Li Na

I am partial to the name. I traveled to Yanbian (Korea in China) in Manchuria three years ago to deliver a laptop to Li Na of Hunchun from her mother who resided in the CNMI.

For most of the provinces of China since Beijing hosted the Olympics 2008, (except heavily ethnic-dominated regions), public signage is in Chinese and English. When I got to Tumen in Yanbian, however, all the signs were only in Chinese and Korean, not surprising since a huge part of Manchuria in what are now the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and part of Primorsky Krai of Russia, were part of the ancient kingdom of Koguryo/Gaogouli, precursor to the Koreas.

But it is the name of the young girl Li Na that stuck to my mind and got revived when the Chinese tennis player won the French Open a couple of years ago. I am not a tennis aficionado. A tenuous connection ended when I gave up my racquets seven years ago on Saipan after ankle and joints buckled while volleying across the net at the court’s kitty corner to CHC on Middle Road. I noticed Li Na in the French Open only because a prominent English newspaper’s sports page headlined: “Na Li wins French Open.” The English newspaper decided to Anglicize Li Na’s name, thus its noticeably jarring headline.

Among foreigners teaching English to Chinese students, their students adopt English names, or the teacher assigns one for ease of memory of matching names and faces together. On my first semester of teaching, I asked my students’ to fill up a profile form, and I got English names. However, when I called them in the street, or outside the classroom, they ignored my call. They were not rude; they were just not used to being called by their English names!

So, on the second semester, I had students write Chinese names, asked them to include an English name if they had one, but not to bother if they didn’t. I was delighted to have many who did not indicate English names. To remember names and faces together, I took photos so I had a sheet each session with pictures of everyone along with their Chinese names.

On roll call, the customary practice is to call the family name first. If they give an English name, I used those as first names to the family names, followed by their Chinese given name. Most of the students were appreciative that they did not have to answer to an English name they really did not care about and were known to change every semester, more so that I made the effort to learn their individual Chinese names and took their photos to help me remember them.

I teach oral English to an audience that read (quietly) and wrote, but did not speak. Chinese is a “see” language. Dyslexics fit well into the language because one learns to recognize each character as distinct from another in the same way as dyslexics in English recognize a group of letters as one unit of memory and not by phonetics. Thus, students were trained in Chinese to understood what they read, and knew enough vocabulary in English to write, but speaking was like having their tooth pulled without anesthesia at the dentist!

I told the students on the first day that I will never be able to pronounce their names properly, so they did not need to worry about proper pronunciation at all when called upon to speak English. My sole job was to get them to open their mouths and use words they studiously memorized in the last 10 years of their schooling, not to correct syntax and pronunciation. That worked!

Li Na the tennis player contemplated retiring from the grueling tennis tour a year before Australia. At a month short of 32 years during the games, her cartilages were no longer as flexible as they once were when she turned pro at 16. She had not won any Grand Slam event since she won the French Open at 28. Oh, she still plays well but she was just reaching the quarter and semi-finals and was no longer expected to top the slate. On Saturday, that changed. She won the Australian Open along with critics’ universal respect for the effort.

Seeded No. 1 Spaniard Rafael Nadal dismissed erstwhile Swiss friend Roger Federer in the men’s semi-final tourney, but went on to lose the championship in four sets to Federer’s Swiss partner in the Beijing Olympics doubles (they won the gold), 28-year-old number 8 seeded Stanislas Wawrinka.

Li Na was No. 5 in the world but seeded No. 4 in the Australian Open; she was expected to fade away into retirement. Younger players decimated Li Na’s age group quickly, but the stubborn stalwart past her prime finished upstart but 20th seeded 24-year-old Dominka Cibulkova of Slovakia in two sets.

Li Na and Wawrinka are expected to gain No. 3 ratings after their wins.

For one who contemplated retiring earlier because, perhaps, it was time, Li Na gave her whacks an extra oomph and defied the odds. I retired last year, perhaps, ahead of my time. So it is that Li Na’s performance stares me straight in the eye as if to say, “Go find your challenge that you can win against the odds.”

Thanks, Li Na. I needed that!

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