Archive for the ‘Life & Culture’ Category

Learn Chinese

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Learning Chinese has got to be one of the most difficult things a person can do and I honestly have no idea how I will accomplish the task. I have tried learning Chinese through podcasts, I have tried to learn Chinese by speaking Chinese to locals, I have even tried to learn to speak Chinese by reading a ‘Learn Chinese for dummies’ book that my friend recommended me after 2 years of not mastering the language.

There is really no way around it, learning Chinese is not easy. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to learn Chinese then you’re just tricking yourself. You need to remember that to master the Chinese language you will have to learn over 400 sounds, you will need to be able to remember the meaning of most of these 400 sounds under the 4 different tones in the Chinese language. Then you will need to associate the pinyin sound and specific tone to a Chinese character. That Chinese character will have several different meanings depending on how you use it in a sentence. Also putting different characters next to each other will also naturally derive totally new mearning. There are over 3000 chinese characters that you will need to remember. Yes, learning Chinese is definitely no easy task.

And this, this is all to learn a popular Chinese dialect called Mandarin. It is the official dialect supported by the Chinese government and spoken widely across China, but by no means does it cover everything. In Shanghai for examples, locals like to speak the Shanghai dialect which is completely different from the official Mandarin. To learn to speak Shanghainese would require me to practically learn a new language. If you decide to go to Hong Kong for example, they have a completely different language called Cantonese which in fact has 9 tones!

Learning Pinyin, learning the tones, learning the han characters, learning the Chinese phrases that sometimes don’t make sense, learning chinese words that could mean totally opposite things, and learning all the Chinese exception in grammar and vocabulary is a real pain. I’m not sure if I will ever learn Chinese Mandarin properly. Sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged when you muster all the effor to learn to speak Chinese and then you go out to practice speaking Chinese only to find out that the locals don’t understand a word you say and laugh at your puny attempts.

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Wo Ai China, China Ai Wo

Monday, August 25th, 2008

chinaa.jpg 

China has had its ups and downs throughout its history as have I, but strangely enough, the past decade has led us to grow into a intertwined life path – unexpected, yet seemingly destined.

The Xia Dynasty

My first experience with the country came on a holiday to Beijing and Xi’An in the Fall of 1999. It wasn’t exactly the dream holiday for a pleasure seeking and quite frankly spoilt child in the middle of adolescence. At the ripe age of 14, I had visited more temples than probably Dalai Lama himself so I was more interested in laying on some beach somewhere than in seeing the dead body of a tyrant. Nevertheless China did intrigue me, how could it not with its rich culture, mystique, and folklore – translated to me as kung-fu, pandas, and dragons in those days..

 

The Great Wall didn’t end up impressing me as much as I thought it would. I couldn’t see what was so special about it, a simple ladder from your local shop would have undone its purpose and the 1000+ years it took to build it. Just like the Great Wall itself, I perhaps had the fake illusion that I was more important that the other things in this world and consequently was unable to establish a real connection with China. That fall at the turn of the millennium, I vowed never to return to the Middle Kingdom ever again. I deemed it backwards, uncivil, and without life – probably the exact opinion that China had of me…

  

It took me just three years to return to the land from which I had banished myself. The circumstances presented themselves in such a way that I really had no choice once again. My parents had moved to Shanghai and I made frequent visits during the Easter and Christmas holidays throughout my University years. It seemed as if destiny was playing a cruel trick on me and imposing that I treasure the Pearl of the Orient. I can’t say I fell in love with it the second time around either. Sure, Shanghai with its strong Western influences, the cheap shopping, the vibrant nightlife and exotic girls did warm me up to what was becoming a fascinating land. There was such rapid growth and change, it seemed like China was in the middle of its very own adolescence. However, once again I dismissed the idea of ever actually moving and living there on the grounds that it was a large disconnected vacuum – whether it is geographically, sociologically, politically or culturally.

