The Portfolios

It was unbelievable.

I woke up early last Monday morning to watch the Hoyas take on the famed Tarheels of the University of North Carolina, a school with a basketball program among the most hallowed in the nation. They have been to th Final Four something like 16 times. Twenty-five years ago, the Hoyas met the Tarheels in the NCAA Finals only to lose when a freshman named Michael Jordan hit a 17-ft jumper to go up by one with 17 seconds to play. Talk about history.

This time it was different. Sadly I couldn’t get a video feed. But the radio was coming in clearly. UNC led most of the game - in fact, with five minutes left they were up by ten! It seemed to be the end of Georgetown’s comeback season.

But then the tide turned. Listening to the calls, it was like a miracle taking place. The Hoyas clawed back to within three with under a minute remaining. 30 seconds. UNC missed a shot, Georgetown rebounded. The clock was expiring and it was all coming down to this. Sitting on the end of the bed, headphones hooked up to the laptop at 7am with my wife slowly rousing with each excited tremble I made, I thought, Wouldn’t it be awesome if they just hit a 3 right now?

Announcer: “Wallace dribbling, 12 on the shot clock, he pulls up for three… GOOD! Tie game with 22 seconds left and it is pandemonium here in East Rutherford!!!”

I was jumping up and down, respect for my wife’s sleep now thrown out the window, and she was good enough to smile with me as UNC called a timeout.

Now they had one chance to get a shot off and win the game. This gave me no small amount of anxiety. It was as if we were back in 1982 all over again - but this time, there was no Jordan. And thank God for that, because one of their guys got a shot off - and from what the announcer said, it was a damn good look, too - but he missed it. “And we are going into overtime!”

There were five more minutes now, but it was already over. Again, there was a strong sense of the inevitable. UNC missed something like the next 20 shots. It scored about 2 points in OT while Georgetown went on a rampage and finally won by more than 10. It was all about the momentum. The Hoyas got the first basket, and the second, and the third, and it was over.

Days later I found this video, of high-quality production, of the campus back in DC - the students ran into the streets, lit fireworks and chanted “Hoya Saxa!” to let off the steam. Check it out:

Next is Ohio State and the fearsome Greg Oden. It will be a formidable opponent. I firmly believe fate has decided to grant the title to my Hoyas this year - but even if I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter. Georgetown has already proven itself. When I was a student the team was just starting to come out of a long slump that began when Iverson left for the NBA. I believe it was my sophomore year when Kevin Braswell led the team to the Sweet Sixteen and kids on campus began sporting shirts that said “Respect is Back. Fear is Next.”

The Fear is Here.

I’ve been working for a PR company almost a half year, we are not just about public relations, we do more about investment consulting, public affairs and strategic communications, so media relations are also involved.

The longer I’m working with strategic team, the more commerce things I’m learning. It’s not that bad, but it’s never going to be pure: the goal for all the companies is to sell by different means, therefore, they need publicity work; therefore, they need media relations.

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Clients come to my company for help, we help them legally. All the events we’re doing for clients, media must be involved, but do the media really want to be involved? Do the media really care about some company’s bus launch? Or website launch? Or insurance risk said by an insurance company, just because they want to sell more of their own “perfect” insurance? Or overseas investment by foreign government commerce department? Etc……yes, there are things that can be attractive or even very important, but local Chinese media are too lazy to report them unless you give them a tip (bribe). So, every media we invite for clients, we have to prepare a press kit, which is a white envelope with cash, normally RMB200 [$25] for small media, if it’s a big media outlet, we put RMB1000-3000 [$125-$375] inside the envelope. If the media comes to Shanghai or wherever the event is from other city, we need to pay all their travel expenses, then we can make them write about our clients, or just get a little attention from them.

How embarrassing is this? Of course the clients have no better way to do publicity work, therefore they follow the unusual Chinese marketing rules. It’s not just one media outlet taking tips in China, it’s almost every single Chinese media organization. My best friend works for a design magazine, he told me that every event he goes to, he can get RMB100-300 inside the press kit, he loves that, so he can make more income for living. He also said no one will go to the event if there is no cash in the press kit, the consequences would be really bad between the company and media.

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I don’t know how media relations work in foreign countries, but I really hope they’re not doing same things we do. As a common person, I have no power to control whatever the media reports, and whatever companies pay for media to write, but we can control our ears, sometimes we just don’t listen, don’t care.

“It’s official. We’re back.”

So said Georgetown big man Patrick Ewing, Jr., son of the legendary Georgetown big man of yore, Patrick Ewing, after winning the Big East Championship under Coach John Thompson III, son of legendary Georgetown Coach of yore John Thompson, Jr.

I have nothing to add to that except: Feel the fear. Hoya Paranoia is here.

Picture: Jeff Green towers over a Notre Dame opponent.

We returned from Chengdu last week, safe and sound. I was back at work Tuesday, but Xianyi had taken an extra day’s vacation and so she went back Wednesday. She’s more than made up for it since then, however, as her boss has put her in charge of a new project that has kept her in the office late all week and most of the day Saturday.

Our last days in Chengdu were spent bowling with Xianyi’s parents, and then traveling to Qing Bai Jiang, where we stayed over with her Aunt and ten-year-old cousin Dodo. We had a nice lunch prepared by Auntie with some of her friends: an old guy we called Uncle Pang, and a co-worker of Auntie’s named Bing. Uncle Pang brought over a huge jug of homemade paojiu, which he and Bing and I toasted with repeatedly. After lunch we spent the rest of the day at a local tea garden, where Dodo and a boy her age collected tadpoles from the pond, and we all flew a kite.The next day we returned to Chengdu and had dinner with some of Xianyi’s friends from middle school. We met Si Lu, one of her best friends from the old days, at the same bridge where the two of them used to meet when they were cutting class together. Soon we were joined by several others, and we went to a nice little homestyle restaurant. It was here that her friends discussed whether this year is truly the year of the golden pig, as everyone says, or if it is in fact the year of the earth pig – as they had read in a local paper. They say people are lying to themselves because they want to reap the rewards of a golden pig year. Or maybe the government is pushing the idea to get people to buy more stuff?

Whatever year it is, it’s here. Tonight is the Lantern Festival, the last night of the New Year festivities, 15 nights after the New Year. People are lighting fireworks all over the place, right outside our house. It’s so loud we can’t hear the TV. Car alarms are going off. We’re eating tang yuan. Happy New Year.