PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Tina Yen

Full name: Tina Yen
Chinese name: 颜婷娜 (Yan Tingna, meaning Graceful Color)
Nicknames: Pnut (current), T-Bone

Birthday: Feb. 21, 1986
Gender: Unknown
Hometown: Richardson, Texas, U.S.A.

Siblings: Complicated
Parents: Both
Offspring: At least one (pictured)
College: Wellesey '08 (Ultimate: Whiptails)
Major: Urban studies and political science

Most recent arrival in China: Late August '08
Reason: Fulbright in urban/architectural history

China Ultimate teams: Beijing Bang, Hang Time

Start in Frisbee: senior year of high school

Websites: Several, but she won't tell you. But she says if you find it on Google you can post a link to the Beijing Ultimate Google Groups.

Hobbies: Cooking, sketching, sleeping, sitting around thinking about life, dancing around in her room by herself, dressing up (evidence below)


Tina, on the half-week-eve of her 23rd birthday, has a reputation she'd like to renounce. She would like you to know, for the record, once and for all and all that jazz...

"I don't have any reputations."

Let the silence incubate.

When politely asked if she was sure about that, Ms. Yen made a turn for the indignant. "I don't know, do I? Would you like to enlighten me on what my reputations might be?"

It's a question her many victims would gladly answer.

Exhibit A: Andrew Shen, a demure, reasoned man without an enemy and hardly a hate in the world:

"It was shocking at first, maybe just because of the sheer surprise. Upon reflection she was very kind and landed a very solid and clean hit, going for the cheek and not the nose or the upper portion of my head. It was also incredibly well timed, perfectly using the momentum of my head rotating to benefit the force of her fist swinging. She proved to me that she is obviously well-trained in this aspect of life."

Exhibit B: Andy Young, athlete and scholar, non-threatening and unobtrusive:

"It was like a gentle breeze when it's already -18 degrees Centigrade outside: not something you'd ever want, but really the least of your worries. Having seen the devastation she has wrecked before, I expected more, but then again, she was still on her first beer. I pass the following judgment: weak sauce."

Exhibit C: Kevin Reitz, the image of the perfect gentleman:

"Not being hit by Tina Yen is fantastic and raises your life expectancy considerably. I cannot recommend it highly enough."

To these many testimonials, Tina could only shake her head and say, "I don't see how this is relevant."

When asked, point-blank, why she punches people, Tina opened up slightly: "I punch people that I don't think I can trust. Is there a need for a reason? Maybe I'm just belligerent. I don't know. Maybe I'm just violent at heart."

You don't know your own heart?

"I think I do."

In actuality, Tina has a kind, caring heart, full of empathy and child-like wonder and sweet -- sometimes bitterly so -- memories of her many friends scattered across the world. It is also a closed place, filled with secrets. Not shameful, mind you, but "just some things that should be kept in the private sphere." She claims to be a cautious-minded person, but if you believe that, perhaps you haven't seen her trying to slide in new-fallen snow in her leather brown shoes, giggling all the way.

It may not seem so, but she's the introspective sort, an introvert who disguises her shyness under a love for dance and fascination with worldly things. About China, she says, "There're a lot of things that I like to see happen differently in China, but at the same time I have this inner conversation in my head, Oh, am I coming from a Western perspective? I can't impose upon China, I don't want to be a modern imperialist and say things must be done a certain way."

She relates the story of an old man in a hutong she met two years ago in her first trip to Beijing. She was with her study-abroad group touring Beijing's ancient alleyways when he pulled her and her friends inside. He sat them down, offered them drinks, and began talking about how difficult life was for him and his daughter, who he could not afford to send to school. He asked for help. He asked, specifically, for money. Tina, heartbroken but penniless, did not know what to do. That experience shaped her thinking and paved the way for her return last summer.

If you need any more proof of her kindheartedness, here are some pictures of animals she's posted on Facebook:






In other words, if you find a stray animal, give it to Tina to raise. It also means we are now accepting donations for the "Buy Tina a Rabies Vaccine Shot" fund.

A CONVERSATION:

Beijing Ultimate: How honored do you feel to be the first female to be featured as the Player of the Week?
Tina Yen: I don't believe I'm the first.

BU: A true skeptic.
Tina: Yes.

BU: So do you feel you can know nothing beyond what you perceive?
Tina: No, I believe in faith.

BU: Why?
Tina: Those are matters of the heart.

BU: What does your heart tell you about faith?
Tina: I believe that some things are unknowable, and if you want to believe in that thing, it requires faith.

BU: So the question becomes, Why do you choose to believe in unknowable things? Isn't it more convenient to accept that they're not there?
Tina: It could be more convenient, but life isn't always convenient.

BU: What do you mean?
Tina: I think sometimes it's easier to believe in something even though you can't perceive it.

BU: Do you mean easier or more convenient?
Tina: I think if it was easier to believe in something, there wouldn't be as many true skeptics. In our time it's easier to doubt than to believe.

BU: Are you a skeptic or are you a believer?
Tina: Depends on what we're talking about here.

BU: I deal in absolutes.
Tina: Do you believe in absolutes?
BU: The question is posed to you.
Tina: I belive in absolutes.

BU: So are you a skeptic or are you a believer?
Tina: If you want to boil it down to a single thing, yes, you can call me a beliver. I like to believe that people like you are still good people, and that perhaps I can trust people like you at some point in time.

BU: Whoa, hey, why are you bringing me into this?
Tina: Because you're sitting in front of me.

BU: I don't believe I am.
Tina: I'm about to throw your flash drive into your beer.

POSTSCRIPT: Guess Tina's age in the following picture and win a prize!

POSTSCRIPT 2: A poem:

For such a one with an
Unpretentious smile,
Could we not say, with all the colors in the
Kaleidescope of the heart,
That in this most brutish, most awful
Reality we might find
Understanding,
Communion, sweet
Karma?