Hawkins was familiar with the outsider’s role. A native of Lynwood, California, he had failed to make the NBA in 1997, and the following year he wound up playing professionally in Chongqing, deep in the Chinese interior. I had lived in the same region, and Hawkins laughed when I mentioned the basketball slang there. If a player shoots an air ball, the fans shout “yangwei”; in the Sichuanese dialect, it means “impotent.” To encourage the home team, they chant “xiongqi”—“erection.”
There are few foreigners in Chongqing, and even fewer blacks. I asked Hawkins how he had coped with being so different. “I always felt like I was representing my heritage,” he said. “Lynwood is next to Compton—it’s basically like coming from Compton. There’s a lot of negative things said about that area, and that’s something I take with me wherever I go. But I had a good childhood. I was raised by my mother. I try to represent that.”
An uncle had introduced Hawkins to basketball as a child; he had never met his father. “All I know is his first name, and the fact that he didn’t want to deal with having a family,” Hawkins said. “It’s a sad story, but I’ve used that as motivation.” He met his wife through basketball—both had played at Lynwood High School, and then at Long Beach State.
Hawkins said that Chongqing was the roughest place he had ever lived. He had also played professional basketball in Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. He had toured with the Harlem Globetrotters. (“That was actually real beneficial.”) Twice, he had attended NBA pre-season camps, only to be cut. In the summer of 2002, hoping to have one last chance to attract NBA interest, Hawkins purchased a two-headed VCR, which he used to create a highlight reel of clips from all the places he had played. The Rockets invited him to camp, where he established himself as a defensive specialist and beat out two other unsigned players for a roster spot. At twenty-nine, he was the oldest rookie in the league to make an opening-day lineup. When Hawkins learned that he was on the team, he telephoned his mother and wept.
Successful athletes are inevitably displaced—if you’re good, you leave home—and something is always lost in transition. Much of what Hawkins carried onto the court would have been invisible to Chongqing fans, who know nothing about Compton or African-American single-parent families. In Chongqing, Hawkins was simply an excellent player who looked completely different from everybody else in the city. When I lived in a nearby town, it was common for crowds of twenty or more people to gather and gawk at me on the street. A local nightclub once hired an African dancer, knowing that his freakishness would draw customers.
Yao Ming had an excellent rookie season, and there were signs that eventually he would develop into a dominant center. But the Rockets ran only about thirty plays a game to him; initially, his American fame resulted from his height and his off-court persona. He handled attention with remarkable humor and grace, and he provided an escape from the undercurrent of racial tension in American sports. He also appealed to the national missionary instinct: if Americans had failed to convert the Chinese to God and democracy, at least they were turning them into NBA fans. The American media portrayed him as a nonthreatening figure—a gentle giant.
But he entered another world whenever he dealt with the Chinese press. After a difficult defeat in Los Angeles, where Yao had fouled out for the first time in his NBA career, a Chinese reporter asked what it had been like to be dunked on by Kobe Bryant. Yao said evenly, “Please don’t ask me about an incident in which I have no face.” At an All-Star Game press conference, Yao showed up wearing an old Chinese national-team sweatshirt, and a Chinese reporter asked why. “It’s comfortable, that’s all,” Yao said. Another reporter asked, “If you could say one sentence to all of the young Chinese players back home, what would you say?” Yao’s sentence: “I don’t believe that I can say very much with one sentence.”
Even as they idolized him, few people in China seemed to realize how different Yao was from the typical Chinese athlete. When he played, the joy was apparent on his face. He hit free throws in the clutch, and the Rockets learned to run plays to him at the end of close games. Often, he subtly deflected the patriotic questions of the Chinese media, as if sensing that such concerns were too heavy to bear on the court.
The Chinese motivation for sport is so specific and limited—the nationalism, the sports schools—that it rarely survives a transplant overseas. Athletics has meant little to most Chinese-American communities, including the one in Houston, which has grown rapidly in the past decade. The city has an estimated fifty thousand Chinese, as well as large numbers of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam. Houston’s Chinese tend to be highly educated, with an average annual household income over fifty thousand dollars a year, higher than the city’s average.
