For my final event where else could I go? The end of the Games are closing in and reality threatens to come rushing back all at once as soon as the lights go down on the Closing Ceremony tomorrow. Like during my final nights in Boston, I wanted my last memories of these unbelievable Olympics to be of watching my favorite game. As a bonus, I’d be able to cheer on my home team as they fought for the Bronze Medal against Japan. (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this day with lots of additional details.)

I went to this show on my own and while it was another hot day, it was nowhere near as bad as the Korea/Cuba game which, incidentally, would repeat later that evening- the two teams would face off in a rematch for the Gold Medal. If you count that earlier game, I can claim to have seen the 4 best teams all play each other during this tournament. It is also the last time that Baseball will be a medal sport during the Olympics, so I was watching what might be the 2^nd-to-last ever game to be played with anything at stake.

Unless the 2016 Games get awarded to Japan, that is.

The seats were -what else?- fantastic: 4^th row, right behind First Base. The catch? I was in amongst the Japanese fans that I had marveled at from afar during my first game almost 2 weeks ago. On that near-perfect night I had actually commented to my friend Kerry that I was happy that we had not been seated next to the crazies with the whistles and the non-stop chanting.

Well, this time around the Baseball gods weren’t quite so accommodating.

As I had been discovering at my first two games, the baseball-watching culture in Asia is completely different than it is in the US. Our game evolved during the end of the Industrial Revolution when things moved much more slowly. There was no TV, no radio. All forms of entertainment/distraction were live. It helped to entertain immigrants who lacked language skills while they assimilated into new urban centers. We cheer wildly, but we can also sit relatively quietly for long stretches as we contemplate the game and watch it unfold. Friends go to games together for chat-fests (which I usually abhor- just ask Keith, Bry or A-Bomb; they’ll tell you).

No so in Asia.

I’m not familiar with it’s evolution in Taiwan or Korea, but in Japan it came over with students in the 1870s and the locals simply ate it up. Games are like carnivals and the cheering just goes on and on. Somehow that staid, deliberate watching style didn’t follow from the US… Something good happens for your guys? Get up and cheer! Something bad happens? Get up and cheer! A new pitcher comes into the game? Get up and cheer! (Incidentally, watch Dice-K whenever he is taken out of a game mid-inning. He will not leave the mound -abandon his post- until he is relieved by his teammate. I really like that idea.)

Its a shame that these baseball fields in Beijing are temporary structures. I really believe that given the Asian sports-viewing culture, and my -admittedly limited- success in showcasing the game to local Chinese, Baseball could take root here if given half a chance. Maybe there’s something that I can do about that in the future…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back in reality, I was surrounded. I had a squad of Americans to my left -2 were from Boston and all were Sox fans- and occasional Old Glory-waivers were scattered here and there, but this was definitely a Japanese crowd. And those whistle blowers/drum-bangers were out in force. What I didn’t learn last time, but discovered to my shock this time around, is that these guys were professional cheerleaders… And not the scantily-clad wastes of time that run around on the field during basketball and volleyball games. These were the good kind.

They were almost all men who gutted it out in the oppressive heat in dark shirts and had Organizing Committee-sanctioned badges. They would scream the chant that they wanted the fans to yell, point to the crowd and expect to be followed immediately. Someone would blow a whistle to keep time (which we Americans learned later was very useful as one of our counter-cheers fell apart when we couldn’t keep it together).

They would rotate to different positions so that nobody was screaming in the lead for more than 2 innings. They even had a “Stop Cheering” signal so that their chants would not mess up the concentration of one of their players. Almost everybody obeyed them.

Damn.

Even when the US took a commanding lead late in the game we Americans didn’t get much opportunity to get into it. When we were able to start up a chant, the Japanese would start one up almost immediately to drown us out. It was like a fracking point of honor for them. Our only hope was when we tried to enlist the Chinese that were in the stands. Start up a “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chant and its you against the world. Belt it out in Chinese and the locals go crazy: “Mei Gua! Jai Yo!” (Loosely translated, this means “Let’s Go, America!”) The Chinese aren’t too fond of the Japanese, so if you invite them to cheer for their opponent, you get plenty of takers.

