I called this English school in Shanghai to inquire about teaching English the other day. The person on the phone was really interested in meeting me and we arranged to meet the next day. However, when he took down my name, he was like, "hmmm... what nationality are you, by the way?" I told him that I was Malaysian and ethically Chinese, with which he replied as politely as he could put it: "Sorry, but I don't think our school can accept this."

He explained how their students' parents generally want to see foreign faces and would be very upset if they knew their children were being taught English by a Chinese teacher. Therefore they could not accept me as a regular teacher at their school. I understood this and was in fact not surprised. Nonetheless, it is frustrating when you know you can do the job - and are perhaps better or more enthusiastic than others - but are rejected on the basis of appearance.

He is not to blame, nor are the parents (well, not entirely), as this would be a natural initial reaction of almost anyone. For example, if I wanted to learn Japanese, my first reaction would be to choose someone Japanese.

However, I really appreciated his concern for my situation - he apologised profusely saying that in fact it was "the school's loss" and offered to set me up in a temporary role which would be less subject to any parent criticism. And obviously, he was impressed by my English and my "which didn't have any accent" (what does that mean exactly?) and made him think that I was from America or some other more-desirable country. Anyway, I ended up having a great chat with him for another half an hour and we ended up trading contact details anyway.

Fortunately for me, English teachers are in such high demand here that there are many schools which do not mind as much having a Chinese English oral teacher. So, I'm not worrying - something will work out eventually.

Adidas: Jose+10

I love these ads by Adidas. Just imagine putting together your own dream team of football players and playing with them in your own backyard! Also check out the "behind-the-scenes" video too. The great song in the second commercial is called "Eanie Meany" by Jim Noir: "If you don't give my football back, I'm gonna my dad on you". hehe... real cute!






Nike: Joga TV

Contrast this to Nike's ads which focus on "joga bonito" or playing beautifully. Like the 'playfulness' in the Brazilian team locker room ad. And certainly there is an "amateur video" to the second one. Beautiful football! There are loads of different videos under this Joga TV campaign that you can find on YouTube. Just search for "joga bonita" or "nike brazil". Here's a longer version of first vid. The first vid also features the song "Mas Que Nada", a song by Sergio Mendes, featuring the Black Eye Peas. iTunes preview. It was originally released in 1966.





UPDATE: Apparently, all the Nike ads (there are loads) can be seen here. It takes too long for me to access it for me. A detailed description of each ad can be found here.
UPDATE: People speak out against Nike's "repackaging of the game as a cross-cultural mixture of break-dancing, basketball and hacky sack". Plenty defend against it. Regardless, you've got to admit, it's entertaining! (So is Adidas's ads btw)

The World Cup commentators on CCTV1, CCTV5 and 上海体育台 (CCTV fraudulently claim to be "独家" unless they actually own 上海体育台) all offer lots of insights, analysis and tidbits, even more so, dare I say, than the (I think) British commentator on the satellite South African channel that all the bars here in Shanghai use. On the other hand, there are those who argue that commentators should not detract from the game with factoids and etc. They have a point, but I still think some on-the-fly discussion and analysis at the right level adds depth to the audience's understanding, as long as it doesn't detract too long from the ongoing action.

In today's match between Italy and Australia, the CCTV5 commentator went berserk. A literally last minute minute penalty kick by Totti brought victory to the Italians, who would otherwise have continued to be overstretched with one man short in overtime and would perhaps have been spared the fate of losing to the Australians during penalty kick.

An amazing finale, to which the the CCTV commentator (Huang Jian Xiang) started SCREAMING himself hoarse - on the top of his lungs, his voice painfully overwhelming and attenuated through the TV speakers:

"It was an undisputed penalty!* Grosso made it! He made it! Don’t give Australia any chance! Great Italian left defender. Grosso alone represents the long and deep tradition of Italian soccer. He is not fighting alone.

Totti! He is about to take the shot. He shoulders the expectations of the whole world.