The largest Asian district in Houston is along Bellaire Boulevard—a six-mile strip-mall Chinatown. In February, I spent two afternoons driving along Bellaire, where some of the signs reminded me that locals were adjusting to a new culture (All Stars Defensive Driving); others reflected success (Charles Schwab, in Chinese characters); and some were distinctly Chinese (a lot of beauty parlors—the Chinese are meticulous about hair). But I couldn’t find a basketball. Though everybody loved Yao Ming, people told me that the children in the community didn’t play sports much; they were too busy studying. I searched for hours before finding a sporting-goods store—Sports Net International, in a mall called Dynasty Plaza—and they stocked gear only for racquet sports. “The Chinese are not so interested in basketball, because of their size,” David Chang, the owner, told me. “But if you’re interested in Yao Ming, you should talk to the people at Anna Beauty Design. They cut his hair.”
It wasn’t exactly what I’d been searching for, but I figured I’d see what they had to say. A Taiwanese woman sat behind the receptionist’s desk. I asked if Yao Ming got his hair cut there.
She paused before answering. “No,” she said. “Yao Ming does not get his hair cut here.”
I tried again. “Does somebody from Anna’s go to Yao Ming’s home to cut his hair?”
“That’s something I can’t answer,” she said coyly. A moment later, the manager walked in. “This guy’s a reporter,” she told him. “He wants to know if we cut Yao Ming’s hair.”
The manager shot me a dirty look. “Don’t tell him we do that,” he said.
The receptionist added, exactly five seconds too late, “He speaks Chinese.”
All told, I tracked down three defensive-driving schools, three bookstores, six banks, and fourteen beauty salons—but no lanqiu. In Houston’s Chinatown, it was easier to find Yao Ming’s barber than a basketball.
At the end of February, the Rockets embarked on an important East Coast road trip. Their final game of the trip was against the Washington Wizards; both teams were fighting to make the playoffs in their respective conferences, and Yao Ming was in the running to be named Rookie of the Year. This would be the final meeting between Yao Ming and Michael Jordan, who was retiring in order to return to his position as president of the Wizards.
The night before the Washington game, the Chinese embassy hosted a special reception for Yao. It was a snowy evening, and I caught a cab to the embassy. The driver, a seventy-five-year-old black man named Willard Cooper, asked why I was going there. “I can really relate to how the Chinese people feel about him,” Cooper said, when I mentioned Yao. “That’s the way I felt years ago, when Jackie Robinson was playing.”
At the embassy, Chinese food and Yanjing beer were served—the Beijing-based brewery had signed a Rockets sponsorship after Yao Ming was drafted. The big meeting room was packed with people: diplomats and émigrés, Sinophiles and market analysts. Scraps of conversation floated in the air.
“Yanjing paid six million dollars. Their distributor is Harbrew.”
“Who gives a sixty-year distribution contract? But you know, from the Chinese point of view, it’s a stream of production. They don’t understand the concept of branding.”
“He’s been in China fifteen years as a value-added play
er.”
“Actually, I’m with the White House press office.”
“You know, Anheuser-Busch owns 27 percent of Tsingtao.”
“There he is! Did you get a picture?”
“Imagine being that tall!”
A round of applause followed Yao into the room. Lan Lijun, the minister of the embassy, gave a short speech. He mentioned Ping-Pong diplomacy and “the unique role sports have played in bringing our countries together.” In closing, he said, “We have full confidence that China and the United States will work together to continue to improve our bilateral relations.”
Yao, in a gray suit, stooped to reach the microphone. Behind him, a display case held a ceramic horse from the Tang dynasty. Red lanterns hung from the ceiling. Yao spoke for less than a minute, and he didn’t say anything about Sino-American relations. “Seeing all these lanterns reminds me of home,” he said softly. “Growing up, my impression of the Chinese embassy was like a fantasy, something you see on television and in the movies.” There was a rush for autographs, and staff hustled Yao into a back room. In the corner, a pretty Eurasian girl in a red dress was crying. Her parents said that Yao had walked past without signing her invitation. “He’s her favorite player,” the mother told me, adding that the girl had been adopted from Uzbekistan. A staff member took her invitation, promising to get a signature.