Since I don’t know much Japanese I wasn’t even able to taunt very effectively. When there was a 1-2-3 inning, I jumped up and screamed; “Yi! Er! San!” (”1-2-3″ in Chinese). The locals loved that. When there was a spectacular double-play that killed a potential rally in the 5^th inning, I shouted “Sayonara!”

Hey, its no “Yankees Suck!” but I can only do so much.

One more note about the Japanese fans. This maniac in the getup with the bullhorn who was sitting directly behind me was actually the team’s doctor. He would yell at the players loudly in a deep, Samurai Warrior-sounding way. We had no idea what he was saying. It could have been, “Hey, watch that head-first slide, Yoshi! You don’t want to aggravate your oblique injury!” Whatever it was, it sounded incredibly cool.

He was quite the jovial guy, always laughing and getting the Japanese around him to laugh at his cheers. Fans kept shaking his hand and bowing to him. We took some pictures together after the game and ended up exchanging gifts. (A very cool tradition, if I do say so myself.) I gave him my American flag and he gave me his Team Japan baseball hat. It was a touching gesture and he made me promise to wear it the next time that I am at Fenway in honor of Daisuke Matsusaka.

I’m happy that the USA won and took the Bronze, though its hard to get too excited over 3^rd place. As I’ve said before, nothing can match the passion of Red Sox fandom for me, but if these Japanese fans were at very game, I’d be able to sit through a baseball contest between almost any 2 teams and have a great time.

What a great way to end my Games.

It was easy to get caught up in all of the hoopla surrounding the Olympics over here. Hell, it would have been harder not to… It was so easy, in fact, that I just about missed out on my favorite summer sports event: The Little League World Series. The series ended a few days back and the kids from Hawaii won the day. (Foreshadowing of another Hawaiian’s good chances in November, perhaps?)

What’s so wonderful about this event is that while the boys (and occasional girl) from around America get the lion’s share of media attention in the US, there are also other teams from all around the world who come to Williamsport, PA to play their guts out and make new friends.

And with children, it is especially easy to break down barriers via sports, because they don’t give a shit about politics at all.

This all came rushing to my mind when I took a look at the Boston Globe today and saw a wonderful piece about a mixed squad of Little Leaguers who went down to Cuba earlier this month to help local kids there start up a baseball league and to spread some goodwill. Check it out; it’s the kind of thing that this world needs more of.

As I have mentioned consistently either in my entries here or in my linked photo albums (you do take the time to check those out, right? I work hard on ‘em!) I have been stupendously/insanely/miraculously lucky with my seating at each Olympic event that I have attended.

Boxing? 20 rows off of the floor. Baseball? Row 2 & 3 all in the infield. Ping Pong? Row 3, right behind the players and the table. Track & Field? Row 10, right at the first turn of the track, directly across form the Pole Vault and right behind the vaulters’ coaches. My first basketball game? Row 20 at mid court. Sure, my soccer seats were in the upper deck, but I wasn’t there for the soccer, I never planned to see a soccer game and I had no hand in getting them, so I don’t really count that. Besides, just getting those tickets (and the new friends that came with them) was enough luck all by itself. (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this night with lots of additional details.)

So how did I do for the Women’s basketball semi-finals?

Last row.

Considering how unbelievably smoothly everything has gone for me during these first 2 weeks of living in Beijing, and the fact that when I arrived I had no tickets, no potential sources for tickets and no plans to see any events during these Olympics, I am really not about to complain about these seats. Besides, this venue -like all others except for the baseball stadiums- is world class and constructed magnificently. The steep rows make for impeccable sightlines and I really had no trouble following the action.