It’s a goal! Game over! … Italy didn’t fall to Hiddink’s team this time. Happy birthday to Paolo Maldini! Long live Italy!"

*widely considered a pretty dubious penalty kick...
I'm OK with commentators siding with teams. In fact, it adds some excitement, but this was definitely over-the-top. At the end of the day, he was not commentating for an Italian audience, where it would probably be forgivable. But, I missed what he said after this and also during the post-game link-up, where he had a tirade against the Australian team:

"Go home! But they don't need to fly back to Australia which is too far away. Most of them live in Europe. Bye-bye.

...Australia reminded me of a lousy team which eliminated China in the World Cup qualifiers in 1981. Australia is just like New Zealand team that beat us in 1981.

It (Australia) is full of naturalized Australians who play and live in Britain. I don't care about the Australian team and don't want to see Australia have good results in the World Cup.

Australia (which has joined the Asian Football Confederation) now will fight for an Asian World Cup berth and it may not be good enough to handle South Korea and Japan. But it will very likely take advantage of the Chinese team. So I don't like it."

Now that type of biased comment is definitely unforgivable and what you could lose your job over. At least this commentator apologised.

UPDATE: As you can see above, I decided to replace my loose translation of what I remember with what was actually said. You can find articles reporting his pro-Italian outpour here and here.

Do any of you remember playing Scorched Earth (it claims to be the mother of all games) on the 386? It's straightforward 2D multiplayer gameplay is used here in Zowk, which pits you against random players online. The two teams are situated on an arena with rolling hills. Players must hone their knack of Newtonian physics and strategy under time pressure to aim various projectiles at each other.

I don't usually like to play online multiplayer games, but this has turned out to be an exception, as each match lasts for no more than two or three minutes. I've been hooked since I've started - it's even displaced Sims 2 as my preferred game at the moment!



Awesome stuff I assure you - go there now!

Wow, this certainly would be the most bizarrely roudy game I've ever seen. Even with bothsides chalkful of yellow cards, around minutes 60 -70, it all went berserk and the referee was pulling out cards almost every minute. Lots of arguing, which became physical - and then more yellow cards. 16 yellow cards (4 red cards) - now that is a record! Now, this is what I call entertainment (in a twisted 'fight club' way).

Pics from gettyimages (above image from Google). I've only got the really dirty ones. Real Tsk tsk.


Figo head-butts Van Bommel , after a foul made by Van Bronckhorst. Huh?
The referee doesn't see it. Figo gets a booking only after it is pointed out later.


Sneijner shoves Petite on the ground in anger and is restrained.


Ooijer scuffles with the Portugese after a red card is handed to the Dutch team.
Oh dear.


Deco is given the red card (2nd yellow) after he picks up the ball with his hands to prevent the Netherlands to take a free-kick. Huh?

England vs Portugal on July 1st
England must be quietly smiling, as their next match will see Portugal's Deco, Constinha, Ronaldo, and possibly Figo on the bench. But I wouldn't be rejoicing just yet - England's performance has consistently failed to inspire throughout this World Cup. Sigh.

UPDATE: Figo will OK to compete in the next game. And Ronaldo seems fit to do so as well.

Some minute to minute coverage:
Guardian Unlimited
NYTimes

In recent developments, it was discovered that the Swedish government succumbed to MPAA and US government (*surprise*) pressure, leading to the raid on The Pirate Bay.

Furthermore, the US government has in fact threatened Sweden with sanctions (see Swedish video report) if Sweden does not shut down these websites. Ridiculous. Again, more abuse of its economic muscle leading to international bullying and meddling and yet another sad example of how it US government carries out the wishes of its most powerful companies instead of its people.

The Pirate Bay (an influential Swedish torrent search site) was raided and taken down recently by the Swedish police, but now it's back up again. Like the five-headed Hydra, it has decided to diversify its operations by adding servers in different countries. In fact, TPB's popularity doubled in three days after its temporary shutdown.

