Gronya SOMERVILLE

Discussion in 'Professional Players' started by pcll99, May 20, 2012.

  1. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
  2. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
  3. rexelus

    rexelus Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2010
    Messages:
    32
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    canada
  4. demolidor

    demolidor Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2003
    Messages:
    5,507
    Likes Received:
    127
    Location:
    @Hollanti
    And the point of this thread is ... ? :D

    Lots of players who are not a professional but do they need a thread of their own already? Still a junior even iirc ...
     
  5. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
  6. Gingerbeer

    Gingerbeer Regular Member

    Joined:
    May 5, 2006
    Messages:
    194
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Auckland
    She is great grand daughter (曾孙女)of 康有为。
     
  7. kelana

    kelana Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2010
    Messages:
    4,720
    Likes Received:
    205
    Occupation:
    globalresearch.ca
    Location:
    The Sacred Mount Kailash, Ngari
    Badminton beauty - Gronya Somerville

    -
    Badminton beauty Gronya Somerville's famous Chinese heritage


    2013-05-21


    Gronya Somerville, an 18-year-old representing Australia at the 2013 Sudirman Cup world mixed team badminton championship, is turning heads with both her beauty and her famous ancestry. Somerville is the great granddaughter of Kang Youwei 康有为 [SUP](†)[/SUP], a renowned Chinese scholar, calligrapher and political reformer who rose to prominence during the late Qing Dynasty with an ambitious but ill-fated attempt to turn China into a constitutional monarchy at the turn of the 20th century.

    Born in Melbourne in 1995, Somerville first captured the attention of the badminton world when she represented Australia at last year's Uber Cup in Wuhan, the capital of central China's Hubei province, drawing extensive coverage from local media. She is currently ranked No. 82 in the Badminton World Federation Junior Rankings for women's doubles and No. 233 for mixed doubles, and No. 104 in women's doubles and No. 200 in mixed doubles in the overall BWF rankings.

    Somerville's father, Kang's grandson, moved from southern China's Guangdong province to Australia at the age of six. Though her father passed away when she was still young, Somerville's mother made sure she embraced her Chinese heritage and sent her to a Chinese school for a number of years to learn the language. She has an older brother and sister and her idol is reportedly Chinese badminton superstar Lin Dan.

    Though Somerville plans to attend university to study either sports science or biology, she says her goal is to represent Australia at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

    Somerville is also reportedly interested in branching out into the Asian entertainment industry. In November 2011, she struck a deal to become the global spokesperson for the Dream of the Red Chamber character contest, a unisex beauty contest for people who think they would make a good character in the classic Chinese romance novel. [WantChinaTimes]


    [SUP](†)[/SUP] Kang Youwei 康有为 (1858-1927) was a Confucian intellectual, educator and would-be reformer, main leader of the failed reform movement of 1898.


    Gronya Somerville spokesperson of Dream of the Red Chamber -hongloumengshijie.com.jpg
    Gronya Somerville poses as the global spokesperson of the Dream of the Red Chamber character contest (Photo/hongloumengshijie.com)

    Gronya Somerville the great granddaughter of Kang Youwei - AUS.JPG
    Gronya Somerville (Photo/CNS)

    Gronya Somerville (AUS)1 -Sohu Sports.jpg
    Gronya Somerville (Photo/Sohu Sports)

    Gronya Somerville (AUS)2 -Sohu Sports.jpg
    Gronya Somerville (Photo/Sohu Sports)

    Gronya Somerville (AUS)3 -Sohu Sports.jpg
    Gronya Somerville (Photo/Sohu Sports)

    Gronya Somerville & Guan Jacqueline (AUS) -Sohu Sports.jpg
    Gronya Somerville & Guan Jacqueline (Photo/Sohu Sports)

    Gronya Somerville (AUS) -photo CFP.jpg
    Gronya Somerville (Photo/CFP)
     
    #7 kelana, May 27, 2013
    Last edited: May 27, 2013
  8. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 11, 2011
    Messages:
    51,457
    Likes Received:
    4,190
    Location:
    Citizen of The World
    Her famous ancestry first caught my attention when it's reported in the Chinese sports media. Indeed she is such a beauty, wonder if her badminton can match her looks one day, her expressed ambitions aside.
     