The only consequence of sitting that high up is that the heat from the crowd rises and the air conditioners could never quite cool the upper reaches below the “I’m consistently sweating a little” stage.

Whatever. These were great games.

The crowd was overwhelmingly Russian and I was a little disappointed that the Americans who were in town didn’t swing by to support their team in greater numbers for the night’s first game between the two countries. This was not pool play, where you know weeks in advance whom will be playing whom. You can’t have predicted before you got here who would be appearing in the semifinals. This leaves two possibilities: 1) Thousands of Russian basketball fans rolled the dice back when tickets first went on sale and picked the semi-finals as the place to have their biggest showing, or 2) They went out and scooped up the tickets on the streets because they support the heck out of their team.

The disappointed feeling did not last long because I realized that we are in a communist country and Russia is a neighbor. C’est la vie.

The result of the this overwhelming Russian turnout, however, was a hostile crowd. The Russians are passionate fans (their “RUS-SI-A” cheer is quite distinctive) and even if the Chinese didn’t like them already, their sheer numbers and loud chanting would have swept them up anyway. So every time the Russians had the ball cheers would spring up all around the arena. Whenever the US touched the ball lusty “BOOOO” chants would start up. It was as if the crowd were willing the Russian women to pull of an upset.

It worked.

The first quarter was all Russia and at the end of the half they were actually ahead. It looked like the American squad was off-balance. The hostility of the crowd was clearly having an effect.

I just could not help feeling like I was in the middle of Rocky IV. I know that part of this was my Cold War upbringing, and part of it was most definitely the Chinese’s choice of the Rocky Suite for pre-game “pump the crowd up” music,  but with the huge international setting and the hordes of loud, almost-angry Russians (there was a definite edge to them; defensive about Georgia, perhaps?), I half expected to see Paulie walking behind the bench, rubbing the shoulders of each player, whispering words of encouragement: “Hit the one in the middle!”

 

When the two teams took the court for the second half the Americans seemed to have regained their composure. They came out shooting and began to pull ahead. The Russians kept it close for a time, and while there was no “the Russian is cut!” moment, by the middle of the 4^th quarter it was over.

Seriously, I don’t know how players do it. How can you concentrate with tens of thousands of people yelling at you and wanting you to fail? I’ve seen it so many times during my years at Fenway. The crowd can come alive and lift up the Sox, and they can help to sink the visiting team. (Watch Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. Tell me that the crowd didn’t WILL Dave Roberts to make that steal or get under Bill Mueller’s legs as he fought off that inside pitch and forced it into center field.) If it was me out there with thousands of people jeering me, I’d probably curl up into the fetal position and start moaning softly. No three-point jumpers for me.

The Russians cleared out for the second game, but the energy didn’t die down at all. In fact, it got turned up. Enter the hometown favorites; it was China vs. Australia time!

From the first strings of the Chinese national anthem they went at it. Every touch of the ball, every steal, every made basket was accompanied by absolutely thunderous applause.

It was a shame when the Aussies pulled ahead towards the end of the second quarter. Within the first few minutes of the 3^rd the game was out of reach and it was all over but the crying. I kind of had my heart set on attending a USA/China final, but it was not to be. Its probably a good thing, too, because that would have been the hottest ticket in town and would have probably set me back at least a month’s rent.

That is, unless I took the nosebleeds again.

I’ve not only been lucky in my seating at events, but at most of them I’ve had a US team/player to root for. This makes things very easy: I’m from the USA. The team/player is also from the USA. Therefore I owe them my allegiance.

Simple, right?

Well, when I am at an event with no Americans involved (like 90% of the boxing matches that I saw back on Day 4), or when I am watching a compelling game on TV with no US involvement, what do I do? How do I rank countries on my “To Cheer For” list? Well, here is my formula…

1A) Canada: They are our cool neighbors. That, and I love Montreal; its my second-favorite city on Earth after Boston.

