Well, I've given up trying to get the answer I want to one of my questions. We say, "It's all Greek to me," when we don't understand something.

The Greeks, meanwhile, as I learned at the 2004 Athens Games, say, "It's all Chinese to me."

So it would wrap up the world in one simple circle if the Greeks would say, "It's all English to me."

Or it would send me on my next leg if they said, "It's all Japanese to me."

Or something.

Instead, of the several people I've asked, the answer typically is, "We don't have an expression like that."

What do you say if you don't understand something at all?

"We don't understand it."

We all have our little disappointments in life.

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OK, here's what we should adopt from China: Elevators. Seriously, elevators. Today I was riding in an elevator at my apartment building at the media village when a Chinese man stepped in and punched the second floor.

"Oh, what was I thinking,'' he said, or Chinese words to that affect.

He had hit the wrong floor. But what happened next was interesting. He punched the second floor button twice and the light went off. He then punched the third-floor button as he had intended.

Erasing lit buttons in elevators.

Why didn't we think of that?

Meanwhile, here's what they can use from us: Silverware. Hey, I get chopsticks. I can use them just fine, at least as long as the rice doesn't break off into little pieces and then you're left scraping around the bowl hoping to get a piece or two. But come on. Chopsticks are so 13th century. Don't tell me silverware isn't easier. And more versatile.

Why didn't they think of that?

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So with time to kill at an event, I began talking wtih a 20-year-old Chinese vounteer at the Olympics about how our cultures cross. Here's the quick version:

Me: Do you watch any American TV shows?

Him: Friends and Desperate Housewives.

Me: What's the most popular show in China?

Him: CCTV1 and CCTV2 (they're station channels).

Me: What's on them?

Him: News. They're all news.

Me: What's your favorite American movie?

Him: The Godfather.

Me: What's the biggest holiday in China?

Him: The Chinese New Year or Spring Festival.

Me: What about Christmas?

Him: Some foreigners, but that's it.

Me: In a country where there are now 40 million more boys than girls -- and it's mostly a younger generational thing --- is it difficult finding a girlfriend?

Him: The girls have it easy. When they want to marry, they say, 'Do I want him, him or him.' ''

Me: What do you study about American history?

Him: We have heard of Abraham Lincoln.

Me: From the Civil War?

Him: Yes, I think. They called people Yankee then. Isn't that a bad term?

I could have been sarcastic and say Yankee is a bad term to a Red Sox fan ... So goes another night in China.

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It's one thing to be an American reporter at the Olympics. There are stories everywhere. We're winning medals at most any event. With hundreds of athletes, with every event in play (except team handball -- want to make the Olympics, start a team handball team!), we can be the life of the party. We had 72 medals entering today.

What drove this idea home was sitting a ride on the media bus next to a Finnish reporter.

Me: "How's Finland doing?

Reporter: "Great. We have three medals."

Me: "Any golds?"

Reporter: "Trap shooting."

Me: "Is that big in Finland."

Reporter: "Today it is. We have to take what we're given, right?"

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So there I was walking through the hall of the main press center when I was walking no more. I was stopped. It was wall-to-wall Chinese. Or should I say Great-Wall-to- Great-Wall?

They were all watching the great Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang in his 110-meter heat. Xiang is the biggest inidividual Chinese star of these games. Bigger than Li Dan, the rock-n-roll badminton player who threw his shoes into the crowd after winning the gold. Bigger than Yao Ming, the basketball star, or the national table tennis stars.

Xiang is so big he hasn't gone in public in three months. Hasn't been seen.

And now here he is, starting the 110 hurdles.

And then stopping.

The entire hall gasps. People cover their mouths in shocked." No one says anything, though when one is asked she says, "I'm too surprised to say anything."

One of the most anticipated sights of the Games - the Chinese star running in the finals on Thursday - didn't make it to the first hurdle.

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Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Twain's "Huckleberry Finn."

Hyde's "From Pig Liver to Sheep Penis ...."

All banned pieces of literature!

What began as a cheap (sheep?) idea for a column ends up as writing immortality. You can't call up the column on the Internet in Beijing.

I plug in the address: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-flsphyde15sbaug15,0,4616380.column.

Blank screen.

I try again.

Blank screen.

I try yesterday.

Blank screen.

I try today.

Blank screen.

The poor Chinese censors. If they're knocking off stuff from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, what worldwide drivel of sportwriting must they be taking down? I pity them I'd also wish they would edit my copy a little.

