Now when you say that JVG always talks to him, do you mean he talks like: "Now Yao, you are going to have to improve in a few areas if you are to reach your potential. Inmprovements such as..." Or is it more like: "WHAT THE F@#$ ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE. DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT I'M A MOTHER@#$%ING MOTHER@#$%ER" So let me assume the chain on information is such: JVG tells this juicy bit to Rich Bucher. Bucher tells Yao because they probably correspond often due to the ESPN book. Then Yao tells this info to the Chinese Press. Does anyone else think that this may be a game of "telephone" gone out of control. Maybe it was really something like this: JVG to Bucher: This summer I feel like training lots of players on the balance beam. Bucher to Yao: This summer JVG is going to trade lots of players on the team. Yao to Chinese Reporter: This summer JVG is going to trade lots of players on the team, purple monkey dishwasher. Chinese reporter's Headline: PURPLE MONKEY DISHWASHER!!! Article to Lancet's translation: This summer JVG is going to trade lots of players on the team. Or something like that.
"Tom" 's phonetic translation in Chinese is the character for "soup." There for Rudy Tomjanovich and Tom Cruise have the same last name in Chinese.
So next time I go to a Chinese restaurant, I just say 'Tom' and they will serve me soup...do i get it right?
haha. well... not really. there's no character in chinese that has the mmmm... sound at the end. so the closes approximation, and the one that is used, is... tong. it's pronounced like the thing you use to you know grab stuff, except with an upwards inflection. but if you just said tong they'll give you soup... or maybe ask you what kind of soup. but say you want egg dropped soup, you say (approximately) done (like i'm finished) hwa (you pronounce the h and the w) tong unless you are going to a cantonese restaurant then you say daan fa (you know like do re mi --) tong see? impress your date! thank me later.
darn i guess i should have explained that or come up with a better example. so you know in china you use last name first. like yao ming. or my name would be zhao yipeng. but in the media, when they translate american names the keep the order but make the distinction of given and surname by going (firstname) . (lastname). So like for example, LeBron James, each part is approximated by three chinese characters Le Boo Long . Ja mu si. Anyway, in Cantonese at least, Tom Cruise is like Tong . something something something (I don't know the characters). In mandarin it would be Tong Mu . something something something. But in any case, babel fish sees Tong and spits out "soup." In the case of Rudy... his last name is real long so sometimes they don't translate Rudy. And his Nickname is just Coach Tong, because its the first syllable of his last name. Popular slang for coach in china is also "commander" because actually in Chinese commander is shorter than "coach." But the Chinese syntax has it so that Coach Tong is Tong Coach --> Tong Commander. Like for example, they'll call JVG "Van Commander"... except there's the approximate his last name to a Chinese last name so it's "Fan Commander" also because there's no V in Chinese. But that's the story of why Tom Cruise and Rudy have the same last name.
why isnt the "van" in van gundy, translated into "fan" as in 'rice", that way he could be the rice commander in chief.
Its not all that difficult! It sound rather close to the truth but in such a way that we will never know if it is!
well "fan" is actually a real surname in china, so is "tong" <--more of a southern surname though. except the fan surname is different from rice, but the tong surname is the same as soup.
The last name "van Gundy" is Dutch in origin. The Dutch "V" is pronounced like an "F" so "Van Commander" is accurate in that sense.