1B) Australia: They trump everybody but the US and Canada because they have THE BEST cheer: “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!”

1C) Puerto Rico: They’re almost a state.

2) NATO Countries: England before France, but anything after that depends on what I had to drink the night before, what I had for breakfast and/or if there are any hot girls around me from a country in question.

3) The Asia Two-Step: Japan rules the roost in this region. (The Sox have Dice-K & Oki-Dokie, plus Ichiro is on my Fantasy Team. That’s plenty enough reason for me.) After that comes Taiwan (I always love their Little League team and I respect a nation that lives only at the sufferance of Big Brother China), then South Korea. After that is India, then the archipelago states (Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.) and tiny island nations (Guam, Papa New Guinea, etc.) in no particular order (see rooting conditions listed under “NATO Countries”).

4) Former Warsaw Pact Countries: Poland, Hungary, Romania, et al. Hey, you gotta love countries that have thrown off the shackles of despotism!

5) Former Soviet Republics: Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine & the “‘stans” of the world… except for the crazy-dictator ones.

6) ANY democracy over a communist/totalitarian/religious state. This means Korea over Cuba, South Africa over U.A.E. or Brazil over Libya.

Needless to say, I’ve been politely sitting on my hands whenever I see China play.

I’d like to tell you all that during my second trip to the main field at Wukesong to see Baseball that I learned something interesting about the Chinese or Chinese culture. Since this game would pit the Cuban powerhouse against the scrappy Koreans, maybe I would run into some folks from either of those countries and gain some enlightenment about their cultures.

Not so.

The biggest lessons that I learned from this game were twofold: 1) Take an open-minded person to their first baseball game, explain things in a clear, concise manner and more often than not you will convert said person into a fan of the game. It worked last time with Kerry, and from all accounts, I was successful with Rachel this time around… 2) Its really fucking hot in Beijing in the summer.

It was another Blue Sky day for the Chinese. That is, air pollution levels were low and the bright blue sky was very summery. Lord, how I wish that it hadn’t been! All throughout this day I found myself wishing that some huge cloud of smog would position itself over the field and stop the sun from beating down on the backs of our heads. It was simply brutal: With an air temperature hovering around 95 degrees, the sweltering sun and humidity made it feel like at least 110. (NOTE: Click on any of the pictures beow to jump to my complete photo album from this day with lots of additional details.)

YIKES! And me & Rachel without any sun block! At least the seats were awesome, as always: 3^rd row, right next to First Base.

I had been told that the Koreans had a passion for baseball that rivaled the insane display that I had seen at the Taiwan vs. Japan game. While this may be true, it was impossible to verify this during this weather. I don’t care how passionate you are…

You’re gonna get worn down by the heat…

Until everybody’s wearing their crazy scarves on their heads and melting away slowly.

It was a great game, though. I met some cool Koreans, though with the energy levels down significantly by the end of the game, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for picture taking. Not many people stopped me looking for photos.

I did, however, snag this photo of the high point of the day- New baseball convert Rachel ready to snag a foul ball should one come our way.

After the game, we retreated into an air-conditioned cab and Rachel took me to a great little dumpling place on a side street close to her neighborhood. 8 dishes were ordered, with 3 drinks between us. All of the food was awesome and, despite our best efforts, we were unable to finish it all. Total cost? $14 USD. Amazing.

I’ll definitely be going back there… And I’ll definitely be back for more baseball. At least one more time.

This has been my only less-than-stellar experience at the Olympics so far. I had a good time, but the biggest thing that I learned from this night is that I don’t like watching Beach Volleyball live. It’s a shame, because the matches -between Brazil & Austria and Brazil & the USA- were great and my seats, once again, were fantastic! (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this night with lots of additional details.)

