The wonderfully original story of a struggling Chinese basketball team and its quixotic, often comical attempt to right its fortunes by copying the American stars of the NBA—a season of cultural misunderstanding that transcends sports and reveals China’s ambivalent relationship with the West.
When the Shanxi Brave Dragons, one of China’s worst professional basketball teams, hired former NBA coach Bob Weiss, the team’s owner, Boss Wang, promised that Weiss would be allowed to Americanize his players by teaching them “advanced basketball culture.” That promise would be broken from the moment Weiss landed in China. Desperate for his team to play like Americans, Wang—a peasant turned steel tycoon—nevertheless refused to allow his players the freedom and individual expression necessary to truly change their games.
Former New York Times Beijing bureau chief Jim Yardley tells the story of the resulting culture clash with sensitivity and a keen comic sensibility. Readers meet the Brave Dragons, a cast of colorful, sometimes heartbreaking oddballs from around the world: the ambitious Chinese assistant coach, Liu Tie, who believes that Chinese players are genetically inferior and can improve only through the repetitious drilling once advocated by ancient kung fu masters; the moody and selfish American import, Bonzi Wells, a former NBA star so unnerved by China that initially he locks himself in his apartment; the Taiwanese point guard, Little Sun, who is demonized by his mainland Chinese coaches; and the other Chinese players, whose lives sometimes seem little different from those of factory workers.
As readers follow the team on a fascinating road trip through modern China—from glamorous Shanghai and bureaucratic Beijing to the booming port city Tianjin and the polluted coal capital of Taiyuan—we see Weiss learn firsthand what so many other foreigners in China have discovered: China changes only when and how it wants to change.
發表於2024-12-19
Brave Dragons 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
There is no question that Brave Dragons is aimed at audience with little knowledge of China as many insights provided in the book can be considered obvious for Chinese readers. But I can only imagine the strangeness and exoticism that it may have on foreign...
評分作者是紐約時報駐華記者,也是個籃球愛好者,到CBA的山西中宇猛龍籃球隊蹲點跟蹤瞭一個賽季,寫成此書。這個賽季和這支隊伍恰好有些與眾不同之處:第一次在CBA中請來瞭一個前NBA的主教練(西雅圖的Bob Weiss)來執教,第一次請來瞭一個NBA中有名頭且在當打之年的球星來打球(Bo...
評分作者是紐約時報駐華記者,也是個籃球愛好者,到CBA的山西中宇猛龍籃球隊蹲點跟蹤瞭一個賽季,寫成此書。這個賽季和這支隊伍恰好有些與眾不同之處:第一次在CBA中請來瞭一個前NBA的主教練(西雅圖的Bob Weiss)來執教,第一次請來瞭一個NBA中有名頭且在當打之年的球星來打球(Bo...
評分作者是紐約時報駐華記者,也是個籃球愛好者,到CBA的山西中宇猛龍籃球隊蹲點跟蹤瞭一個賽季,寫成此書。這個賽季和這支隊伍恰好有些與眾不同之處:第一次在CBA中請來瞭一個前NBA的主教練(西雅圖的Bob Weiss)來執教,第一次請來瞭一個NBA中有名頭且在當打之年的球星來打球(Bo...
評分作者是紐約時報駐華記者,也是個籃球愛好者,到CBA的山西中宇猛龍籃球隊蹲點跟蹤瞭一個賽季,寫成此書。這個賽季和這支隊伍恰好有些與眾不同之處:第一次在CBA中請來瞭一個前NBA的主教練(西雅圖的Bob Weiss)來執教,第一次請來瞭一個NBA中有名頭且在當打之年的球星來打球(Bo...
圖書標籤: basketball 海外中國研究 sports 體育 culture
Loved this book! As long as you're even remotely interested in Chinese sports it's worth a read and it's easy to fly through it.
評分題材有趣,但人物都寫得不仔細,與其寫太多關於中美關係等高大上的內容,不如像The Breaks of the Game仔細寫好眼前的人物
評分Loved this book! As long as you're even remotely interested in Chinese sports it's worth a read and it's easy to fly through it.
評分It is possible to move from a good ethnographer to a good journalist, not the other way around though. Most interesting quote: "The court was the same, the ball was the same, the rules of the game were the same, but everything else was different"
評分It is possible to move from a good ethnographer to a good journalist, not the other way around though. Most interesting quote: "The court was the same, the ball was the same, the rules of the game were the same, but everything else was different"
Brave Dragons 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載