The Qing Dynasty 

I myself was very disconnected at the time. Freshly out of university, I took a couple of months of holiday to decide my course in life. I ended up in the heart of another kingdom – London in the United Kindgom was where I would chase whatever I was seeking. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, where to do it, or how to do it – so I eventually decided to apply to the top companies in the world in perhaps the most competitive area possible (creative marketing) in one of the most cutthroat cities in the world. Much like China in the wake of its rightful flourishing into a nation with endless opportunities – I thought if I aim high it doesn’t matter the direction I take. My interviewers didn’t see it that way – they questioned whether I was really a people person and credit to them they were absolutely right, I wasn’t. Much like China – the ‘people aspect’ was never my strong point.  

In the end, I was chasing the wrong career, the wrong dream, and worst of all I was even in the wrong place. London, whilst being everything I thought I wanted, was really not proving to be the place where I wanted to spend my golden years. Most of my friends were residing there and I had decided to enroll in a Finance Masters program to pursue a career more fitting for me. However the problem with that plan was that I knew exactly how the next 5 years of my life was going to pan out, and that thought really frightened me as I envision Mao’s 5 year plans frightened the Chinese people. I’ve always been one to live life not knowing what unexpected turn my life could take. After all, I pretty much had to – considering that 4 times before in my life I had lived in a place for at least 3 years, and had to leave everything behind and start a new life somewhere else. So it seemed like I needed to do that once more – forget the past, and start afresh… much like the beginning of a new dynasty. And I got that unexpected opportunity in March of 2007.

The Western Zhou Dynasty 

The prospect was simple – I would move to Shanghai where my parents and brother were living and join a multinational company working in finance where I wished to begin my career. Sure I would have to start out living in my parents house, have no friends, work in a challenging field relatively new to me, and enter work more through connections than my own hunt – but that didn’t stop me from pulling the trigger faster than a lead in a John Woo movie. As expected, the first few months were a challenge – but as China itself seemed to be doing, I swept the negatives under the rug, focused largely on the positives and tried to develop myself as much as possible. 

Things were starting to look up until a series of unfortunates events happened. My parents had a serious car accident essentially leading them to return to Belgium, my brother decided to move to Thailand, and before I knew what had happened I was all alone in this country that only several years ago I had declared I would never set foot on again. China itself was going through a rough patch – the weather problems during the Chinese New Year, the political turmoil in Tibet and Darfur, the boycott requests of the Olympics, and recently the earthquake in Sichuan.

 

Amidst this circumstantial chaos, China and I bonded. China’s vibrant and often times hectic lifestyle was an interesting backdrop to my gloomy attitude at the time. One of the reasons why I had left England was that everyday felt like “Groundhog Day”, but China was proving to be the complete opposite. To this day, I don’t think I’ve had one day pass where I didn’t witness something new. Perhaps on your regular walk to work one Monday morning you will realize that a regular Chinese shop has been replaced by a Nike store in the span of one weekend, you might find some carrots slip into your Big Mac, you might see a street fight between a man and a woman, you might see your colleagues cut their toenails in the office, or you might just simply see a hilarious English sign that has been mistranslated.

 

China’s attraction didn’t stop at interesting everyday experiences. It’s fast emergence and growth has led it to skip a generation and adopt some really new and innovative technology and business practices not present in most areas of the world. Home delivery is available for anything from dry cleaning, to restaurant meals, to custom tailoring, all the way to massage services – all at bargain prices and even with the ability to order over MSN. Taxis/boats/and practically any flat surface in town has inbuilt TV’s, DVD stores can be found on every street corner, electronic shops with everything imaginable are plentiful – all bringing China to the forefront of countries obsessed over consumer electronics.

 

Truth remained however, that besides experiencing a wildly mesmerizing culture and enjoying the comfort of a King-like lifestyle, something else was needed. What does every 23 year old’s heart beat for? Why, the nightlife of course. It’s hard to imagine any place in the world better for this. Hot exotic girls? Check. World class clubs, bars, restaurants? Check. Affordable prices? Check. Local girls’ interest in foreigners? Triple check. While a night out in a city such as London could easily cost over 100pounds, end up terribly after ending up in a pretentious club full of overLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise-weight-Lose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise and overdrunk girls, with perhaps a few fights and yelling somewhere – Shanghai’s nightlife hardly ever disappoints. Relaxed, safe, cheap, interesting, entertaining…the positive adjectives to describe it are endless.