Here's one question for these censors: In my section on the different animal penis served, would you have allowed the R-rated line: Once you go yak, you'll never go back?

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Don't try this at home. Don't try it in Bejing, even if you come.

From my column today on Chinese food, here is the sequence of pictures of my attempting one slice of the sheep penis. It's said to increase virility. If so, counting sheep will never be the same....

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If you're like me, and dive about as frequently as you do rhythmic gymnastics, there's an every-four-year question I wonder about: Why do divers get out of the pool, hit the pool-side shower and then perhaps even go to the whirlpool?

Is it to rinse the chlorine?

Is it to keep their gills wet?

So yesterday, while covering Boynton Beach-born and Fort Lauderdale-based Jevon Tarantino, I asked the simple question: Why?

True, it's not something the expert diving writer would ask. Then again, who is an expert diving writer?

"Keeps our muscles warm,'' he said.

It seems the difference in temperature between the air and the water can make your muscles cold. And that's not good for an Olympian dive. We've all seen the Seinfeld episode on shrinkage.

Yep, that's why they send me to China, to get to the bottom of pressing questions like this.

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Well, we've seen what's far more offensive to the Chinese than a handful of U.S. athletes departing a plane been wearing surgical masks for fear of the polluted air.

How about the Spanish Olympic basketball team pulling back its eyes to approximate the look of a Chinese person during a team photo?

How dumb is that?

Considerably, is the word that comes to mind.

Here's the first reaction: Thank God it's Spain, not the United States. I say that as an American and an American reporter who would have to cover the fallout that would never stop falling. It would feed directly into an anti-American sentiment that pervades many parts of the world. It would be extended to show how all Americans feel.

The good news: The U.S. basketball team, to date, has been polite and showed good sportsmanship.

Spain's got some explaining to do.

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For the fourth time, I took a cab last night. For the third time, the cab driver got lost. He had to stop, get out, ask some bystander which way to go. After a minute of discussion and pointing down the street, he returned and we were on our way again.

Did I say this city of 16 million people is big?

Even the cab drivers get lost.

The good news: They're incredibly cheap fares. The first 45-minute cab ride amounted to about $11. How is that possible given the gas prices today?

Two ways to pass the time in a Beijing taxi cab.

1) Trade words to learn. They want to learn English. I'd like to learn a little Mandarin. So we sit there and trade expressions. LIke I now think I can properly pronounce the word for "Thank you" It's a phonetic, "S-h-e-a, s-h-e-a." You need to say every letter. Shea, shea, Mr. Taxi.

2) Listen to their music. It seems they have their personal selections, as you would if you had to regularly drive across Beijing. One drive had - back to the '70s, please - "The Best of Leo Sayer." Who knew he even had a Best Of?

On to Day 6 of the Olympics.

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To say "thank you" in Mandarin, you approximate saying, "Shay-shay." It doesn't hit the mark exactly, because it seems there's an 'i' in there somewhere, like it's "Shiay-Shiay."

But a Chinese reporter took exception to the way Dwayne Wade and his U.S. Olympic basketball teammates were pronouncing it.

"When you say it, it sounds like, 'Sh--, sh--,' '' the reporter told Wade.

"Excuse me?" he said.

She repeated the idea, then said, "You need to tell the other players on your team."

"Um, OK,'' he said.

I started laughing. I know the problems of language. A few weeks ago in Costa Rica, I meant to say I wanted two spoons to share a bowl of ice cream. I said I wanted two pork chops to share the ice cream.

Wade kept a straight face. For a few seconds. After the reporter left, in the middle of another question, he burst out laughing, bending over.

"Oh, man,'' he said.

Mandarin lessons, anyone?

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Five ways our world has been changed around in China:

1. They sell kernels of corn in a plastic cup at McDonald's. McCorn, I believe, is the translation.

2. Hooters -- yes, there's an actual Hooters in Beijing -- has Creole shrimp on the menu. Imagine coming all the way to China and going to Hooters to get a good Creole meal.

3. On my Chinese-bought cell phone, there is a game. It's called, "Coin Flip." Yup, it pictures a Chinese coin going up in the air. Heads or tails. Loser buys the Creole shrimp.

4. Starbucks is called SBR.

5. The escalators, at least in the media center, run in reverse. Up is on the left side. Down is on the right. Which provides some amusing moments as some of us Western-world types, lost in thought, walk toward the escalator and typically bump into two or three poeple coming down the escalator.

It's the modern version of up-the-down staircase.

Next on the to-do list: Learn the Mandarin phrase for, "Excuse me."

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