copycats and more on the Olympics

Is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery? If so, the West should be very flattered by Asia. I remember seeing stuff from China/Hong Kong that were knockoffs like Suseme Street clothes instead of Sesame Street or LV bags that had VT on them instead. Well, I could cite lots of copycat stuff here, but I came across these two this week:

1. A new movie entitled Hari Puttar
2. A new convenience store named 610. (If you do not get this one, think 7-11)

Olympics news - Michael Phelps has been dubbed The Aqua Gladiator here. Also, the local newspaper wrote that Phelps has more medals than this country has earned in the last 108 years of Olympic competition.

cows and the Olympics

I have seen several more healthy-looking cows this past week. I really believe that things are looking up here as evidenced by this country's first ever individual gold in Olympic history for the 10M Air Rifle competition.

It's interesting to watch the Olympics in a country that is not your own. If I were in Houston, I would probably watch a few events that I like, but being here, I want to watch everything and I check the internet every day to see the US medal count. It's cool b/c even the people here are rooting for Michael Phelps to win 8 gold medals.

Some differences between Olympic coverage here and in the US:

1. There are no background stories of the athletes here. You know how in the US there is always the media piece where the reporters go to the hometown of the athlete and interview the family, friends, coaches and community members and sometimes re-enact hardships the athletes had to overcome to get to the Olympics? None of that here.
2. It never occurred to me how many resources the US has in terms of sports experts. Pretty much, there is a US commentator for every single event in the Olympics, or at least those in which Americans participate. There is a UK company that sells broadcasting rights to about 50 different countries who cannot afford and/or do not have the personnel to cover each of the sports. So there is no banter between previous Olympians about the athletes and what they must be going through or what they need to get that medal.
3. The sports that are given more attention are different from those that get attention in the US. There is a lot of field hockey coverage here mostly because this country won several gold medals in this sport many years ago.
4. There is no schedule available of what events will be covered. At home, we could check the newspaper or internet to find out when an event we wanted to see would be on TV. No such thing here. We kinda get Olympics potluck. (We missed the opening ceremony because it took us a while to figure out what channel and what time it was going to be shown here. Which brings me to another topic - every once in a while, the channels randomly change. And so we have to spend time figuring out what networks are on what channels. For instance, "Hey! There is Bollywood MTV on the BBC station. Now we have to look for BBC again!" AND, we have another TV in the living room, whose channels do not match the channels we get in the bedroom. Insane, I know.)
5. Weird coverage glitches. The network that is covering the games here is called DD Sports. Well, tonight, in the middle of the 100M final, the programming suddenly switched to soccer on ESPN, and not even Olympics. We had to look for a news station to find out who won. (Jerry is channel surfing right now and just found DD Sports on a different channel! So, my auxiliary comment from #4 has just been proved again.)
   

fatter cows

We explored a new mall on Sunday afternoon. It is pretty western and quite big (by S Asian standards). Most of the stores are from the US or Europe with prices out of most peoples' reach, but the whole building has A/C. Plus, it has McDonald's and a KFC ripoff called Broaster - two things the mall closer to us does not have.

Anyway, this blog is not about malls, but about how things in K seem to be looking up, as evidenced by two western malls opening up within 6 months of each other. As I was thinking about this in our car ride, I saw two cows on the street and both were pretty healthy-looking, not the skinny cows I usually see. Are fatter cows a sign of better times for everyone?