shamu

Some strange things about Olympics and its coverage by NBC:
1. Michael Phelps:
Eight golds? NBC and other media for that matter, give me a break! The guy didn’t even get silver in 200 Freestyle. I didn’t even hear one mention of the Dutch guy that beat him after the race. It’s as if there were only two athletes competing. Nothing could be farther from the Olympic spirit. Also, what’s with the turn of tone after the bronze? Suddenly, the media is listening to what the kid has to say.
2. Delayed coverage:
Like any intelligent American, I cannot stand any delay (and re-packaging) in broadcasting a game. Yeah, right, at 7PM CDT it’s still “tonight” in Athens. It’s so painful to watch poor Bob Costas pretending everything is happening live and there’s no such thing as a time difference. Even worse, the ever innocent eyes of Bob Costas make it infinitely intolerable. Hello? Did you know that the earth is round???
These are my observations so far. More to come…

As I mentioned last time, in English or any western language, the given name always comes before the family name. This presents a huge inconvenience when sorting names—because you cannot sort by the alphabetical order of the first letter of the name. If you’ve ever written a program that sorts names, you know how tedious it is just to find the right letter to sort by. During my recent trip, I was in a conference in Shanghai. The local organizers compiled a directory of all attendants and gave up on sorting by last names—they just sorted by whatever comes first. If only the creator of the name sequence had thought about this! The same frustration applies to addresses—why the heck do they start the finest detail, the street number first? And why do they have the apartment number AFTER the street name, not before the street number? The postman’s job would be much easier if they know where a letter is going by only looking at the first word in the address.
In summary, all addresses and names should be in the Chinese order:
Country, State/Province, City, Street, Number
Family Name, Given Name
For example, if you were to write to the richest guy in the world, you would write to:
USA
Washington
Redmond
Microso*t Way 1
Microso*t
Gates Bill

I’ve always wondered about the difference in sequence between Chinese (Eastern) and American (Western) names–in a Chinese name, family name goes first, followed by given name. In an American name, it’s the reverse. My Chinese name has two characters, one for family and the other for given. When I came to the US, I went with American custom and reversed it–every Chinese in America does except Yao Ming. But because between friends, when we write email we often go with the Chinese sequence, there came the confusion for my Chinese friends. They were often not sure as to which is which as it’s hard to tell just by counting the syllables.
Maybe I should be like Yao Ming and say “to hell with it” and keep my name in its original sequence?
I’m not sure, but one thing I AM sure of is not to have an American name. I hate altering my name just for others’ convenience, as any American would agree. Maybe this is a sign that I’m *Americanized*? After all, there are already too many Johns, Brians, and Davids. Just tonight, I found it funny to hear the democratic presidential candidate call his running mate the same as himself.
Chinese names are actually not that bad compared to, say, Indian names. Once you master the Xs and the Qs, you are in good shape. I have an X in my name. Before, I don’t even bother to explain to telemarketers or call center reps how to pronounce it right. Now one out of three can pronounce near perfection. See, Americans are smart and they learn, especially if it’s part of the job. We just have to trust them.