 

So life was interesting, it was easy, and it was fun. Isn’t that all that’s needed to like something? Perhaps, but something deeper is needed to actually love something – and I believe much like most kinds of love, this takes time to build and fortify. For me its taken approximately a decade, dating back to my first visit as a immature 14 year old – but now I truly feel it “Wo ai China”. Was it that China changed and I started liking it, or had I changed and China started liking me?

 

There are countless handbooks teaching you about places, but none that teach you how to love it. The simple fact is that if its destined to be, it will eventually win you over. The smile on the faces of desperate vendors in downtown Shanghai, the voices of the young girls singing songs in the streets of Lijiang, the beauty of Guilin’s natural sights, the majestic presence of Beijing…these are some of the flashes of this great nation that win a permanent spot in your heart. As Confucius once said: “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”. I’m just glad I finally got to see it.

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Yogurt: The Most Underrated Food in the World

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

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Yogurt, yoghurt or whatever ‘foreigners’ want to call it - was originally invented in Turkey and named Yoğurt (after the word Yoğun, meaning dense). Of course this makes sense when you realize that yogurt is strictly milk undergoing chemical change through bacteria and becoming a more dense substance. Anyways, you might be wondering why in the world I am writing about something so ‘insignificant’ as yoğurt? Well, that attitude is the exact reason why. Today, yoğurt is (non)officially the most underrated food in the world.

You might wonder how I came to this conclusion, and there is actually two elements to it, the first one being how it is so strictly underused in most parts of the world. Yoğurt is great. No, its not just great, its freaking unbelievably amazing. I can’t believe that something as great as yoğurt exists in our world governed by laws of physics and science. Yoğurt is one of the only foods that you can include in any meal that will actually add value to your meal. Personally, I put yoğurt in practically everything that I eat. From spagetthi to rice to any meats to vegetables to really almost anything. Of course it is widely used in breakfasts, and can also function as your healthy desert. Alot of drinks are available from smoothies, to Yop, to drinks like Ayran. Yes, whether your realize it or not, yoğurt is everywhere, everyday.

Couple of eyebrows might have been raised at my use of yoğurt in main meals. In fact I was eating at a company canteen in China couple of months ago, when I had the too-good-to-be-true idea to add the yoğurt provided as a drink to the sticky dull rice that I generally find too dry to eat. Horror and shock was seen all across the cafeteria as I covered their holy rice with yoğurt – almost as if my meal would explode at these two unrelated foods combining. Well, in the end it didnt quite work out the way I had envisioned as the yoğurt was completely sweet. I ended up not eating any of it and ended up hungry, and probably moronic in the eyes of my colleagues. But trust me when I say that you really should try to combine non-sweet yoğurt with other meals. It somehow manages to make the meal more lively, balances out the food your eating to hide its flaws and complement its positive taste, and makes almost any food edible (really hot, really cold, spicy, too strong taste, too weak taste, too weird taste). Oh and it doesnt hurt that its damn healthy too.

While I can insist on how great it is to combine yoğurt in a variety of meals, most will probably be too narrow minded to give it a try. One good introduction point might be to try out this meal called Iskender. This is my favorite meal in the world and if you try it you will see many valuable aspects of yoğurt you might have never noticed before. Adding garlic to yoğurt also produces great results, but that might be a refined taste not many people are ready for. 

