I'm a person born without sports instinct. My worst subject back in high school was PE. I dreaded this subject so much that i still get nightmares sometimes even after leaving school for more than a decade. I'm also not a fan of any sports event, even though when i was in Canada, i did kinda follow the NBA games for a year or two because of Michael Jordan (with Chicago Bulls at that time). Now i still watch NBA matches, but only when Houston Rockets is playing (because of Yao Ming of course).As for 贝, he is a die-hard fan of badminton games. He was a badminton player for his high school and he still plays badminton now on every Sunday. He would watch every major badminton matches on TV. The main reason of why he subscribed to Astro in the first place was to watch the live broadcasts on the sports channels. Most of the time, he would even videotape it and re-watch it over and over again. This is the thing that always puzzle me: why would a person keeps watching a game repeatedly when the result was already known?
Well, being his girlfriend, i've sure learnt a lot about badminton from him -- not playing the game but the things about the game. I didn't know the rules of the game until i was with him, but now i even know the names and faces of the world's renown players.
So, the most exciting news in the badminton world now is definitely the bi-yearly event of World Championship (which will be changed to a yearly event starting next year). 贝 has been making preparation for it since a month ago. No, he is not one of the players, nor is he going to watch the game live at the court. He has been busy tidying up his recorded videotapes, buying new videotapes, and keeping track of the schedules for the matches and live broadcasts on Astro. Ya, this is how much he LOVES badminton.
This year, the World Championship is held at Anaheim, California, the home of Disneyland. It's kinda funny that a world-class tournament is to be hosted by a country whose people may not even know the existence of such championship. This was actually the whole idea -- to promote badminton to the world. Badminton has always been a sport that only interests the Asian and a few European countries (such as the Danes). I guess one of the ways to promote something is to bring it right to your doorstep. We can't tell for sure whether the Americans would start paying attention to badminton after holding the World Championship, but one thing for sure is that the fans, such as 贝, would have to stay up whole night just to watch the live broadcasts.
Talking about the live broadcasts, yes, there will be an important match later at around 3am. Our very own national player Lee Chong Wei will be facing Chinese player Bao Chunlai. After Wong Choong Hann's defeat, Lee Chong Wei is the only male single shuttler left with the hope to bring back the championship for Malaysia. Hope he can do it as an early birthday gift to our country.
I can almost visualize what 贝's face will look like when he's watching this nail-biting, nerve-wrecking match later. As for me, well, i'll probably be dreaming about the shuttlecocks flying above my head by then.
