My biggest obsession

So I'm going to try it like this for a while, but essentially it will still be the same segment in which I will comment on different stories and of course find new vocabulary. Also on this show, in honor of the NBA playoffs, which are happening right now, I'm going to talk about the NBA and basketball in general, which, if you don't know, is my favorite sport. So let's start the show. You are listening to the fourteenth episode of English with Dane. Hit it.

Today we have three headlines, three news stories, all from China. I got these from globaltimes. I had never visited this site before, but a friend sent me a link to a news story, and then I found two more. So today's headlines segment is all about China. Let's start. The first headline reads Crane operator in Northeast China drives to burning building, uses basket to rescue 14 people. Okay, very quickly, some vocabulary.

A crane is a machine, okay, a very tall and long machine that is normally used in construction. However, there are several machines that we call a crane. In this case, they are talking about a vehicle that has a long neck that can extend to very high places, like the one you find on fire trucks. So again, the headline crane operator in Northeast China drives to burning building, uses basket to rescue 14 people. Let's find out more.

A young man in Xinbin County, Liaoning Province, is being called a hero after he used his crane with a huge blue basket to rescue 14 people who were trapped in a burning residential building in northeast China. The fire started in a grocery store on the first floor of the building, trapping residents in the seven-story building, according to a video posted by Pear Video on Sunday. Remember, when we are talking about buildings, a story is a floor, okay, a level of the building.

So on the seventh floor of the building. Lan Junse, who was 19, was operating his crane that was lifting workers who were installing exterior wall insulation on another building when he saw huge plumes of smoke coming from the nearby burning building. Another vocabulary check. It says he saw plumes of smoke. A plume spelled P-L-U-M-E is a long cloud, usually of smoke or vapor. Lan said, I immediately moved my crane when I heard someone call for help.

I was first able to rescue a mother, her son, and a family of three, including a 79-year-old woman. I saved 14 people in total. I did not think too much at the time. I just wanted to save the people, he said. One of the people that was rescued by Lan said, he risked his life to save us. He did not leave until he saved all of us, and we are very grateful. Wow. The article also says that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Oh, and there's a word here that I had seen before, but I had never really seen it in an article. I'll read the sentence for you. It says, Many netizens were impressed by the young man's actions. So the word is netizen, spelled N-E-T-I-Z-E-N-S. So like citizens, but netizens. So a citizen of the internet. I think this word is very interesting, and I think that it emphasizes a reality that we are living with today. Let me explain.

I think that the more we use the internet, the more dissolved the lines between countries become, and the less important nationalities become. Nationalities make us feel like we belong to a group. If you meet someone that is from the same country as you, it means you probably have a lot in common. Well, at least some things. Not only language, but cultural identity too. You might know the same places, the same people, maybe the same music, and this makes you feel like you belong to that group.

However, I think that the internet is changing this in a way. You can now feel part of a group or community that has nothing to do with where you are from. Just like you connect with people in your area, you can connect with people from around the world. You can find people that think like you, that have the same interests and the same sense of humor, and you can become part of a community that has nothing to do with nationality.

This isn't something that was possible before the internet, and if it was, it certainly was not possible at this level. When I first saw the word netizen, I thought it was silly, maybe a little bit stupid. I thought it was kind of a silly idea. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Communities and groups are a part of us, and everyone likes to feel like they are part of a group, and I think everyone wants to find their group.

And not only has the internet made that possible, it has made it easy. So now I think the word netizen is a good word. We don't have to be from the same place or in the same place to be part of the same group. Okay, let's move on to another headline. This one reads Toothache Remedy, no excuse for growing thousands of poppies. Let's find out more. Police in Hangzhou, East China's Zaijiang Province aren't buying the excuse made by a 66-year-old man who was arrested for growing poppies.

He told the police he was only intending to use them to relieve the pain of his toothache, so his tooth was hurting, and he claimed that he was only growing poppies to relieve that pain, to make that pain subside. The man, whose last name or surname is Shu, was detained by local police after they found 1,285 poppy plants on his farmlands.

