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Olympics Xing
Xing (pronounced shing or sing) means journey in Chinese — fitting for this blog, which is all about the journey of the U.S. men's basketball team and N&O staff writer Luciana Chavez at the 2008 Beijing Games. She is covering her first Olympics and making her first trip to China. Check in here for Olympic news and for Luci's impressions getting to and being at the Games.
Wade runs into language barrier
Submitted by lchavez on 08/12/2008 - 10:13
BEIJING — USA guard Dwyane Wade took the podium after the Americans beat Angola 97-76 on Tuesday night at the Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium, took a question, and immediately looked thoroughly confused.
Wade turned to U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski and told him he couldn't understand the question.
Krzyzewski explained and Wade, who'd just led the U.S. scoring a second straight game with 19 points, finally answered.
Wade wasn't suffering from a brain cloud. Turns out he had his headphones, which pipe in translations of questions in other languages, tuned to the Chinese channel. He was listening to Mandarin instead of English.
Krzyzewski later teased Wade, "I was wondering about you," before explaining to the assembled media what had happened.
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