The event is run like a dance party, except that there’s no dance floor and you are sitting in a seat. There are 2 DJs/emcees who play music in between EVERY point and constantly yell at the crowd to get them to start chanting or yelling back, both in English and Chinese. You know what? I don’t like rah-rah guys telling me when to cheer. I kept wishing that they would quit it with the 15-second music clips between every serve. Let the game play on and I’ll damn well cheer when there’s something to cheer about.

Except for the fans of the players (i.e. their fellow countrymen & women) the crowd energy is artificial, and it felt that way. I have little doubt that the Chinese probably had no problem with people telling them when to cheer, when to do the waive and when to acknowledge who they were supporting. This whole spectator sport is a new thing for them and they have been absolutely eating it up. I’m sure that it sounded great on TV, but it just didn’t sit well with me.

And then there are those damn “Beach Girls.”

Everybody knows that they are the hottest cheerleaders at the Games. Strike up a conversation at any event around town, and if somebody has been to Beach Volleyball, they will mention the dancing girls. Even if every event at the Games wasn’t sold out, every session of Beach Volleyball would be.

Look, I like hot chicks writhing in (very) skimpy bikinis as much as the next guy, but when that music comes on before EVERY serve, they are dancing in their positions just off of the court.

During EVERY timeout (TV, set break, player-called or otherwise) they run out onto the playing area and start jiggling about.

Sometimes one of those creepy Mascots would join them.

When it comes to Cheerleaders at sporting events, I’m with Red Auerbach. Not only are they slightly demeaning -their sole purpose is to titillate the males in the audience- but they distract from the game. He was vehemently against them and because of him, the Boston Celtics were the LAST team in the NBA to adopt a dancing team. Frankly, I wish that they still didn’t have one, but c’est la vie.

While all of this was going on, I was sitting in front of what I can only describe as 2 stereotypically Mean Girls and their boy toy. All were obnoxiously American, and not in a funny, charming way like myself.

Girl #1 (I’ll call her “Queen Bee”) made some remarks about how lame the Chinese crowd was. She thought that it was stupid that they had to be led in cheering by the emcees. Girl #2 (I’ll call her “Wannabe”) agreed vehemently with Queen Bee and they proceeded to laugh loudly at all around them for going along with the induced chants.

Then, each time that the cheerleaders came out onto the sand, she would point out the one that she thought was the best looking. “That’s the hottest one, right there,” she said, pointing. She was loud and seemed to be talking to everybody and nobody. Guy #1 (I’ll call him “Hanger-On”) asked her to specify: “Which one?”

“That one! The one with the best ass.” Wanna-Be squealed with delight at that. Queen Bee then went on to talk about how some of the Beach Girls had attended a reception at the US Embassy and many of the staffers and diplomats all voted on which of the girls was “Most Fuckable.” The girl that she was pointing to had won this austere contest and she went on to describe the attributes that, um, put her over the top.

My friend Alex  was with me for this evening out and he speaks English. A couple of knowing glances and a brief mention of it after the matches were over let me know that he understood everything that they were saying. I mean, its not like they were trying to be subtle; they didn’t seem to care who overheard them. At one point, Queen Bee asked me when I had arrived in Beijing. When I said that I was brand new to the city she asked if I was attached to the US Embassy. When I said that I wasn’t she ended her attempts to make conversation.

Were they all trust find babies whose parents set them up with cushy, high-value State Department positions once they were done with college? Were they children of diplomats? I’ll never know, and I never want to. These are the expats who I’ve heard Chinese people grumble about and with whom I want nothing to do with. They’re spoiled brats, the ones who take full advantage of the so-called “White Privilege” that is afforded to Westerners because they are seen as important, rich, or as honored guests in the country… Frankly, I take that “honored guest” status pretty seriously and it pisses me off that jerk-offs like this don’t.

