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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > August > 25 > Entry
BLOG: Scorpions, Squat Toilets and Kobe
BEIJING — I leave China with many questions unanswered:
How can folks here eat scorpions, silk worms and yak, seal and snake penis? That’s right, there’s one Beijing restaurant that serves nothing but penis.
How do they handle those no-commode squat toilets?
How do they remember those 30,000 pictograms that make up the written Chinese language?
And yet the biggest mystery for me is how did Kobe become King of China?
Hands down, the most popular athlete of the Beijing Games was the the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.
The other night after a late game and a long stint in drug testing, Bryant emerged from the hoops arena into the Beijing night at about 1:30 a.m. And there, in the non-stop rain that had been falling for hours, waited several dozen people, their handmade signs soggy — the inked messages running off the cardboard — but their affections as warm as ever.
At each game during the U.S. run to the gold medal here, the Chinese crowd would continually chant “Ko-Be!…Ko-Be.!”
When his white-capped, blue blazer image flashed on the giant overhead video screens in the Bird’s Nest stadium during Opening Ceremonies, the crowd went nuts.
The other day the Beijing Youth Daily, one of the best read, most respected newspapers here had a glossy poster of Bryant wrapped around its paper. The headline read: “Kobe — Nobody Can Compare.”
Over the the past two basketball seasons, Bryant’s jersey has been the top seller in China, where it is estimated there are 450 million NBA fans. By the way, Boston’s Kevin Garnett is No. 2 in sales and Yao Ming’s jersey has dropped to 10th.
This past year, one of the most popular shows on Chinese TV was Kobe Mentu — or Kobe’s Disciples — a reality TV show where fans eventually travelled to the U.S. to be mentored by Bryant.
While he remains a debatable figure in the U.S., Bryant is like Michael Jordan and Elvis all rolled into one over here.
“We all thought we were somebody until we came over here with him,” New Orleans star Chris Paul told Palm Beach Post writer Hal Habib.
Bryant is as taken aback by the love fest as anybody.
“To be honest, I can’t explain it at all,” he said.
Part of the explanation is that he’s he’s made five lengthy Nike-sponsored trips here over the years to put on clinics with people throughout the country,
At the Games, Bryant — who also speaks fluent Italian and Spanish — was a man of the world, maybe more so than any other U.S. Olympian. He attended beach volleyball games, soccer matches,. swimming, track and field and women’s basketball.
And then there was his ply on the court as he led the U.S. team — the Redeem Team — to again establish itself as THE force in world basketball
And when Sunday’s final had ended and the American players were decorated with their gold medals, the Chinese crowd had just one thing to say:
“Ko-Be!…Ko-Be!…Ko-Be!”
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