Story by Nanfang reporter Katei Wang
With no basketball on the horizon back in the United States (and no paycheques forthcoming), some NBA stars are touring around China to raise pocket change for themselves. Some students in Guangzhou decided to roll out the welcome mat by creating distinct t-shirt designs with Chinese characteristics for the basketball stars. The following story is translated from iFeng.com:
In order to greet the NBA’s tour of China, Chinese college students in Guangzhou designed special T-shirts for their NBA stars.
Why are these clothes special? Because the logo contains three Chinese characters: Fei (fly), Di (King), and Lei (thunder), which represent Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Kevin Durant respectively.
“As this is a China tour for the NBA, these T-shirts should contain Chinese elements,” said Ye Wenbin, one of the T-shirt designers from the ART-3 Illustration Group of the 2009 Digital Department of the Huaruan software school at Guangzhou University. “Kobe is also called Black Manba (snake) or Peter Pan, however, in China, Black Manba does not have an auspicious meaning, so Peter Pan looks better.”
Ye said they printed the traditional Chinese word “fei” onto the T-shirt for Kobe and this Chinese logo describes and honours Kobe’s career.
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