(no subject)
Gymnastics!! My favorite ^_^. The Chinese women's team is incredibly tiny. I mean, they all look like they're nine, even though they're 16 or so. The boy sort of looked at me funny when I commented on that and wisely refrained from joking about my height and Asian genes and the possible correlation between the two (but really, I'm tall back at home!).
Had a longer lunch hour today so I could watch the men's synchronized diving. First impression: they all wear their Speedos very low. Although my general rule of thumb is that I would personally refrain from doing any sort of sport on international TV whose uniform routinely gave me wedgies (see: women's gymnastics and beach volleyball). I was very happy for the Greek team, who won gold ^_^. I'm also cheering on the Iraqi soccer team and the South African men's relay team, who were very very fast and whose win was completely antithetical to the whole commentators' trying to play up the Australia-US rivalry thing.
The boy cheers for all the Americans, and I cheer for everyone who isn't American, unless the Americans have no chance of winning. I sort of figure Russia and China and the US will all get lots of medals and whatnot, so I might as well cheer for the other people. I always think it's kind of funny that despite the whole attempt at internationalism and good sport-ness (good sportiness? sportedness?) that in the end certain sports just revert to a very Cold War mentality. Ok, mostly I'm just thinking about gymnastics, but it's always the US pitted against old USSR countries who were Communist, or now, against China, who is Communist. And much is made of the machine-like way the Communist (or formerly Communist) countries train their athletes, while the US is more creative/artistic/etc.
I would also very much like for someone to give the commentators a little pronunciation guide for Chinese names. I realize the weird "q" and "x" and etc. is very confusing, but honestly, it's not that difficult.
I also yell and talk back to the commentators a lot, so it's probably good I'm just watching this with the boy ;). The commentators really annoy me. NBC's coverage also annoys me -- yeah, I know they're broadcasting in the US, but I still want to see all the routines of the Chinese gymnasts and the Russian gymnasts too! I wish they would cut out those annoying sob story biographies and show more sports. I'm still amused that I'm always into the Olympics, despite the fact that I am not interested in sports at all.
*crossing my fingers and hoping Taiwan gets something* (though I doubt it...)
Had a longer lunch hour today so I could watch the men's synchronized diving. First impression: they all wear their Speedos very low. Although my general rule of thumb is that I would personally refrain from doing any sort of sport on international TV whose uniform routinely gave me wedgies (see: women's gymnastics and beach volleyball). I was very happy for the Greek team, who won gold ^_^. I'm also cheering on the Iraqi soccer team and the South African men's relay team, who were very very fast and whose win was completely antithetical to the whole commentators' trying to play up the Australia-US rivalry thing.
The boy cheers for all the Americans, and I cheer for everyone who isn't American, unless the Americans have no chance of winning. I sort of figure Russia and China and the US will all get lots of medals and whatnot, so I might as well cheer for the other people. I always think it's kind of funny that despite the whole attempt at internationalism and good sport-ness (good sportiness? sportedness?) that in the end certain sports just revert to a very Cold War mentality. Ok, mostly I'm just thinking about gymnastics, but it's always the US pitted against old USSR countries who were Communist, or now, against China, who is Communist. And much is made of the machine-like way the Communist (or formerly Communist) countries train their athletes, while the US is more creative/artistic/etc.
I would also very much like for someone to give the commentators a little pronunciation guide for Chinese names. I realize the weird "q" and "x" and etc. is very confusing, but honestly, it's not that difficult.
I also yell and talk back to the commentators a lot, so it's probably good I'm just watching this with the boy ;). The commentators really annoy me. NBC's coverage also annoys me -- yeah, I know they're broadcasting in the US, but I still want to see all the routines of the Chinese gymnasts and the Russian gymnasts too! I wish they would cut out those annoying sob story biographies and show more sports. I'm still amused that I'm always into the Olympics, despite the fact that I am not interested in sports at all.
*crossing my fingers and hoping Taiwan gets something* (though I doubt it...)