Obama!

I wasn't able to drag my ass out of bed or head downtown to catch the election coverage on CNN, but judging from this post by Shanghai Scrap, I think it's safe to say that Obama's victory was well-received here in Shanghai.

Chinese website Sohu.com reported earlier today that more than 240,000 Chinese netizens supported Obama, with only 90,000 backing McCain.

And a little reaction from Beijing:

"Congratulations on Obama's successful run for president!! I have been constantly amazed as I follow the elections along the way. What an achievement it truly is... no doubt he'll help restore America's image around the world.

At the same time I can't stop comparing. I can't envision a ethnic Tibetan, Uygur, Hui, or Mogol [sic] gets elected President of China, not in 60 years... that's how far apart the two countries are, in terms of maturity in political institutions."

-a local colleague of the writer of The Opposite End of China

"The crowd erupted in applause as Obama was declared the victor. Many Chinese - especially young students - waved Obama signs as state after state went his way."

-The Wall Street Journal

The Good Life...

Kanye hit Shanghai last night, and guess who won ticket? Yup, that's right, me. And yes, I won ticket, not tickets (it was a dumb contest, but whatever, free is free). Anyways, the ticket got me second row seats behind the floor...until I hopped a fence and went right up to the stage.

The rest of my crew was way, way up in the rafters (suckers). Lotsa room to dance up there though; the place wasn't nearly full. None of my Chinese friends were even remotely excited for this show.

Kanye played most of Graduation, mixing it in with some older stuff (Get 'Em High, Hey Mama, All Falls Down) and a verse of his new one (Love Lockdown). The band even randomly threw in Don't Stop Believing while Kanye took a quick breather. Stronger and Good Life were the best tracks of the night though.

So yeah, pretty hard not to have a good time with a view like that, but the whole experience was, for lack of a better word, a little Chinese. It's hard for a lot of big names to make it over because of invisible government rules and whatnot (just ask Bjork), so when they do show up, they're playing by the house rules. In Kanye's case, that meant no swearing, one single (hilariously bad) opening act, and showing up on time for his set (dunno about you, but it's kinda weird when the headliner gets going by 9pm).

All in all though, not a night I'm going to forget anytime soon.

Bonus Mao Mix fact: Kanye lived in Nanjing for a year with his Mom when he was 10.

Asia League Ice Hockey

Following up on my last post on the Sharks, I wanted to get a little more into the (extremely awkwardly-named) league they play in, Asia League Ice Hockey. You can find pro hockey all over the world now, but this has gotta be one of the more unique situations. The league was formed as an expansion of the Japan Ice Hockey League in 2003, and four of the seven current teams are still Japanese (the Sharks are Chinese and the remaining two teams hail from South Korea). It's been a turbulent 5 years for the league though, as the Russian team from Alex Mogilny's hometown of Khabarovsk* and three Beijing-based teams have already folded. The current edition of the China Sharks was just created this year as a merger between two of the defunct Beijing teams.

The Sharks, incidentally, are co-sponsored by the San Jose Sharks and the Chinese National Team. Nine of the Sharks also play for Team China, and goalie Wade Flaherty will be pulling double duty as a goalie coach during international competitions. The Sharks' GM is a San Jose employee who, as far as I can tell, lives primarily back in the US.

Most of the ALIH rules are adopted from the NHL (including 4-on-4 OTs and shootouts), though they did opt for no-touch icing and a 3-2-1-0 W-OTW-OTL-L point system. It seems to me that the rinks are a little bigger than the NHL standard, though I'm not completely sure on that. The regular season lasts 36 games, and is split up into three-game series played on weekends. Five of the seven teams make the playoffs, with the regular season champion gettting a bye all the way through to the best-of-seven finals.

In terms of team makeup, the Japanese clubs are capped at two import players each, but the Korean and Chinese squads are allowed to have four, presumably because they're weaker. And, as an added bonus for perenially sucking, the Sharks will be allowed to bring in up to seven foreigners during the 2009-2010 season. It seems to me that these import restrictions are a newer development though, since the now-defunct Nordic Vikings were chock full of Scandinavians as recently as 2005-06 (their only season).

I'll have to watch a few more games before I can really get into the style of play and all that, but something I'm definitely going to keep an eye on is the cultural dynamics that come into play in an Asian-dominated hockey league. As Dave King, a longtme NHL coach, said when he took over the GM post for Team Japan,

"The Japanese have a system in their culture where they respect the older people [and] it's the same in sports. The older athlete is a sempei, a younger player is a kohai. The kohai player would never embarrass a sempei player in practice, like in a one-on-one drill. Also, in a game, there's a tendency to give the puck to the oldest guy on the line. Again, it's that he should shoot, because it's a respect thing. This doesn't really work."