Maybe I was just in a foul mood. Maybe it was the clammy weather and brief rain shower that was just enough to dampen everything and make all of the seats wet and uncomfortable. Maybe it was the fact that my taxi driver had dropped me at the wrong entrance of the park that the venue was held in and I had to walk 25 minutes to get to the arena. (BTW: What the hell is an Olympic venue doing smack in the middle of a huge public park with no metro access within 3 miles?) Maybe it was the shit-heads behind me. Maybe I was just pissy from a lack of food & sleep.

Whatever the reason, I had a nagging feeling in my gut as we walked out of there that it all could have gone so much better… I swear that I had a good time, though. Really.

There are complaints in the international press about these games aplenty. Commentators don’t like that some of the fireworks during the opening ceremonies were digitally enhanced for TV. Others are upset that Beijing took so many steps to beautify their city and that they have merely “covered up” the true colors here for the throngs of visitors. To  these I say, “Bah!” Any good host will put their best face forward when they have guests over. (Isn’t London pretty much bulldozing a blighted section of their city to “revitalize” it in time for their games in 2012?) This goes doubly for the Chinese, so none of that bothers me. There *are* free speech and political concerns, which are much less benign and that I agree with, but I’m not getting into those here.

What really eats away at my gut whenever I attend an event is the large number of empty seats. Rick Riley over at ESPN wrote a column where he decided to pretty much bash the Chinese for everything that they have done to make the Olympics look and feel fun. I understand his points, disagree with many, agree with a few and take real issue with one:

“Filling the Seats with mobs of ‘volunteer fans’ to make venues look full when they weren’t.”

This is just plain stupid and goes to show that Mr. Riley is just out to raise some Cain. He clearly doesn’t understand what’s happening in these venues. I have been to many games and, yes, there are busloads of Chinese (many kids/students) who are brought into the arenas. I think that this is an amazing idea, and if a US city ever hosts an Olympics again, part of their package should be to guarantee that local schoolchildren will get seats at every single event. Why shouldn’t local kids be brought in for free!?

Furthermore, when you get tickets to an event, you sometimes get access to multiple games/events. For instance, if you buy tickets to see basketball (as I have twice now), you get in for 2 games. Let’s say that you are Chinese and you want to see China’s women’s team obliterate the Czech. You go and you scream your lungs out. But then the game ends. It’s 10:00pm and you have to work in the morning. Why stick around to watch the USA win by an inevitably huge margin over the hapless Kiwis of New Zealand? Would a Yankee fan stick around for the nightcap of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium if it was the Mets playing the Padres?

Even leaving the multiple-games issue aide, its not like these events aren’t sold out, or that Chinese aren’t interested in going. The problem here in Beijing -and why you see so many empty seats on TV- is the utter failure to handle ticket distribution. Frankly, its an embarrassment for the organizing committee.

There were 4 rounds of ticket sales here in China and everything sold out. What people don’t realize is that each participating country also gets an allotment of tickets to each event that they are participating in. So while China gets the lion’s share of seats at each session, there are sizable chunks reserved for US citizens only, as well as Canadians, British, Aussies, etc. I can tell you from direct experience that these tickets, while available, are only sporadically so, and they are selling out.

No, the chunks of empty seats that Riley is noticing are the corporate, Olympic and government seats.

Case in point. Check out the upper level sections vs. the lower level sections at the basketball arena last week:

I worked at Fenway for 9 years and my job back in the US had me dealing with ticket brokers a lot, so I know how this works. Companies like Coke, Lonovo and others get guaranteed seating at every event because they have ponied up millions upon millions of dollars to be official sponsors. Each broadcast network and news outlet is going to get access, too. Seats are set aside for athletes. Once you add all of these entities up, it does not leave a lot of room for the little guy.

This, in and of itself, is not a problem. Companies pretty much pay for the Olympics, so why not give them seats? Rather, the problem comes when nobody shows up to use them.

