Tall Sisters and Mighty Brothers -- Get ready for the World Games!

In case you didn't know, this Thursday (July 16th) will see the start of the World Games 2009 in Kaohsiung (高雄), an eleven-day celebration of the world's top non-Olympic sports. In the next two weeks we will see the world's finest athletes take each other on in such events as Korfball, Tchoukball and Fistball (although I'm sad to see Dodgeball has missed out this time.) My own patented sport of Crazy Bowling pioneered on the august lanes of Ximen Ding, in which competitors must adopt a different handicap for each round culminating in the challenging "blindfold" stage in round ten, has been submitted for inclusion in the 2013 games, provided I set up a federation in time.

I'll be writing more on these hugely underrated sports in later posts, as soon as I work out what their rules are.

In this first post however I would like to introduce the individuals without which no international sporting event would be complete -- I refer of course to the official mascots. There are two mascots for the Kaohsiung Games and they are named Gao Mei (高妹) and Syong Ge (雄哥), each one incorporating one of the characters which form the name of the host city. (Don't blame me for the inconsistent romanization -- this is Taiwan.)

Gao Mei is a girl, her name meaning Little Sister Gao, where gao also means tall or superior and Syong Ge is a boy, his name meaning Elder Brother Syong, syong also meaning grand, mighty, possessed of stature. Lest there be any confusion as to which one is which, Gao Mei is pink and Syong Ge is blue. (Don't blame me for the hackneyed gender stereotyping -- this is Taiwan.)

To quote from the official promotional material for the games, the mascots are "in the shape of droplets, water spirits personifying Kaoshiung as a city of the sea and the sun." In appearance they are a cross between the Teletubbies and the Coneheads, each one with a golden ring around the pointy top of their head, and a little ball suspended in the air above the point.

To quote again from the official guidebook,"the spheres above their crested heads absorb solar energy – like the roof of the World Games Stadium – and illuminate both with a message of ecology and environmental protection."

On the other hand, I think they look like they got roped into playing a game of hoop-la (not a World Games event, incidentally) without being told beforehand that they were in fact the targets. But then again, this is possibly why they didn't get me to write the promotional material.