And as former NHL goalie Jamie McLennan reported during his time in Japan,

When I allowed a soft goal, the home crowd started chanting my name and cheering me. This was foreign territory for me - not surrendering a crappy goal, those happen to everyone - but the reaction of the fans.

Anyways, if I was a former-NHLer winding down my career or even just an ECHLer, I'd love to come out and play here. The list of NHL alums isn't long, but there are definitely a few recognizable names. Hall of Famer Esa Tikkanen came and played/coached in Korea for a while, Shjon Podein played in Japan, Tyson Nash and Jamie McLennan spent half a season with the Nippon Paper Cranes, and Steve McKenna, former bodyguard for both Gretzky and Lemieux (and veteran of both the Italian, British and Australian leagues as well), is currently in his second year here. Other notables include Martin Kariya, Paul's little brother, and Chris Allen, veteran of two NHL games and reigning winner of the PETA Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door Contest.

Going the other way, the AHIL's had its first alumnus make it to the NHL in 2006 when Yutaka Fukufuji played in four games for the LA Kings. Fukufuji's also the first Japanese-born player to ever play in the NHL.

* Seems to be as good a time as any to mention that Khabarovsk is only 20km from China. So if Mogilny had been born 21km south , it's conceivable that he would never have even played hockey.

Hockey Night in China

With the NHL season now fully underway, I've started to really miss hockey. So I grabbed some friends headed out last night to see the China Sharks, Shanghai's entry in the Asia League of Ice Hockey. It's not anywhere near the NHL (or the AHL, or the ECHL, or even Major Junior) in terms of the level of play, but hey, when you're desperate, you'll take what you can get.

We got there a little late, but the place was already pretty lively by the time we arrived. The arena wasn't anywhere near full (and they were giving away tons of free tickets last week), but people were loud, they cheered in (mostly) the right spots, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. On the downside, only the top half of the arena was open, preventing fans from really getting intimate with the game. It's much easier to fall in love with hockey rinkside than 20 rows up.

Anyways, the game itself was pretty entertaining. The Sharks never led but ended up tying the game at 2 with 19 seconds left, forcing OT and eventually winning on Steve McKenna's shootout winner. Shark captain Adam Taylor scored a nice goal, Harvard alum Kevin Du showed some nice hands, and goalie Wade Flaherty made a couple key saves. On the downside, play was pretty sloppy overall (owing partly to some horrible ice), and a bunch of the scoring chances were the simply result of one guy bobbling the puck past three defenders and shoveling the puck on net. Oh, and not surprisingly, it wasn't a particularly physical game either.

Other quirks:

• The Sharks only dressed 16 or so players. High 1 had at least 18 or 19. (NHL teams dress 20.)
• They ran some go-go dancers cheerleaders out during the 1st intermission.
  
• The rink was so warm that they had the players just skate around for a couple minutes at the beginning of each period to let the ice harden up. We literally had to sit there just watching the ice freeze.
• High 1 (a Korean team) had a Japanese player with dreadlocks (seriously).
  

In the end, I think everyone left the rink pretty happy. The Sharks are still going through some growing pains both in the standings (they're dead last) and in the fan experience category (note to the team: neither the arena nor the beer should be at normal room temperature), but I'll probably be back whenever I'm jonesing for some more hockey.

Crazy Chinese Sex Pills

ILLEGAL sex enhancement pills have killed six more men here in the past five months, bringing the drug's death toll to 10 this year.

The six men, aged between 35 and 84, were comatose when they died from complications such as infections and major organ failure.

Four other men died in a similar way in April and May.

-from the Straits Times

They're always selling this stuff on the streets here, and there are always old creepy guys checking it out. Though it's shocking (shocking!) to me that they're not the real deal.

Chinese Journalists: Keepin' it Real

China has started to probe dozens of self-claimed "journalists" who asked for hush money from a colliery after an accident [at Huobaoganhe coal mine] which killed one miner, an official with north China's Shanxi Province said yesterday...

The colliery paid a total of 125,000 RMB ($18,255 USD) in six deals with self-claimed journalists within one month after the accident, in exchange for not publicizing the death report.

Investigation is continuing into a further five deals.

-from the Shanghai Daily

Wish I'd thought of that.

The Thing About the Chinese...

...is that their condoms are solider than yours.