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So besides being this perfectly healthy, cheap, and widely usable food that improves practically any meal you eat – the second aspect that makes yoğurt the most underrated edible substance in the world is that in a land of 1.5 billion people, it is almost impossible to find. I have been living in China for 9 months now, and I naturally couldn’t help noticing the fact that natural yoğurt(no sweeteners, fruits, or any modifications) is not produced or ever consumed in China. Yes there are some imported ones from Japan, but they are priced like its some luxury product like caviar or something. This is a basic dairy product for God’s sake! Its not that China doesnt eat yogurt, they are in fact obsessed with it themselves and have aisles of different yoğurt.  Unfortunately, they have all been infested with chemicals, sugar, sweeteners, and fruit. In the end, someone like me who wishes to eat regular yoğurt on a consistent basis is unable to do so without spending a fortune getting ripped off by foreign imports.

I have had discussions on this topic with a few people and I just couldn’t understand how this was ethically, humanly, and economically possible. One argument thrown at me was this thing called ‘supply and demand’…pshh, like some economic jargon was the answer I was looking for! On a serious note, I don’t understand why supply and demand would lead to this situation. Prices rise or fall when there is a discrepancy between supply and demand. However, here there is perhaps low demand but actually no supply! I reasoned that some Chinese company producing sweetened yogurt could easily make changes to their production process, and gain a monopoly in the natural yoğurt market. With the fierce competition seen in the sweetened yoğurt market, I really don’t see why this isn’t viable. Besides Turks like me, there are lots of Japanese/French and other foreigners who I imagine would like to have access to plain yoğurt below champagne prices. So I was told that I should start my own company and take advantage of this bottleneck in the market. Then, yesterday afternoon, I came across this. Fresh yoğurt delivered right to your door at decent prices! As great as this solution was, the price still seemed too high for me  – 10rmb for 125g of yoğurt? You can buy a liter of Nestle milk for that much and despite not pursuing a Maths major, I’m pretty certain that will produce more than 125 grams of yoğurt!

So I took matters into my own hands, literally, and I have started to produce my own yoğurt. Yes, I run a little yoğurt operation in my backyard apartment. It’s really not that hard actually. When my mom first taught me how to make yoğurt at home, I just scoffed at the idea, partly because I couldn’t actually believe how easy it was. You take a small portion of left over yoğurt, slowly stir it into a pot of warm milk, and just cover it up with some blankets to keep it warm – and the magic happens. After several hours you can unwrap the blankets from the pot and put it into a fridge. Voila, you just gave birth to one of the miracles of life. Frankly, as a lazy/hip/straight 22 year old, I realize that producing yoğurt might not seem like the most ‘normal’ thing to do. But hey, that’s how I roll.

So that is the story of the most underrated edible susbstance in the world. Yoğurt  is already widely used for many different applications, but the majority of people haven’t even begun to understand the power of yoğurt. Not since microwavable pizza has the world seen a food so practical. Yoğurt might have been around for thousands of years, but amidst preformed misconceptions and prejudices, and a lack of media coverage - one of the real wonders of the world has continued to pass under the radar, until now. As they say, sometimes we are looking for something so intensely that we don’t realize that its been in front of us the whole time. So next time you wonder why your life is so bland, go ahead and cook yourself a fresh batch of yoğurt, you won’t be disappointed!   

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Analyzing China and Turkey, Through a Shared Football Advert

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Serendipity in the Underground

On a slightly cold Sunday afternoon after a brief errand in the city, I happened to take a subway back home instead of the usual taxi ride I am accustomed to. As I was happily escaping the organized chaos that is the Shanghai subway, a huge poster was hung near the exit begging to catch my attention. I paused and looked at it for a second: 

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Yes it was one of those ads that is suppose to make your heart sink and make you all warm and fuzzy inside (especially for a nationalistic/sports loving/advertising appreciating/China residing person such as myself) but somehow it just didn’t affect me the way it should have. Walking home, I thought about why my reaction was as such: were the Chinese citizens portrayed in the exact manner that the world (and Chinese government) harshly views them – as a swarm of millions working hard just so that a few individuals can prosper? No, that wasn’t it. Instead it turned out that I had already seen this poster before…but there was no Adidas, and there was no China. Huh?