  9. K_a_d_e

    K_a_d_e Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2011
    Messages:
    589
    Likes Received:
    42
    Occupation:
    Worker
    Location:
    Indonesia
    waooooo she is Gorgeous and adorable, if she play in XD i think even duo ZZ, Xu/Ma, Owi/Liliyana or Joachim/Christina they can beat because her beauty will make the male opponents bow down and wont dare to smash her :p:p [h=3][/h]
     
  10. bok_like_dat

    bok_like_dat Regular Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2009
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    0
    Occupation:
    Development Manager
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
  11. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    23,817
    Likes Received:
    4,791
    Occupation:
    wannabe badminton phototaker
    Location:
    Outside the box
    Gronya garnered a lot of attention at the recent Sudirman Cup. Even the commentator mentioned the number of media during her match.

    I wonder, does she speak Chinese to the Chinese media?
     
  12. Qidong

    Qidong Regular Member

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2002
    Messages:
    1,766
    Likes Received:
    6
    Occupation:
    Waiting to be out-sourced
    Location:
    San Jose, California
    Based on wikipedia, his father is a Chinese who passed away when she was a kid, and her mom is an Irish. Wonder how her last name is Somerville. If her father passed away so early, I really doubt if she can speak Chinese.
     
  13. Sundis

    Sundis Regular Member

    Joined:
    Apr 22, 2012
    Messages:
    3,914
    Likes Received:
    1,134
    Occupation:
    Watching and playing badminton
    Location:
    at home
    This thread needs more pics!:cool:
     
  14. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
    Taken at the outset of Aussie Open 2015.

    12688622_980x1200_0.jpg

    12688623_980x1200_0.jpg

    12688624_980x1200_0.jpg
     
  15. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
    at Sudirman Cup 2015.

    12604837_1200x1000_292.jpg

    12604839_1200x1000_292.jpg

    12604841_1200x1000_292.jpg

    12604858_1200x1000_292.jpg

    12604884_1200x1000_292.jpg
     
  16. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
    An article about Kang Youwei by Encyclopedia Britannica

    -------

    Kang Youwei, Wade-Giles romanization K’ang Yu-wei, original name Kang Zuyi, courtesy name (zi) Guangxia, literary name (hao) Changsu (born March 19, 1858, Nanhai, Guangdong province, China—died March 21, 1927, Qingdao, Shandong province), Chinese scholar, a leader of the Reform Movement of 1898 and a key figure in the intellectual development of modern China. During the last years of the empire and the early years of the republic he sought to promote Confucianism as an antidote against “moral degeneration” and indiscriminate Westernization.

    Kang Youwei came from a scholarly gentry family in the district of Nanhai in Guangdong province. His teacher imbued him with the Confucian ideal of service to society, and his study of Buddhism impressed him with its spirit of compassion. He rebelled against convention, Neo-Confucian authoritarianism, and the demands of the civil service examination system. After reading about the outside world, he came to admire Western civilization. In the 1880s he began to conceive some of his basic ideas: ideas of historical progress, social equality, a world government, and the nature of the universe.

    Kang’s first venture in social reform was in 1883, when he tried to abolish in his village the custom of foot-binding imposed on women. The decay of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12) prompted Kang and other concerned Chinese to urge fundamental institutional reforms. After his plans for the salvation of China—submitted in 1888 to the Qing court—were ignored, Kang set out to convert the educated class to his views and to arouse the people from their lethargy. In 1890 he opened a school in Guangzhou (Canton) to teach new learning. Assisted by his students, among whom was Liang Qichao, who collaborated in his reform movement, he wrote The Forged Classics (1891), which reveals that the Confucian Classics held sacrosanct as bases of the state cult had been tampered with in the Han period (206 bc–ad 220). This book was followed by Confucius as a Reformer (1897), which expounded Kang’s belief that Confucius was concerned with contemporary problems and stood for change and that the progress of mankind was inevitable. His interpretation of Confucian teachings and researches on ancient texts later inspired modern scholarship in the reappraisal of China’s past, although critics have charged that he invoked Confucius to further his aims and was undermining the established way of life.

