Even though I may tower over the competition here in Xining, I’m no Yao on the basketball courts…

It’s amazing how (unintentionally) taking 6 months off (when you are already a 33 year-old who is physically WAY past his prime) makes such a difference.  Especially at this altitude.  It felt like I hadn’t played since I was 18 years old.

I had a lot of fun; although now I feel a bit dehydrated (headache and all). I played for about 2 hours.  Played 3 on 3 for a bit with some "locals".  They taught me the Chinese words for important basketball terminology like shoot (tou lan) pass (chuan qiu) and slam dunk (guan lai) not that any of us could do the latter!  I reciprocated with some English terms.  The great thing about it was that the guys I played with are regulars at the gym and gave me their phone numbers so we could plan to meet again next week…

That is, if my muscles have recovered by then.

Yao!  Yow!  Yee-ow!

Semi-interesting side-note:  One of the guys I met today is a Tu minzu (one of the recognized minority peoples here in China).  The Tu (also called Monguor) are a mixture of Mongol, Tibetan, and Turkic people (among others I think.)  Read more about the Tu here.  Besides being able to speak a language that hasn’t been written down, my Tu friend could also drive the lane pretty good for such a height-challenged person.  Little Allen Iverson.  The weird thing is that the lady who cut my hair a few days ago was also Tu.  Too strange! (It’s OK to cringe at the wordplay.)