World Badminton Championships Go Largely Unnoticed

The World Badminton Championships are currently under way in Anaheim.

I think it’s safe to say Los Angeles is not a Badminton town. But badminton is very important to Malaysia. It even says so on the Badminton Association of Malaysia’s home page.

Badminton is in fact so important to Malaysia that the national team’s safe landing in Los Angeles for the tournament made headlines.

But worlds collided Monday when a journalist from the Malaysian National News Agency tried to navigate his way around LAX:

The Americans are simply an ignorant lot when it comes to badminton.

From the time I landed at the Los Angeles International Airport in California on Saturday, my attempts to gather information on the World Badminton Championships held at the Arrowhead Ponds in Anaheim, California, from Aug 15-21, were futile.

Since there were no special counters set up at the airport to guide or provide information to the players, officials, fans or the media, I proceeded to the information counter but was told they were not aware of such an event.

“What championships you say” was the immediate question from across the counter.

Worst still, an airport tourist guide, who attends to those in need of specific information, when approached and asked of the World Badminton Championships, looked at me astonishingly and asked whether it was a world baptism meeting.

It’s not that we’re ignorant, it’s just that we don’t care.