This Adidas advertising campaign had begun officially on November 30, 2007. On the other hand, the ad that had lit a fuse in my memory and no doubt was the creative ‘inspiration’ behind the Adidas campaign, had actually started months before - in the beginning of October. As you can see, the idea is…very much the same:

 

turkcellsupporters2.jpg

 

Upon returning home and trying to find out more about this shocking revelation, I noticed that the Adidas advertising campaign created by the TBWA advertising agency also included a video commercial apart from the prints. This again seemed like plagiarization of the video created by Markom Leo Burnett, the agency which prepared the Turkcell advert months before. See both adverts below:

Turkcell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isT4DXK0rag

Adidas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx0LP0pSm38

 

At the end of the day, whether TBWA or Adidas knew about the Turkcell/Markom Leo Burnett campaign before is irrelevant as they released an exact copy of a product 2 months too late. While the concept of the people of a country rallying behind their sports stars isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it is still interesting to see that what was meant to be the  ”largest campaign ever created by a single Adidas market” for the single most important sporting event for a country that is so eager to show itself in a positive light – to be in the end a complete copy. Luckily for the involved parties (China/TBWA/Adidas) this embarrassing news has not hit any mainstream news outlets, in fact it is hard to find ANY information on this quite amusing advertising fiasco.

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Turkey vs China

One certainly positive aspect of this rather strange ‘sync of fate’ and one that I would like to focus on is the way in which the exact same idea was executed differently on two nations. This advertising coincidence serves to be a rather interesting light in which to analyze and compare Turkey and China. While Adidas had the bigger budget and hence ended up with a slightly more polished product, the print adverts themselves highlight key difference between the Chinese and Turkish people that explain frighteningly well these countries’ current sociopolitical framework.

These two seemingly opposite countries actually share a great deal of similarities: a great and tragic history that saw them go from world powers to the complete opposite until recently, a sense of nationalism that is not only widespread and relished but practically required, a culture that is as a rich as any, and a population that is in large part poor. However while the people of these nations face similar daily challenges on a day-to-day scale – the societies they constitute in fact hold much different roles and thoughts on their nations fate, and we can see this clearly when looking cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercisely at the print ads.

China 

If you look cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercisely at the China advert, the people are colored and detailed in a way to signify the lack of importance of each individual. It is more a sense of a large crowd that is begging to be portrayed, rather than a collection of individuals. In fact, you can notice that each and everyone in the crowd is hoping to give a helping hand but only a small percentage of the whole crowd is in fact of any use – the rest are ‘excess labour’ if you will. These individuals who aren’t of any help are all grouped into the same category and are faceless in the eyes of the observer. You can also see that each person that gets to help is exuberant in a reckless manner that implies that they are just happy to be there, regardless of what it is that they are actually doing (that is if they even know what they are doing).  The football star meanwhile is serious and focused solely on the goal at hand, due to the Chinese people and government’s strict expectation of success and the consequences of failure. However while the responsibility is solely on the star’s shoulders, the credit is also reserved for him and the Chinese ‘flag’  – he and the uniform of China are the only parts of the picture with any color.

What this reiterates is that China is not larger than the sum of its parts, it is in fact something totally different. While China is named ‘People’s Republic of China’, the nation and its destiny are controlled by the very few – the communist regime in place is likely to keep this structure in place as long as it possibly can. One last point of interest is that the picture sees no adversaries. While the fact that China has been isolated from the rest of the world until very recently is one way to explain this, it makes much more sense to think that China in fact sees no adversaries in sight at all. It is actually its very self that it needs to battle to succeed. The endless crowd of people that symbolizes China, is ironically also the ‘playing field’. This ‘match’ stretches all the way into the abyss, and this highlights that China has a long way to go before it can declare any sort of victory. 

Turkey 

When you look at the Turkey advert, you can see the approach is very different, and this is no coincidence. The ‘people’ are represented in much fewer amounts and it genuinely feels like each persons contribution is similar and actually noticeable to the overall goal. The faces of the Turkish supporters helping out are much more serious than their Chinese counterparts. Much like their superstar, the people understand their responsibility and the importance of what they are doing. Consequently, both supporters and the main star share size, color, and importance in the advert. This is no exaggeration as Turkish football supporters proudly view themselves as the 12th man in football games, and their effect is undeniable. 

