Opinion | Kobe Bryant’s death is China’s loss as kindred spirit is mourned in ‘second home’
- The shocking death of the NBA icon will be felt heavily in China, a place he has referred to as his ‘second home’
- LA Lakers star first visited China in 1998 and he has been mobbed ever since but legacy includes giving back through his charity
The shocking and tragic deaths of basketball icon Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others in a helicopter crash had a profound impact globally. However, the depth of the tragedy is almost eclipsed by the irony. Less than 16 hours earlier in Philadelphia, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James – playing for the very same team that Bryant led to five NBA titles and in the same city where he rose to stardom as a high school wunderkind – passed Kobe to take over the number-three spot on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.
Even James was overcome by the irony. “The story is just too much,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense. Now I’m here in a Lakers uniform in Philadelphia where he’s from, where the first time I ever met him. It’s surreal.” Bryant would send out a congratulatory tweet to James and in an even more surreal development, 12 hours later he was gone.
Although he retired in 2016, Bryant’s profound legacy is still very fresh and nowhere more so than in China, where he has long been the country’s most popular foreign athlete. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the rapturous reception for Bryant was unprecedented and even prompted his US teammate James, arguably the most well-known professional athlete in the world, to claim: “I thought I was famous, until I got here with Kobe.”
The roots of Kobemania on the mainland have been deeply planted since his first trip to China in 1998. “I have been coming back here almost every year since,” Bryant said on a visit to China in October. “It's always fun to come back. It almost feels like a second home now.”
Born in Philadelphia, Bryant moved to Italy when he was six and quickly became immersed in the new culture. “Growing up overseas, you grew up with the understanding of adapting and being curious of other cultures, their history, philosophy and food,” he said.
“When I first came to China, I was open and not apprehensive. I was excited to learn because that is always how I had grown up. So I think having that openness and curiosity about Chinese culture endeared me to them in some respects.”