Yao was at the embassy for nearly two hours. After he left, people lingered in groups, chatting and drinking Yanjing. We had reached the Sino-American witching hour—the Chinese guests, always prompt, were gone, but the Americans lingered in the way that Americans do. I found myself standing next to Chen Xiaogong, the defense attaché. Chen was glassy-eyed; he kept touching his watch. “I’m surprised so many Americans know Yao Ming,” he murmured.
The next night, Kha Vo sings Francis Scott Key and Michael Jordan comes out hot. Four baskets in the first quarter: turnaround, jump shot, jump shot, turnaround. Ten days ago, Jordan celebrated his fortieth birthday, and since then he’s been averaging nearly thirty points a game. Yao works against Brendan Haywood, the Wizards’ seven-foot center. Haywood looks short tonight. Six points for Yao in the first quarter; Rockets down by nine. Sold-out arena: twenty thousand plus. Lots of Asians—red flags in the upper levels.
Second quarter: Rudy Tomjanovich, the Rockets coach, plays a hunch and goes with Juaquin Hawkins, who rarely sees action. Hawkins nails a twenty-footer, then a three-pointer. He draws a charge and steals a pass. Hawkins looks hungry, as if he’d just escaped from Chongqing: he hasn’t scored in nine days. Moochie Norris runs the point for the Rockets. Moochie has cornrows, a barrel chest, and four Chinese characters tattooed on his left wrist: huan de huan shi. (“Never satisfied,” he once told me, when I asked what it meant, and then I crossed to the other side of the locker room. “It actually doesn’t have a very good meaning,” Yao said, in Chinese. “Basically, you’ll do whatever it takes to protect yourself.”) Yao doesn’t score in the second quarter. Jordan has eighteen. Rockets down by twenty. Halftime show: Chinese lion dance, followed by an announcement about Black History Month.
Houston sleepwalks through the third. At one point, they trail by twenty-four. In the final quarter, Maurice Taylor, a Rockets forward, starts to hit jumpers. With six minutes to go, Houston down by fourteen, Tomjanovich brings in Yao, and the game turns. Hawkins sinks a three, then knocks the ball loose from Tyronn Lue. The two players collide and Lue falls, writhing in pain. Separated shoulder, cut eye: good night, Tyronn. Four straight baskets by the Rockets. In the final three minutes, Yao steps to the free-throw line four times, and makes everything. Haywood fouls out. Overtime.
Hawkins guards Jordan, and they trade baskets to start the extra period. Yao hits a baby hook to give the Rockets the lead. The Wizards feed Jordan every time down the court, and now, after playing for forty-five minutes, he suddenly finds new life. Turnaround jumper over Hawkins. Next possession: Jordan crossover dribble to his left; Hawkins freezes—dunk. Next possession: Jordan hard drive; Hawkins falls, no call—jumper. Next possession: Jordan drives; Hawkins lags, Yao goes for the block—goaltending. Jordan scores ten in overtime and finishes with thirty-five points and eleven rebounds. Yao has sixteen and eleven; Hawkins scores ten. In the final seconds, with the Rockets down by two, Yao gets a defensive rebound and, instead of calling a time-out, throws the outlet pass. Bad shot. Rockets lose.
After the game, in the Rockets’ locker room, Hawkins sat alone on a bench. “It was frustrating,” he told me. “He’s the greatest player ever.” Outside, Tomjanovich had given his guard credit for keeping Houston in the game. “Hawkins came in and gave us life defensively,” he said. “Hawkins and Mo Taylor were the guys today.”
Yao sat in front of his locker, a towel wrapped around his waist. The Chinese media pressed close, and he told them that he should have called the time-out.
In the Wizards’ locker room, I joined a group of reporters waiting for Jordan. Unlike the other players, he never met the press while showering and changing, and the team always arranged a special podium for their star. Jordan stepped behind the microphone, dressed in a gray pin-striped suit. Somebody asked if the Wizards would make the playoffs. “I’ve never had a doubt that we would,” Jordan said.
Another reporter asked about the overtime period, and Jordan was dismissive of Hawkins: “I was going against a young kid who didn’t really know how to play, and he tried a couple of flops.”