The adversary in this advert is none other than ‘the West’. Turkey has struggled for decades to prove to the West that it is on equal footing with the rest of the advanced world. Funnily enough, much like its battles to join the European Union, the Turkish public tries here in this advert to ‘win’ through unfair means. Turkey still pushes today to be accepted into the EU despite the long list of EU regulations it has yet to meet. The setting of the advert is in an arena, where the rest of the world watches cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercisely and the different media bodies in attendance can reflect the story in the manner they wish. Ultimately, it is satirically fitting that this advert – meant to signify the strong nationalism in Turkey where everyone not only wants success for the country but actively has a part in it -ends up showing that its people are doing the complete opposite of their intentions. Much like how going on the field and actually playing alongside the players would be a type of nationalism that would cost the team the game, the Turkish people’s overabundance and misdirected sense of nationalism in dealing with national issues also ends up clouding the future of economic and sociological development.

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From Chance to Fate 

What started merely as a funny coincidence, ended up being quite a representative study on two of the most important yet relatively unknown nations in our modern world. Turkey on the one hand serves as the canvas of a modern Islamic country, the hope that East vs West, Islam vs Christianity, and nationalism vs globalization can all prosper in the same world. It’s people, slightly blinded by nationalism and overcharged on pride, struggle daily to contribute to the countries’ growth in anyway they can, even if it is rashly going on the football pitch and helping the motherland towards victory. China meanwhile, represents the future of the world, economic expansion, the final steps towards free trade, and a dormant giant ready to takeover the globe after centuries of isolationism. It’s people, are also blinded but for them it is communism that acts as the blinding powder. They are a country used to poverty and suppresion yet everyday have hope that their allmighty goverment can release the shackles from under their feet and provide them with a better life – and they will go to great lengths to allow a chance for this to happen, even if it is serving as the football mat under their star’s feet or standing cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise and ready at any chance their nation might need them. Steep hurdles are ahead for both these nations and its people, but let us not forget: impossible is nothing.

 

  

 

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Sports: Not Just a Game

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

It’s been a while since I have had the will to write another article. You see, the reason for this is that there’s been this topic on my mind I’ve been stuck on, and I feel unable to move past it. Usually my articles are strange, comical, and sometimes absurd– but right now, I feel like I can’t go back to that state of my mind, at least without first unburdening myself of the topic that I will talk about today.Sports in context

Have you ever said something along the lines of “sports is my life”, or “I can’t live without (some sport) ” ? Do you own a “(some sport) is life, the rest are just details” t-shirt? Is sports a major part of your life and always on your mind? Does watching an important game become more important than anything going on in your life at some specific times? Do you want to be free of everything else when watching your favorite team?

If you have said yes to any of those questions, then you are one of countless millions of people who love sports more than logic suggests we should and some even follow it to religious extents. For me, sports is a big part of my life, I’m not gonna lie. I love playing sports and do it at every chance I get. I also love watching sports particularly basketball and soccer. Especially around big tournaments and with teams I really care about, it’s hard for me to do anything else than actually follow those games. I’ll stay up until 2 a.m. on a work day to catch the game, I’ll watch it on some scrambled channel like Canal+ and ruin my eye sight, if I have to I’ll even listen to it on the radio, I’ll download the game somewhere if I can’t catch it live, I’ll stay home on a Saturday night, I’ll cancel appointments, and I generally will push everything else in life away when a major sports match is taking place. I never really questioned this fact or its meaning and importance to the bigger picture…until very recently.