Su told the police that he planted the poppies in October 2018 and he planned to use them to relieve his severe dental pain, which he said was a folk remedy some former workmates had taught him. By the way, people who illegally plant 500 to 3,000 poppy plants can be sentenced to five years in jail, according to Chinese criminal law. Poppies, of course, are famous for being the source of the narcotic drug opium.

Well, they're also famous for being a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime. But in this case, the first reason is more relevant, as I'm sure the police didn't arrest this man because he wanted to remember fallen soldiers. Quick vocabulary check. The article says that police weren't buying the excuse made by the 66-year-old man. If you don't buy something, it means you don't believe it.

So that sentence could also say the police didn't believe the excuse made by the 66-year-old man. We use it in Spanish too, actually. As in, I believe you. Not super common, but I've heard it before. Okay, one more before we move on. The next headline reads Suspect arrested after offering drugs to police by accident. What a great headline. Let's keep reading.

It says A man in central China trying to get on the good side of the local police by giving them cigarettes has been arrested after he pulled out drugs by accident. Yes, you heard that correctly. The man named Tang in Jingmen, Hubei Province, had driven over a double line before suddenly accelerating and colliding or crashing with another car, according to a video posted by the paper.cn. Sun Wei, a local police officer, said, We saw that Tang looked spaced out and suspected him of drunk driving.

By the way, if you are spaced out, it means that you are not completely conscious, normally as a result of drugs or alcohol. So they took Tang to the police station and Tang offered them cigarettes, but took out a cigarette case filled with drugs by accident. Come on, Tang, get it together. Another officer said, We found Tang carried two cigarette cases, one of which contained one gram of ice and eight grams of Magu, which is a stimulant composed of methamphetamine and caffeine.

So as you can imagine, Tang's drug test results came back positive. And he was arrested on suspicion of drug abuse. I mean, not that much suspicion there, but hey, good for them for not jumping to conclusions. Okay, that's it for headlines. A quick music break, and I'll be back in a second with more English with Dane.

Only family and close friends. We about to ghost end chillin', building green in a cold temp. Gold sunlight shining bright on my gold sketch. That's enough time, gold. I don't need a damn chain. I got gold in my soul, gonna be flying like a plane.

For those of you who heard my first episode, you know that I moved to the United States when I was five, and this did many things for me. Obviously, I learned to speak English, but I also started playing several sports. And of those sports, basketball quickly became my favorite. So my parents bought us a hoop or a basket, and we had it in front of the house, right in front of the garage. I remember playing there as if it were yesterday.

My brother showed me how to shoot, how to dribble, and we both fell in love with the sport. Soon after that, we started playing with other children from the neighborhood, and we started playing on the school team. I also remember watching NBA games during this time, right? Going to the stadium, going to the arena and watching NBA games. And I remember being amazed by how the players moved. I had never seen people move that fast and jump that high. I had never seen that intensity.

I don't know if you have ever had the opportunity to watch a professional basketball match, a professional basketball game up close, right from a short distance. But it is an extremely impressive show. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of professional sports, or all professional sports, but there's something about basketball that makes it the best for this. I think it's because basketball players are really big and tall, and you wouldn't expect them to move as quickly and jump as high as they do.

I also remember watching Michael Jordan on TV and watching him win championship after championship. For those of you who don't know, between the years 1991 and 1998, Michael Jordan won six NBA championships. And to make it more impressive, he won three in a row, so three consecutive championships, and then three in a row again. And if that doesn't impress you, I have another fact for you. Michael Jordan has never lost an NBA Finals series.

So Jordan and his Chicago Bulls went to the finals six times, and they won six times. That's crazy, that's insane. And that's one of the reasons they call him the GOAT. Yes, the GOAT, the G-O-A-T, the greatest of all time. Another reason I wanted to talk about basketball is because the NBA playoffs are happening right now. And honestly, it's the best time of the year to be a basketball fan because you can watch the top teams play against each other to try and win the NBA championship.

The rest of the year is fun too, right? The regular season, but it's not as fun as the playoffs. I wish the regular season was shorter, though. As a fan, it feels really, really long. And I can't imagine how it feels for the players. Did you know that an NBA team plays 82 games per season without counting the playoffs? Sin contar los playoffs. 82. That means if a team reaches the finals, they have probably played around 100 games of basketball that year.

