A rat, and Kobe on the Chinese New Year

A few nights ago I was walking back to the dorm after dinner. It was dark out, but still early so there were plenty of people out for a stroll. A couple of guys ran past me laughing. I saw another guy up ahead dart out into the street from the sidewalk, and I figured the three of them were playing a game of tag. As I continued walking, another couple walking ahead of me also made a sudden lateral move out into the street. I became aware of a sqeaking noise, and was confused for a brief moment. Enlightenment came in the form of a large black rat springing into the air at my feet, forcing me into the same sideways shuffle maneuver I'd just seen performed by my fellow pedestrians.

The animal was insanely energetic. I turned and watched as it scurried back and forth, unable to find its way around the short wall at the edge of the sidewalk. It was constantly changing directions, and squealing like a Dissmores shopping cart. Tracking the dark shape against the shadowy sidewalk was like trying to keep an eye on a ping pong ball at the Chinese national championships, before they changed ball color from white to yellow and increased the diameter to 40mm. Every few seconds the streaking horizontal motion was punctuated with a leap straight into the air. It was during one of these leaps that I became aware of the rodent.

The rat reached knee height and the motion was all vertical, as though caused by a sudden jerk on a string from above; for all you engineers and physicists, the motion of the rat was purely in the x-y plane one moment, and parallel with the z axis the next. I know we all like our physics problems to contain only simple one and two dimensional vectors, but it was very startling behavior in a rat outside weekly homework assignments. The thing would land on the exact spot it left the ground from and resume scurrying without missing a beat. It was probably scared with nowhere to hide, but a scared rat just doesn't inspire the same sympathy in me that most other animals would.

I stayed long enough to watch a few more unsuspecting walkers make the discovery. I thought about warning them, but decided against it. Most people here are startled when I say "Hello, I'm from America" in passable Chinese. Who know's how they'd react to some white guy shouting from the street, "look out, a leaping rat!". If the rat itself wanted to give someone a heart attack jumping around like that, fine, but I didn't want that on my own conscience.

Warning: new, unrelated topic. I keep wanting to mention the NBA in a blog, but it's not enough for a post of it's own and I always forget to add it. I know it's anticlimactic after the rat, but that's just too bad.

I knew the NBA would be well known in China before I ever came here, or at least that Yao Ming would be a big deal. What I didn't realize is just how popular it would be. I've found that almost everyone has a favorite NBA team, and more often than not it's a team other than the Houston Rockets. I guess things would be a little boring around here with hundreds of millions of Rockets fans. It makes sense that they'd branch out. When I first introduce myself to people without a good grasp on American geography, many times it goes like this:

Me: I'm from Washington State.
Them: Oh, the capital of the United States!
Me: No, that's Washington DC. It's confusing, America has two places called Washington.
Them: (look of confusion)
Me: I'm from near a city called Seattle.
Them: (head scratching and squinting)
Me: NBA, Seattle Supersonics.
Them: (grinning with recognition) Ah, NBA! The Sonics! I like the Mavs...hey, you know what? You look just like that guy Nowitzki! He's awesome!

Apparently, basketball is popular enough here for the NBA itself to take notice. At the Chinese new year, some big names were featured in a spot on CCTV5. Yao Ming, Tim Duncan, and Lebron James could all be seen sitting in a big armchair, smiling warmly and saying "Xinnian kuaile." You just don't expect those words coming from a guy like LeBron James. To my even greater surprise, the final representative was Kobe Bryant. While the others were fairly reserved as they spoke, Kobe really got into it. He broke off from the "Xinnian kuaile" pattern, instead saying "Bainian, Bainian" which to me is a more advanced version of happy new year. Instead of just sitting, he clasped his hands together and bowed several times with a big smile. His pronounciation was not bad, and it came of as really genuine. Way to go, Kobe. Now all you have to do is start scoring 60 points a game instead of 50, and next year the Lakers could make it to the conference final. With enough of China supporting you, it might even be possible.