If TPB is widely vilified, then what about Google, Yahoo and MSN? They also provide easy ways to search often copyrighted material by their inclusion of image, audio and video search capabilities. Google-partially-owned Baidu explicitly provides an "MP3" search link and enables users to search for a whole host of copyrighted mp3 songs to download for free.*

So, I would go as far to say that TPB is no less illegal than any other search engine. I'm not saying that it is not at all illegal, just that it exists in the same grey area as do any other search engine. But hey, aren't things as abstract as illegality or immorality all relative anyway?

If you're not familiar with it with torrents, torrent files are much loved (and hated) tools that enable users to download movies, songs and games for free. The files are not stored on a central server but are distributed via users on the net. Instead, search sites such as The Pirate Bay merely link you to the files of another person. So, theoretically, these websites are not illegal - in reality, their legality is hotly disputed. And in today's unregulated web, what may be deemed illegal in the US may not be so elsewhere. Obviously, the difficultly to prosecute these hubs of bootlegging activity is a big problem for big media companies whose revenue streams are being threatened. For example, their efforts to shut down TPB and TPB's cheeky 'up-yours' responses are well documented.

*UPDATE: Google sells its stake in Baidu

*UPDATE 2: I wasn't aware of this, but Yahoo! China also enables users to search for and download MP3s. They indeed have drawn ire from major trade groups around the world. So, it's not just Pirate Bay after all. But still, are economic sanctions not going a bit too far??

* Most people would know that the football finds its origins in England, but did you know that the origins of football as it is seen today is in Cambridge? In 1848, the Cambridge Rules, a list of 10 important rules was drawn up after an 8-hour meeting at Trinity College.

* Some quite interesting unexpected 'upsets' in several World Cups. Hurrah for the underdogs!
Korea Republic 2 - Italy 1 (2002)
Senegal 1 - France 0 (2002)
France 3 - Brazil 0 (1998)
Romania 2 - England 1 (1998)
Norway 2 - Brazil 1 (1998)
Romania 3 - Argentina 2 (1994)
Bulgaria 2 - Germany 1 (1994)
Algeria 2 - West Germany 1 (1982)

* All 23 players of the team from West African nation, Côte d'Ivoire (which is currently in a civil war) play for European clubs. The world of football is the very embodiment of capitalism and globalisation, with players being bought and sold around the world regardless of national boundaries. Much of the talent from less developed African and South American nations are purchased by wealthy European teams, leaving a dearth of talent in their original home leagues. That's why the most successful teams often happen to also be the richest ones.

* At this World Cup, FIFA will earn USD 2.7 billion at the World Cup from broadcasting rights, ticket sales and sponsorships. It's fiscal year is four years long. Each participating team earns over USD 1 million per match. That's a bit of financial incentive to qualify and enter later rounds!

* The country Serbia and Montenegro no longer exists. Montenegro declared its independence on June 3rd this year. Out of all the players, only the goalkeeper is originally from Montenegro. The rest are Serbs.

* It has been estimated that the loss in productivity due to the World Cup is "$4.8 billion worldwide, with the greatest losses in Europe at $2.8 billion and South America at $1.62 billion. Losses in the rest of the world are estimated to be marginal, ranging from $18.5 million in Africa to $120 million in North America." Others argue that its meaningless to estimate this as we are in the "era of flexible working". Either way, when you put this in perspective, this will amount to only about 0.008% of the entire world's GDP (I've done the math for you!), which is just a drop in the ocean - party on, people!

*The most expensive football club transfer was Zinedine Zidane who transferred to Real Madrid from Juventus for USD 64.4 million. Brazilian Ronaldhino, Barcelonna forward, overtakes Beckham (Real Madrid) as the world's highest paid footballer, with annual revenue of EUR 23 million.

more to come if I find anything interesting...

Stayed up till 5 am again to see this one, but definitely worth it as it was one of the most exciting and dramatic matches I've seen ever (okay, true, I haven't really seen many).


A header!

The Italians were really surprised today to see the Americans play this aggressively and with so much energy today. Impressive performance by USA - too bad their accuracy in front of the goalbox was abysmal. On the other side, Italy made quite a few accurate shots, but the USA goalkeeper was awesome.

