LOL, if IIRC from a sina article, his teammates accused of him being a racist immediately after that comment, of course they didn't mean it.
It's all dependent on who you're accustomed to being around. Many, probably a good sized majority, of non-asian Americans have a hard time differentiating between Japanese-Chinese-Korean-Viet-Thai. Different races have different general facial features. If you're unfamiliar, it's natural to not be able to distinguish easily between the subtle differences between individuals within the group. I've had a couple of non-white foreign acquaintances tell me that all us white folk are difficult to tell apart (especially if we're wearing a hat...our hairstyles generally tend to differ more than they do among asians & blacks). "Can't we all just get along?" Back to basketball. I love Yao's attitude & personality.
My favorite line from Yao came during his rookie season. Bill and Calvin were interviewing him (and Colin Pine) after the game and they were getting on the subject of Yao recently getting his driver's license and buying a car. They were of course joking around that Yao couldn't find a car to fit him and Calvin told Yao he should buy a convertable. Yao spoke for a few seconds in Chinese with a smirk on his face and then Colin said, "Uh, he says he doesn't want a convertable because his hair would get messed up, something Calvin doesn't have to worry about." Bill and Calvin just about died laughing. It was at that point that I really realized that Yao was ****ing awesome.
the best part is when they asked him if he was surprised that mcgrady's and iverson's jerseys are selling better than his in china and he says no because everyone already has his jersey
Yao should be top 3 interviewees every season in the NBA. ....now wait until he fully masters the English language....watchout for Yao unplugged..... The Jersey sales retort was simply classic.
Maybe they could use Jet pilots as the analogy. There are usually two pilots and a bunch of plight attendents ...
there is a small clip of the interview on the espn website. on the right hand side, in like a scroll menu.
i watched a spot of it on espn's nbafront page. it was pretty good. yao is funny dude. he should start to do more interviews his english is pretty dang good now.
