From China with love, My two cents

For people who don’t care to read a long post:

I'm from China, been a NBA fan for 2 decades. I respect Daryl Morey’s right of free speech, also I respect the holiness of national integrity in Chinese culture. I believe neither side is trying to hurt the other but they are both misunderstood. Americans need to stop assuming their core values are the universal truth, and any nationals who disagree must be brainwashed; Chinese citizens need to grow more confidence in themselves and not overreact.

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When Yao was drafted by the Rockets in 2002, I had already been a NBA fan for 3 years. NBA was and is very popular among many Chinese universities, and I have watched quite a lot of games and mixtapes with my roomates and friends. NBA players were like superheroes to me, seemingly capable of doing anything on the basketball court. My favorite player was Allen Iverson at the time.

Then Yao came to the league, I didn’t like his style at first, not so fast and he can’t do crossovers. I rooted for him anyway; he was representing my country. Shortly after I began to appreciate his humor, work ethic and humble attitude, also Francis and Mobley’s fearless play style were really exciting to watch. To read more news and analysis about Yao and his teammates, I did a little research and found clutchfans.net. I was at my 20s at the time, and being single, had lots of time to spend on the forum. I don’t post much but read a lot. Rockets became my obsesson. I could name not only all the players on the roster, but also the assistant coaches, the team doctors, the spoke person, etc. As years went on, I got married , have 2 children now, and have to work hard to pay the mortgage, so I don’t watch games as often as in the past. There are many Chinese reporters hosted at Houston to provide latest news. I stopped visiting this forum as well, but I have kept rooting and cheering for rox players like T-mac, Battier, Lin, Parsons, Harden, Gordon as always, and hated Kobe and Lebron, just like most local rox fans do.

When I first read DM’s tweet that went viral on china’s social media, my thought was his account must be hacked. How can Daryl Morey, a smart, diligent professional, one of the best GMs in the league, do something so unthoughtful business-wise? Many Chinese fans were furious, suspecting he is either arrogant or ill intentioned to facilitate social unrest on China’s land. After Morey reiterated his opinion, I felt disappointed. He is not morally wrong. Actually after all this is past I may admire him more as a person since he has the courage to put financial aspects aside just to voice his sympathy and support for some people far away in a foreign country. But as a professional manager, faced with a significant size of the rox fanbase in China and many endorsement deals from China companies, he should know better. Perhaps he didn’t take time to learn the core values in Chinese culture, or he does but believes US’ core values is the universal truth. Either way, he showed poor judgement, by not anticipating such a huge backlash.

I do not believe there is such values that are universal truth. I think it changes with time and circumstances. Like <Tao Te Ching> says, a truth that can be described is not the universal truth. To compare modern day America to China is like to compare ancient Greece to Rome, you are sailors at heart, we are landsman; you may think freedom is bigger than life, we do not. Different environments do foster different values. China grew from a single organism and was assembled by territorial conquest, the pattern of its development makes unity and cohesion two of the fundamental core values of Chinese society, because that’s what helps China as a nation survive. Besides, in America’s 200 years history, the country was only divided once. It reunited with the civil war and more than 600 thousand people died. In the 4000 years history of China, there were dozens of times the country was divided, it reunited with wars each time and millions of people died. The deep fear for national division are deeply embedded in Chinese people’s memories. Our attachment to land and stability make us feel great responsibility and devotion to family and country. Please do take notice that when we hold such values as sacred, we are not brainwashed. By the way, I am not a member of CCP, and had never intended to become one. When Morey was exercising his right to voice his opinion on anything he may or may not understand about, he can be challenging other people’s fundamental values without realizing it. Just because a opinion is genuinely from one’s heart does not automatically makes it a truth. He should have a little research before posting the tweet. The protests in HK started as peaceful, but had already turned violent, with some mobs burning subway stations, and waving flags claiming for independence. Morey’s tweet, to many who were agitated, seemed like he was supporting their calls for separation. I believe Morey was out of good intention, he never meant to cause social unrest on a foreign land, but he was misunderstood in China.

Later, Chinese people voiced their frustration, loud, but too got misunderstood in America. They were saying “Respect us, let us have sovereignty; or get out and shut the door!”, but Americans see it as a manipulation to make NBA bend for financial interest. In China’s culture, Confucius; saying goes, “don’t cooperate with people whose’s philosophy are very different from yours.” There is another saying goes “respect them but keep a far distance”. All the angry boycott are not meant to make NBA bend their principles to accommodate our wish. If we are really that confident in our ability to do so, we wouldn’t even feel so offended in the first place. This is a country who just experienced 100 years of humiliation and was once been seen as an inferior race on the world stage, its confidence in itself is fragile and needs time to grow.

There are more that could be said, like why Chinese don’t separate Morey from the Rockets. But I hope not to keep going on and on. Just one simple fact, In China, when you introduce DM, it would be “Houston Rockets’ Daryl Morey”, while in America, it would be “Daryl Morey of the Houston Rockets”. You see, we tend to put the Houston Rockets first.

My real feeling right now is sad. Not furious at all, just sad. When I was about 20 years old, I believed with the help of internet and by we all learning the English language, the world would one day become like a village. People live far away in different parts of the planet, can still talk to each other on a daily basis; we learn from each other, know each other better. People could have friends all over the world. There would be less misunderstanding, less antagonism between nations’ citizens. I worked hard to learn English, so to live in that village. Now I am close to 40, seeing the trade wars going on, nations viewing each other as competitors rather than partners, even Britain is desperate to leave the EU, still so much barriers and mess in this world just as 20 years ago. I wish that peaceful world village will come true, but I am no longer sure I can live long enough to see it happen.