短 - Duan3 - Short

Racquetball is 短柄牆球 - Duan3 Bing3 Qiang2 Qiu2 - Short Handle Wall Ball. You might think that Squash would be Long Handle Wall Ball, but you’d be wrong, as usual. Actually it’s 壁球 - Bi4 Qiu2 - Wall Ball. 牆 and 壁 both mean wall. As far as I can tell, Long Handle Wall Ball isn’t anything.

I’m getting these sports names from this page at the “Chinese Taipei” Olympic Committee site. Taiwan isn’t allowed to call their team Taiwan, because Taiwan doesn’t exist, right? So they have to call themselves “Chinese Taipei”. They also aren’t allowed to use their flag or national anthem at the games. In Chinese it’s even worse, that page just says it is the “Chinese Olympic Committee”, but with a word for “Chinese” that means “Chinese people”, (中華 - Zhong1 Hua2) not “Chinese country” (中國 - Zhong1 Guo2).

I wonder if the Olympics come to New York in 2012, with so many people from Taiwan living there, will they try to bring some attention to this issue? And that would be four years after Beijing in 2008.

HA! You want more ridiculous politics? Check this out: SHOULD THE 2008 OLYMPIC TORCH PASS THROUGH TAIWAN? Would that be admitting Taiwan is part of China?