Also, USA efforts to steal the ball were pretty dirty, which resulted in 2 red cards; but the Italians were not that saintly either as De Rossi's unwarranted elbow bloodying McBride's face landed him a red card too. But the most interesting "talking points" would be the USA's disallowed goal (offsides) and Italy's rather bizarre own goal. Four of the six Group E games have been played out, yet it now seems like any of the four can still make it through. Now this is real Group of Death.


second red card in the game...

Well, this is definitely not the Italy that some people expect will carry through to become champions. Even Brazil was not up to standard in the match against Croatia. By far the performance which most impressed me was Argentina (6-0 against Serbia and Montenegro). They were unstoppable - if Argentina keeps it up, I wouldn't be surprised to see them in the finals. Go Argentina! Haha, and this is coming from a non-fan of football.

Links to World Cup discussion and minute to minute posting on the matches:
Guardian Unlimited
New York Times

I have been telling myself to play less Sims 2 and sleep earlier these days, but now it seems that all hope for me getting an early night have gone out the window, now that the World Cup is on.

I've never really been into football, and have only really watched one or two World Cup matches. But recently I found how exciting watching the World Cup could be. Watching Japan and Australia, two rather mediocre teams, battle it out yesterday night, really did it for me. You could see how the Japanese initially were more calm, careful and agile with the ball, frustrating the more bigger, rougher, tougher, and more aggresive Australians. I was rooting for the Japanese, but you could feel the emotions on both sides soaring and falling with the initial success (luck?) of the Japanese, and then with the final Australian rush (3 goals!) in the final minutes, accompanied by that feeling of a drop of a stone in the stomach (or elation and release by their first World Cup victory). How unpredictable and exciting!

The style of play and technique are different between teams, that different strategies must be adapted for different matches. As such, the results are unpredictable and even with the many strong teams, there are always suprises and "dark horses". True, Brazil may be the only established "football superpower", but that hardly guarantees that it will be the champion.

Unlike in the Olympics, there is little link between countries' political muscle flexing and the performance of their sports participants, as suggested by The Economist. Whereas China can sponsor army-like sports academies to churn out top athletes, it is difficult to do the same with football teams.

I'll be sure to watch some more in the next few weeks!

Here are some really cool, rather extensive analysis linking the World Cup to the global economy by Goldman Sachs.

Two very lame 60 sec TV adverts by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded lobby group about 'why we need carbon dioxide' can be found here. The third one on the site is an equally pathetic attack on Al Gore's habits. Needless to say, they're extremely biased. They are also lacking in scientific evidence and are filled with tacky, feel-good images. With the funding available to the CEI, I wonder how such poor, unconvincing, low-budget ads could ever have ever been conceived. They're so awful, that you must see them to appreciate it. Here's a line from one of the adverts:

"As for carbon dioxide, it isn't smog or smoke, it's what we breathe out and plants breathe in. They call it pollution. We call it life."

It sounds almost what you might say to a 5 year-old - with a tasteless tagline to boot. You wonder what the advertisment company must have been thinking. Either the advert is indeed aimed at 5-year-olds or they're just desperately grabbing at straws to find something remotely sensible to pass as an advert.

OK, so there is a bit of scientific evidence in the second TV advert but a professor behind one of the research papers stated that the advert misrepresented his research "in a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public". In fact, the thickening of ice in that particular area of the ice cap is consistent with the theory of global warming.

On the other side of the debate, there is Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" which is a documentary-movie about global warming. I hope to see it soon, and what I gather from the trailer and reviews, it does seem to be quite worth the watch.

I personally am probably 90% convinced about global warming, as I feel the statistics are indeed mixed, albeit skewed towards the pessimists. But either way, it's a risk which I think cannot be taken lightly given the consequences, which is something the US' current administration has taken much too lightly. I'll be sure to watch Al Gore's movie, when, um, it comes out on pirated DVD here in Shanghai (hey, what am i to do when there are no legitimate copies available?).