Do you love the summer Olympics as much as I do? Gymnastics, track and field, swimming. Weeks of free entertainment.
If you do, here's a little tip: don't travel to a foreign, non-English speaking country during the Olympics.
It has been an annoying go at it. First off, it's all in Portuguese. It just not as pleasurable trying to translate while I watch. Not ideal, but I can live with it.
Here's my main beef: instead of showing the interesting, universally popular events, events that I, and everyone else, likes, the majority of what we're getting here is:
- soccer (big surprise, I know)
- handball (? I didn't know this was a real sport)
- women's wrestling (Ewwwww, ewwwww, and ewwwww)
- rowing
- ping pong
- sailing
- beach volleyball
- the 50M men's freestyle OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER (Brazil's only gold medal thus far)
Ok. So I am exaggerating a little, but not much.
And, lastly, they've got this bizarre Portuguese-speaking-bucked-teethed-Chinaman-puppet-thing that E*PN Brazil uses to cover the games. As a PC-minded American it is just about the most politically-incorrect thing I've seen in a long time. He speaks Portuguese with a weird Chinese accent, and every time he gets around Chinese people he just says "Ni hou, ni hou, ni hou, ni hou" over and over again while the poor Chinese give an obviously uncomfortable courtesy smile because they know they are being filmed.
***disclaimer: I, of course, realize that Brazilians, who are very proud of their country and huge sports enthusiasts, are interested in watching their fellow citizens compete EVEN if it means watching women's wrestling. I know that in US we do the same thing. This is just a post about an American watching the Olympics in Brazil. :)
9 comments:
Sounds as bad as our viewing experiences -- trying to decipher which swimmer is who in a snowstorm -- our reception is BAD and we don't have cable.
The puppet guy sounds weird. They must not be very PC in Brazil. :o)
I love ping pong! I have no idea why you would not want to watch hours of it. Lol!
That puppet just sounds wrong. At least you have the internet and can watch all the things you want that way.
you are officially invited to my house...
just too bad that we are an hour later here and everything is on so late!
Can you say T-I-R-E-D...
love ya
BG
I'm glad I've been able to watch videos of gymnastics and other sports I LIKE to watch on the internet. It may not be live, but at least I'm watching what I want to watch and there are no commercials and there's no switching from one sport to another. I have no interest in watching women's wrestling either!
The puppet reminds me of the neighbor guy in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Hugely un-PC. I think most countries of the world are about forty years behind in PC-ness and/or things like cultural tolerance and civil rights. Funny when it surfaces in such odd ways...
Yeah, women's wrestling is creepy. Any way you look at it.
TOo bad you're not getting a very good viewing experience because it's been one heck of an olympics!
I do have to say that I felt super bad for the Brazilian gymnast who fell last night in his florr routine because he was otherwise AWESOME.
Oh, man. I hope you have been able to see some of the swimming. I am not a huge sports person, but even I am amazed!!
love watching the gymnastics and hearing the comments and its late over hear for us too so of it has gone into 12 am: swimming was good too didn't care for some of the other stuff. hope you can go to BG and enjoy the rest of it.marina
I'm so sorry for you. We've been watching everything. Do you remember Hugh McCutcheon? He's the coach for the volleyball team. He was on the BYU team when we used to go and get seats on the floor. He was the big New Zealand guy. We've gone to a couple games since we moved here--but it's just not the same!
You get soccer? I haven't seen a game yet.
Post a Comment