    When China was defeated by Japan in 1895, Kang mobilized hundreds of provincial graduates then in Beijing to protest against the humiliating peace terms and to petition for far-reaching reforms to strengthen the empire. To arouse the people to the dangers confronting China, he and his associates published newspapers and founded the Society for the Study of National Strengthening, the archetype of political parties in modern China. The society was suppressed in 1896.

    In 1898, when foreign powers threatened to partition China, Kang and his followers suggested an alliance with Britain and Japan to check Russia’s advance and insisted that only institutional reforms could save China. He urged the clearing of channels for the expression of public opinion, the convocation of assemblies, and even the acceptance of popular sovereignty and the separation of state powers, and he organized the Society to Preserve the Nation to marshal support. Finally, he prevailed upon the Guangxu emperor to launch the reform program. Among the many measures that were promulgated were streamlining the government, strengthening the armed forces, creating new standards in the civil service examination system, developing commerce and industry, promoting local self-government, and opening Peking University and modern schools.

    The reform measures were annulled, however, when the dowager empress Cixi reasserted control. The emperor was placed in confinement, six of the reform leaders, including Kang’s brother, were executed, and scores were arrested. Kang and Liang Qichao escaped to Japan. Unable to persuade the Japanese and British governments to intervene for the emperor, Kang went to Canada and founded the China Reform Association (Zhongguo Weixinhui; popularly known as the Save the Emperor Association and in 1907 renamed the Constitutional Party) to carry on his plans.

    After the failure of the revolts instigated by the reformers in 1900 in Anhui and Hubei provinces to restore the emperor, Kang resumed his writing in exile. His most significant work completed at this time was The Great Commonwealth (Datongshu), in which he envisaged a utopian world attainable through successive stages of human development, a world where the barriers of race, religion, state, class, gender, and family would be removed and where there would be an egalitarian, communal society under a universal government.

    Kang emerged from his retreat in 1903. To help the overseas Chinese and to unite them in a common effort, he and his colleagues founded an international business firm and established schools and newspapers. These activities, conducted in the United States, Mexico, Japan, and Southeast Asia, brought them into sharp competition with the Chinese revolutionists.

    During his exile, Kang traveled extensively. His stay in Europe and his study of Western history moved him to shun the violence and destructiveness of revolution as means of political change, and he proposed as an alternative course the promotion of science, technology, and industry to rebuild China.

    After his return in 1913 to a weak and troubled China, he was soon involved in the campaign to thwart the monarchical scheme of the Chinese statesman Yuan Shikai. In 1917, in line with his idea of a constitutional monarchy to bridge the transition to a truly democratic republic, he participated in the abortive restoration of the Qing ruler. In the years that followed, animated by the fear of a divided country, he opposed the South China government of the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925). He called for the preservation of the best of China’s heritage and the establishment of a reformed Confucian church to provide the people with spiritual guidance. Partisan writers have criticized him for holding to these views. In his later years, he renewed his philosophic reflections, completing his last book, The Heavens, in which he blended astronomy with his own metaphysical musing, a year before his death at Qingdao in 1927.

    Besides prolific writings on the Chinese Classics, politics, and economics, Kang also left travel accounts and an anthology of his poems; he was also a famous calligrapher.

    http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/311026/Kang-Youwei
     
    #16 pcll99, Jun 4, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2015
  17. s_mair

    s_mair Regular Member

    Joined:
    Oct 10, 2013
    Messages:
    5,365
    Likes Received:
    4,151
    Location:
    Germany
    @visor
    I found something for you - you're welcome! :)


    Is she even playing badminton anymore?
     
    visor likes this.
  18. Rob3rt

    Rob3rt Regular Member

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2012
    Messages:
    7,162
    Likes Received:
    1,392
    Location:
    Germany
    And then there's me talking about LN's bad marketing yesterday... I might have to take that back... ;)
     
    visor, s_mair and Cheung like this.
  19. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

    Joined:
    Nov 19, 2009
    Messages:
    8,732
    Likes Received:
    630
    Occupation:
    Cylon
    Location:
    N/A
    would Malaysian TV air that commercial on TV?
     
  20. Rob3rt

    Rob3rt Regular Member

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2012
    Messages:
    7,162
    Likes Received:
    1,392
    Location:
    Germany
    How should he know? He's not from Malaysia... :p
     

Share This Page