end of the game.
Needless to say, we were pretty upset. I was probably the worst offender, shouting at the ref and signaling to the ref that we did not even have someone yell "10, 9, 8...." like at the end of every other quarter. It was so clearly rigged. We were grumbling to ourselves and one of our teammates' wives who is Chinese said "Please don't be angry, this is the way it has to be." I suppose that is true, this team was the "best" team in the area, and apparently their company sponsors the upkeep for the court that we were playing on, so they just can't lose.
We talked a bit about how in China things are significantly less democratic (obviously) than in America. Megan commented that oftentimes people don't earn things by merit as they would in the States (and how we should have by winning the game), but rather things are given to people based on status. Our opponents were captained by the Godfather and we were playing on their home court. They had the status, so we simply were not allowed to beat them. We had to maintain the natural order by ending the game in a tie. I'd rather lose than tie (still bitter).
Anyway, it was still great fun to play and there is talk of an all-city tournament with eight teams in a few weeks that we'll probably play in.
Warming up before the game. Notice the older guy in the sweater and collared shirt. No one knew who he was, but he went through our layup lines with us and seemed like a nice guy.
Game action (though you can't see me in the picture).
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