Couple of weeks ago my parents were in a serious car accident. I remember it clearly when I first heard about it, or actually just BEFORE I first heard about it. I was mad and upset that there would be no way for me to watch the FIBA America’s or FIBA EuroBasket championships in the upcoming weeks because they didn’t show it in the area that I lived. It was the main thing on my mind at that time. Then my brother got the phone call and told me about the accident, and all I remember thinking was “Who the #$%@ cares about sports!?”. I was just depressed for caring so much about such a little thing – and it really put sports into context for me as to where it stands in life. I didn’t give a damn about my job, my current problems, and obviously anything sports related was not on my mind the least bit after that point. I was actually hating myself for having such a deep involvement in something so insignificant as sports. Life was real. Sports, in the end, was just a game…

Unexpected Savior

My brother and I got on the first plane to see my parents at the hospital. My mother was fine but my father was in intensive care and was not stable. He had severe internal bleeding and was transfused litters of blood that put his life in great risk. Mortality rate, we had read on the internet, was cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exercise to 50% for a situation such as his.

The next morning after we arrived, we had a chance to see my father for the first time, he was about to have his big surgery. I hadn’t really been in a situation like this before so I really didn’t know how to act when I would first see my dad. We walked in to this dark room full of patients looking like they were on the verge of death and being kept alive by machines, when we finally saw my dad. He did not look good. In fact, I could barely recognize him both in the physical and mental sense. My brother and I were simply speechless, and could not find words to say to my father. We had flown half way across the world, left everything behind, and were solely there to give my father the least bit of support…but yet we did not know what to say to him.

Then, almost instinctively, I started speaking. You know when you are expected to say something and don’t for an uncomfortably long time, there comes a time when you just open your mouth and blurt out anything without thinking, just so the moment passes. What did I end up saying? I told him that our soccer team that we support had won that weekend. Perhaps the doctors roaming around or my mom and brother who were next to me were surprised to hear this, as the first thing I said to my dad. However, I saw a brief sparkle in his eyes and a rare smile that indicated to me that he was still the same old father that raised me for 22 years and made me who I am today. I think that it also made him remember that there was a world outside of the walls of this intensive care room, where countless machines each beeping strange noises repeatedly made even us feel like it was robot hell. That brief soccer comment connected us, it connected him with the world, and surely enough the conversation and mood in the room changed from depressing to ‘normal’.

Straight after our chat, my father was taken into the operation room and had a very serious surgery that lasted several hours. Me and my brother were at least happy that we sent him in there with positive thoughts and our full pledged support.

Luck was on our side and surgery went well and my father was finally stabilized and his life was no longer in immediate danger. The two weeks after that, I stayed in the hospital, seeing my father at every chance the doctors gave us. And every time the main topic of conversation would be sports. Some days we even requested the doctors bring in a television into the intensive care room so we could watch soccer games with him. The nurse didn’t want us to stay too long to tire him out, so she asked us to leave after a brief stay. My father however asked and insisted that we can at least come back at half time of the game so we can analyze how the game went in the first half. It was quite remarkable how much sports ended up helping us. It brought my dad out of the depressing world of machines, heavy medicine, pain, and the thought of not being able to walk for the next 3 months – and it helped us connect back with him and use it as the medium to share everything and anything else.

Impact of Sports

I know I said at the beginning that I had begun hating sports and how I felt stupid for caring about it so much. However, what transpired over those 2 weeks has made me feel completely different on the matter. To be frank, I still can’t quite put a sense or logic to it, and I don’t exactly understand why sports had such a big impact. But the same can be said for things such as love and faith – two of the most powerful human emotions.

Yet when I think about it even more, this idea of sports and its larger importance to humanity is all around us, and not just inside the walls of a hospital as was the case for me. Kids throwing a football or baseball around with their fathers, moms driving their kids to soccer practice, families going to watch their kids’ match and recording it on camera, brothers/sisters becoming cLose Weight Exercise/”>Lose Weight Exerciser amidst sharing a common sport, old friends reuniting for the first time in years thanks to an alumini game, the generations of a family supporting the same local team, and the list goes on.

Sports is in fact everywhere and its not just a game or just entertainment. Sports is real, it’s a part of life, and its great in so many ways beyond the scope of this article. Perhaps some time in the distant future, I will create a part two and talk about all the other reasons but today I feel satisfied in knowing that one of my life’s main passions is not meaningless. It brings people together like nothing else. And for me, it brought me back my dad.

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