10. 10. 2009. ·
Nihao from China! :-)
I have nice memories from the Olympics in Beijing, and the tournament takes place in the same venue where I won the bronze medal.
When I arrived at the tournament, the first thing I thought about was my last year’s unique experience, and how eagerly I’m awaiting the next Olympic Games (if I qualify of course)! This week has been successful, I am writing this edition of my Diary one day before the finals against Cilic.
I’m grateful to the organisers of the tournament who deserve all the praise. They do everything to make us feel like we’re at home! The Chinese are very organised, professional, they leave nothing to chance. In the restaurant at the club where we have our meals, there are always 2 or 3 supervisors in charge to control the work of employees, if the temperature is fair, if the food quality is at the highest level… As I said, they leave nothing to chance, and how could they, there are 1.5 billion of them! :-) I don’t even want to calculate how many more people that is comparing to the population in Serbia ;-)
Their streets are clean, buildings are in order, rooms neat. They set an example, but… There is always a BUT! Their mentality is very different from European, especially from Serbian and I probably could not see myself in that kind of environment! There is no kidding and entertainment like in the hilly Balkans. However, our mission was not only to achieve good results on the court, but also to teach our Chinese brothers a few words in Serbian language, as they ‘equipped’ us with a few ding dong words! :-) No offense, of course, but I must be honest about the way it sounds to us. I’m sure we’re also very funny to them when we speak like this: ‘Ma bre ajde (bre-disrespectful catchphrase, ordering, decreeing meaning), jaoooo više (really!), j..o te (f..k), rakija (brandy), PLAZMA (biscuit), kajmak (cream), opanci (peasant shoes), etc’. In any case, emphasize BREEEEE! :-) I don’t want to go into details and discover some of the words in both languages, but I’m sure you have guessed! ;-)
Even if we don’t have much choice to have fun, we always find a way… We have eaten so much rice, and we shout all the words in their language that we learned. Decent words, of course… We have a lot of them in stock! :-)
P.S. I forgot to add to the list above our Kafana and the original music from our country. What would we do without our KAFANA? :-)))
To everyone’s health! Go Serbian football players! We go to South Africa next year… SERBIA!
