As a middle-schooler, I used to have a poster like this one hanging on the wall of my bedroom.  This is Spud Webb.  He is a few inches over 5 1/2 feet tall.

That’s just ridiculous.  It’s sick what he could do.

He is holding the ball a good foot above the rim in this picture.  This should not be possible.  He is practically jumping his own height!

It still boggles my mind to this day. I’m just thankful that the Chinese and Tibetan guys I play hoops with have not yet learned the art of jumping four feet vertically into the air.  I would be in some trouble.

I got back in the proverbial saddle (on the basketball courts) with my friends Mr. Plum and Mr. John again.  We played outside this time since the gymnasium where we usually play was having a tournament.

It was a lot of fun and (look, Ma!) no injuries.  Before I left to play, Sarah told me not to get hurt again.  Good advice.  Thanks to a brace, my ankle felt all right.  Whichever guys I play with always want me to "throw down" like Spud Webb in this picture.  It’s always a little disappointing for them when they discover how much I am inhibited by gravity.  I haven’t worked out whether my translation for "white men can’t jump" is correct.  I should try it out and see.  I feel a little guilty about my height though.  It’s always an unfair advantage although one could argue their lungs are like inflatable bags made of steel.  I am winded after about ten minutes (because of the altitude, my age and conditioning) whereas they can go an hour, smoke a cigarette, and be ready for another aerobic hour.  The thing that makes me happiest is that I average about 5 blocks a game and that’s always good for my ego.

The language practice has happened slowly for me.  My friends and I chat during the breaks and a lot of the time my friends are speaking the Qinghai dialect which is almost incomprehensible to me as I am learning the standard dialect, Mandarin.  The only way to give you an idea of what the dialect is like from an American English speaker’s perspective: it’s something like trying to make sense of Cajun Pig Latin.  Just a bunch of sounds and slurs!  So today I told them they had to teach me some so I could understand what they were saying about me.  (Ha.)

Much like coming back to playing basketball after injury, learning a language is a slow, often painful process.

Yi dian dian (一点点) = Little by little.