When did you first pick up a rugby ball?
Before playing rugby, martial arts, track and field were my sports. When I came to Beijing in 1993 to join the China Agricultural University I remember the first day I went to the training pitch around nine o'clock in the morning. That was my first time touching a rugby ball and that is how my rugby career began.
When did you realize that this is what you wanted to do for a career,...[read more]
You've been heralded as China's finest ever player and an ambassador for the sport here. Ever get recognised on the street?
No, the Chinese rugby scene is not very large. Some friends joke by saying those who play rugby in China should know Johnny Zhang and if they don't they don't really like rugby.
All that tackling and no padding: have you ever had any serious injuries?
Training is hard and is always accompanied by exhaustion, sweat and injuries, but all sports need...[read more]
I never thought I'd be the one to have a cautionary tale, a message to impart about something that happened and not just to someone I know or had heard about, because these things happen to other people, not me. The story goes that two weeks ago I was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain, after three days of trying to convince myself that it didn't hurt that much because I had no idea...[read more]
From this cautionary tale, my advice is this: you need insurance. If you're somewhere where you'd need to pay for anything medical, and I'm guessing for most expatriates in Shanghai this would be the case, then you need to be insured; there's no two ways about it. Chances are you won't ever need it, and in hindsight it's easy to come back from a trip overseas and wish you could somehow get a refund...[read more]
I tell my more gullible friends that on Sundays I race dragons because it makes me feel like the Atreyu of Shanghai. (“Call my name, Bastian! Please! Save us!”). Sigh. But what I really mean is that for the past few weeks my Sunday mornings have seen me peeling myself away from my womb-like bed at the crack of dawn to spend the morning in a hard wooden boat trying to co-ordinate my paddle with 20 other people...[read more]
You never forget your first time. That wash of vulnerable trepidation as you attempt something important for the very first time; a landmark life experience from which so many more will follow. Your first time away from home. Your first driving lesson, with your dad in an old car he'd bought specially, as you bunny hopped your way through a mowed-in-the-grass pretend crossroads in the field next to your house. The first time you locked lips with a member of...[read more]
My solo reply in kind was to butcher the seminal 1996 hit ‘2 Become 1' by The Spice Girls, a ‘slow ballad focusing on how the bonding of two lovers can become so strong that they practically become one entity, through the act of sexual intercourse' [1]. Their thinly veiled message on the importance of contraception served to encourage a generation of young female followers to develop greater self-empowerment - Girl Power. But, more importantly, it suited my weirdly...[read more]
In case you hadn't noticed, there's an Expo in town. And it seems like an increasing number of the people I meet have just arrived for said Expo, or to Shanghai in general, to work or to visit. Upping sticks for a new life, however brief (and especially to China), may be very different to anything they've known before.
So if you're fresh off the plane as once was I, you have much to learn my friend. Remember, ‘There are no...[read more]
6. Be a cunning linguist. Learn some key phrases. Needs must, and my first five phrases in order of importance were: ni hao (hello), xie xie (thank you), zai jian (goodbye), mei you rou (no meat) and dui (yes/agree). (It's the vegetarian's mantra! "Hello! I agree, no meat. Thank you, goodbye!"). Also, Chinese language podcasts you could probably Google on the intranet machine or something. In the meantime, having a Chinese-speaking acquaintance on call 24hrs a day to act as...[read more]
