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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today:
We play some music from a rap singer named Nelly …
Answer a question about the mysterious Bermuda Triangle …
And tell about a young professional basketball player from China.
Yao Ming
HOST:
If you were seven-feet-six-inches tall – that istwo-point-two-nine meters — what would you do for living? If youcan play basketball, and you are from China, and your name is YaoMing, you might become the newest sports star in the NationalBasketball Association. Steve Ember has more.
ANNCR:
Yao Ming is still working on his English skills. He usually hasto speak to reporters and fans with the help of a translator. But heneeds no help on the basketball court. In November, he scored twentypoints in twenty-three minutes against the Los Angeles Lakers team.
Last year, the Houston Rockets professional basketball team choseYao Ming as the number one new player. The owner of the Rockets teamsaid choosing Yao would be the biggest sports story of all time. Thetwenty-two-year-old Chinese man has become very popular withAmerican basketball fans. He has become well known for his hard workand his efforts to improve.
It has not been easy. Yao Ming is learning to play professionalbasketball, speak a new language and live in a new country. Yao sayshe has just really started to learn.
Yao Ming did not come to the United States by himself. His mothercame with him. She cooks the foods he likes best — pork chops andchicken soup. Yao says this helps, but he still misses his home inChina.
Sports reporters and basketball fans ask him a lot of questions.He is quick to answer some of these. He likes American coffee verymuch. But he does not like the huge amount of vehicle traffic in thecity where he lives, Houston, Texas.
Yao Ming’s success has expanded international interest inAmerican basketball. For example, eleven Chinese television andradio stations broadcast the game played January seventeenth betweenthe Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers. More thanfive-hundred-million people in China enjoyed the game. Yao Ming andthe Rockets won that game. Yao Ming scored ten points, had tenrebounds and blocked six of the Lakers’ shots.
Sports experts say Yao Ming will likely be chosen the best newbasketball player of the year. Bermuda Triange
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from India. GuesstarLangstang asks about a mysterious area called the Bermuda Triangle.
The Bermuda Triangle is alsocalled Devil’s Triangle. It is an imaginary area in the AtlanticOcean. It extends more than one-million square kilometers betweenthe island of Bermuda, the coast of southern Florida and the islandof Puerto Rico. Drawing an imaginary line to link these three placescreates the three sides of a triangle.
The mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle is that the areaseems to be extremely dangerous to airplanes and ships. Some peoplebelieve that at least fifty ships and twenty planes have disappearedthere during the past one-hundred years.
The earliest recorded disappearance of an American ship in thearea took place in nineteen-eighteen. But the incident that firstsuggested the danger of the Bermuda Triangle was the disappearanceof five American Navy planes in nineteen-forty-five.
The planes carried fourteen crewmen on a normal training flight.They never returned. A plane sent to search for them alsodisappeared. No wreckage was ever found.
Newspaper reporters and other writers called the planes the LostPatrol. They began trying to explain the tragic events. Some of theexplanations were strange. One writer said there were powerfulforces under the water. These forces interfered with communicationdevices and caused planes to crash and ships to sink. Another writersaid creatures from outer space guarded the area. These creaturespulled the planes and ships to another planet.
Larry Kusche has written books about the Lost Patrol and theBermuda Triangle. He says the explanation is much simpler. He saysthe American Navy planes disappeared in nineteen-forty-five forseveral reasons. The lead pilot was lost. He was flying in badweather. And he was low on fuel.
Other critics also say the Bermuda Triangle stories are false.They say most of the events that took place in the area can beexplained scientifically. And they say most of the accidents linkedto the Bermuda Triangle did not happen there. Critics say only aboutfive real accidents happened within the triangle’s borders. TheUnited States Coast Guard agrees. It says the stories about theBermuda Triangle are mostly science fiction and should not be takenseriously.
Nelly
HOST:
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences will presentits yearly Grammy Music Awards on February twenty-third. Onemusician nominated for several awards is a young man called Nelly.Marry Tillitson tells us more.
VOICE ONE:
Nelly’s real name is Cornell Haynes, Junior. He was born innineteen-seventy-eight. He grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri. Duringhigh school, he and his friends formed a rap music group called theSaint Lunatics. The group was popular in the local area. But itcould not find a record company to produce an album. So the groupmembers decided Nelly would have a better chance at success if hesang alone.
His first album was “CountryGrammar.” It was released in two-thousand. It was nominated for fourGrammy awards. This song helped make the album a huge seller. It iscalled “Ride With Me.”
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Nelly says the name of his latest record describes what heconsiders to be a perfect world. The songs are about having fun,playing music and being with friends. The first song describes acity where everyone is rich and happy. The name of the city, songand album is “Nellyville.”
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“Nellyville” is nominated for two Grammy awards — album of theyear and best rap music album. The most popular song on the recordis also nominated for best rap performance by a male artist. Weleave you now with that song, “Hot in Herre.”
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson, I hope you enjoyed our program today. And Ihope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
This AMERICAN MOSAIC program was written by Jill Moss, NancySteinbach and Paul Thompson. Our studio engineer was Max Carroll.And our producer was Paul Thompson.