Somebody asked about Yao. “You can sit here and talk about how good he eventually could be,” Jordan said. “But at some point, he’s going to have to showcase what everybody expects. He’s going to have to get better, which I think he will.”
Kobe Bryant was having a spectacular season, and a reporter asked how Jordan in his prime would have fared against the Lakers’ guard. Jordan praised Bryant, but then he grinned: “I think I would have a good chance of taking care of business.”
Jordan spoke bluntly, and he saw the game with athlete’s myopia: on the court, it didn’t matter where the players had come from or where they were going. For fifty-three minutes, the competition was more important than everything else that surrounded it. But like most games, it soon receded into the essence of statistics—the meaningless points, the pointless minutes. In the end, neither the Wizards nor the Rockets made the playoffs. Michael Jordan never again collected thirty points and ten rebounds in a game, and in May, after retiring, he was forced out of the Wizards organization. Less than three weeks after the Washington game, Rudy Tomjanovich was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and he stepped down as coach. Yao Ming did not win Rookie of the Year. And the following season Juaquin Hawkins, after failing to make an NBA team, rejoined the Harlem Globetrotters.
Although it is difficult for a Chinese athlete to come to America, it may be even harder for him to return home. Ma Jian, who tried out for the Los Angeles Clippers without the explicit blessing of Chinese authorities, was never allowed back onto the national team. Wang Zhizhi, a seven-one center who dominated Chinese basketball in the late 1990s, had even more trouble. While Wang was rising as a player, the Communist Party was restructuring many of its sports bureaus into for-profit entities. The Chinese Basketball Association hoped to become self-sufficient through corporate sponsorships and income from its professional league, known as the CBA. In this climate, the CBA became a strange beast: its sponsors included private companies, state-owned enterprises, and the People’s Liberation Army, which ran a team called the Bayi Rockets. Wang Zhizhi played for Bayi, and in 1999 the Dallas Mavericks selected him in the second round of the NBA draft. For nearly two years, Dallas courted Wang’s bosses, trying to convince them to let the player go. Wang was officially a regimental commander in the PLA.
In the spring of 2001, Dallas and Bayi finally came to an agreement, and Wang became the first Chinese to play in the NBA. He was twenty-three years old. In the off-season, he returned home, as promised, representing both the national team and Bayi. But after Wang’s second NBA season, in which
he averaged about five points a game, he requested permission to delay his return to China so that he could play in the NBA’s summer league. He promised to join the national team in time for the World Championships in August.
The Chinese national team is notorious for its grueling practice schedule—twice a day, six days a week. Fear shapes the routine: coaches know that they will be blamed if the squad loses without logging massive hours. Any innovation is resisted. Before games, the Chinese men’s team warms up by conducting the same rudimentary ball-handling drills that I watched the third-grade girls perform in Shanghai.
In the summer of 2002, Chinese authorities refused Wang’s request, but he stayed in the United States anyway. Dallas did not offer him a contract, reportedly in part because they did not want to ruin the good relationship that they had developed with the Chinese. In October, Wang signed a three-year, $6 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers. After that, Clippers games were banned from Chinese television (NBA broadcasts often draw more than ten million viewers in China). The ban turned Wang into a marketing liability—one NBA general manager told me that teams were wary of signing him in the future.
Wang, whose military passport had expired, reportedly received a U.S. green card. Over the summer, he tried to negotiate a return to China, asking for a new civilian passport and a guarantee that he could come back to the NBA after the Asian Championship. The chain of communication had grown so complicated that Wang relied heavily on a Chinese sportswriter named Su Qun to contact PLA leaders and basketball officials. “I know that as a journalist I should stay out of this,” Su, who writes for Beijing’s Titan Sports Daily, told me. “But I happen to be close to Wang. We have to save him, like saving Private Ryan.”
Wang, who declined my request for an interview, did not return to China. I spoke about him with Li Yuanwei, the secretary-general of the Chinese Basketball Association. “Wang has placed too much emphasis on his personal benefit,” Li told me. “I assured him that there is no risk. The PLA also assured him. But he doesn’t believe us, and he keeps demanding conditions that are not necessary. It’s very sad.”
Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West (P.S.) Page 24