In comparison, a soccer team in the Spanish League plays 38 games per season. If you add Champions League and other competitions, it becomes maybe around 50, 55, still not close. All I know is that 82 games is too many games to play before the playoffs. So that's something that I hope the NBA changes. There are many things about the NBA that make it a unique league. But perhaps the most important thing is that it is by far the best basketball league in the world.

In football or soccer, you have many leagues that are considered to be top leagues, right? The Spanish League, La Liga, the Premier League, the Bundesliga, right, in Germany, the Italian League, too. But in basketball, there is a clear top league. Other leagues around the world are good too, but the NBA is king. The Spanish League, the ACB, is considered maybe the second best league in the world, and it's not that close to the NBA.

Another thing that is great about the NBA is how international it has become. They put a lot of money and a lot of effort into making basketball a global sport, and it has become huge in many countries around the world. The Chinese Basketball Association, the CBA, for example, is growing at a very, very fast pace, and now it attracts talented players from around the world. European players have also become prominent in the NBA now. There used to be some, but now there are a lot.

Some are even becoming stars before our eyes, like Luka Doncic, who was the star player for Real Madrid basketball and is now playing in his first year in the NBA and is capturing the hearts of fans around the world. I was speaking to a friend the other day, and we were having a discussion about why basketball has overtaken football, right? American football in the United States as the most popular sport. To overtake means to pass, by the way.

Like if you are in a race and you overtake someone, that means that you pass them. So we were having that discussion, and we came to the conclusion that one of the biggest reasons that basketball has overtaken football in the United States and why it is so easy to market to the world in general is that you can actually see the faces of the players. In football, they wear helmets, you can't see their faces. And I think humans connect with faces, right?

We don't really connect just with names on jerseys. If someone shows you the face of a famous basketball player, you might know who it is, or at least you have an idea of who it is. If you show the average person a photo of maybe the top five or top ten NBA players, I'm sure they would recognize a few. But if you do the same with top NFL players, so football players, I doubt they would recognize even one. I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it is true that basketball is now a worldwide sport and American football isn't. This next part applies not only to basketball, but to other team sports too. I think it is incredibly important to participate in team sports. Playing on a team prepares you for many things in life, I believe. Firstly, and as simple as it sounds, it teaches you to be part of a team. This may sound silly, but as I have accumulated more experience in life, I think it is an essential skill to have.

Understanding that the best thing for a team might not be the best thing for you is not only useful in a social context, but also in a professional context. Knowing how to play your role to perfection makes you an ideal person to work with. And I think that people that have never played team sports have a more difficult time learning this. Not that they don't learn it, they just have a more difficult time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it helps you to understand how to sacrifice personal goals for the good of the team, which is not something that is easy to do. Another important thing that playing on a team teaches you is how to react to losing and winning. Oftentimes, people lose and they become a different person. You see their true colors, right? You see a side of them that you don't Didn't know existed. And it's not a good side either.

Winning and losing is part of every sport, that's true. But when you lose as a team, it's different. Maybe you had a terrible game, maybe you missed important shots and your team lost. If you had acted differently, your team could have won. It's important to analyze your role in losing and accept that some of the responsibility is yours. I have played with players in the past that never accepted responsibility, and they were exhausting.

They didn't contribute to a positive environment, and it made me want to stop spending time with them. I know it sounds drastic, but it's true. What I'm trying to say is that sports are a shortcut to finding out things about yourself and others, and I think it's especially true in team sports. Let me know if you agree or disagree. I'm always ready to change my mind when presented with strong evidence. Okay, that's the show for today. Tune in on Saturday for episode 15 of English with Dane.

But before I go, real quick, after today's show, I'm going to put up a poll on Instagram and Twitter for you to choose the next movie for me to watch and review. So don't forget to vote for the movie that you prefer. Okay, thanks for listening. Don't forget to support the show by sharing it with friends, family, coworkers, students, or anyone who you think would enjoy the show or benefit from it in any way.

We have only just started, and so far people have been writing to me and telling me that they really enjoy it. So let's get it to more people. Okay, thanks again. Talk soon. Bye bye.