Think about it. You’re an NBC bigwig. You’ve got access to every single event. You pass the tickets around and you’ve still got seats to multiple events every day. You can’t go to everything. Hell, you don’t want to go to everything. (There weren’t any empty sections at the soccer game in Tianjin that I attended. Corporations probably didn’t care about seating at that venue because it was so far outside the main cities of Beijing & Shanghai. They would never go there, anyway.) So the tickets sit in your desk drawer, unused.

What should be happening is this (listen up, Vancouver & London!): Corporate & partner tickets should have to be picked up at a Will Call window by 90 minutes prior to the event. Once the tickets are claimed, you -or whomever you are giving the tickets to- must immediately enter the arena. No passing them along to scalpers (they already have plenty of tickets). At 1:29 before the event, the ticket window will open and all unclaimed seats will go on sale at face value to anybody who wants them.

I guarantee you that these sections would be filled. There are always Chinese and foreigners milling about outside of these venues looking for tickets. Most times you can find them- at insane prices that normal Chinese can’t afford.

Of course, instead of pointing out these shortcomings in the ticket distribution and the corporate sponsorship models, Riley just wants to find more ways to bash the government here. They may deserve it in many ways, but I have yet to hear any complaints from anybody in regards to the sheer spectacle of these Games… Except for the empty sections of seats, that is.

Alex came thorough again. A friend of his had promised us USA vs. Cuba baseball tickets and failed to deliver. As a make-good, we were given Women’s basketball tickets. The bonus? They were INSANELY good seats and China & the U.S. were both scheduled to play, though not against each other. (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this night with lots of additional details.)

I was disappointed when Alex had to beg off of attending at the last minute. Suddenly, I was left with one extra seat, right at mid-court 20 rows up, and it was going to go to waste. I called my friend Rachel, but she could not attend because she was swamped with work (she had already put a huge workload off the previous day to attend Trampoline & Ping Pong with me). My friend Kerry was out of town and couldn’t get back in time. So what to do?

Enter CouchSurfing.

I posted my extra ticket -for free- on the Beijing message board and within an hour I got a call from a guy named Kwan who could not believe his luck.  We meet up at Wukesong Metro station and strolled on through security. We had a great time together.

Incidentally, on the way in, an older security guard looked at my shirt and exclaimed in a heavy accent, “Are you from Boston?”

“You betcha!” I shouted back.

“I know Boston!” he said in reply. “I love the Red Sox!”

Awesome. (I couldn’t take a picture with this guy because they don’t allow you to snap photos while inside the security tents. Oh, well.)

It was a great crowd inside, as usual, but when your team is up by 30 points, its kind of hard to keep your dander up, which was the case with both China vs. the Czech Republic & USA vs. New Zealand. The Chinese do a great job, however, of staying loud. They are so proud of their athletes, it is really quite humbling. (Though we Americans can cheer pretty lustily, too.) Just before the US team took the court I bumped into some cool American chicks over to see the games. Julie, Katie & Jodi were all decked-out in the red, white and blue and are keeping their friends up-to-date on their adventures on their own blog. Check it out here.

The games were at least entertaining, if not very suspenseful. The Czech ladies were passing and ball-handling masters; they just couldn’t shoot for shit. It was like watching ballerinas try to play hoops. Most attempts to score were futile, but they were fun to watch. Conversely, the Kiwis were a rougher, scrappier bunch that lacked finesse but would keep pounding away no matter how bad things looked against the overpowering US squad.

And I guess therein lies the lesson of these Olympic games. Many teams really don’t have a prayer in these competitions, and they must know it. Nevertheless, they came here to play their hearts out.

A note about the entertainment at basketball games. The Chinese love basketball, and it is very clear that the NBA holds huge sway over the games here. There were dancers

Acrobats

And mascots galore

It got to the point where Kwan turned to me and said, “This is just like going to an NBA game.” I couldn’t have agreed more. And, frankly, it was disappointing. I mean, I’m in CHINA and I have to sit through cheerleaders and dancers at every TV timeout (at least there are less of those during the Games). I get annoyed by cheerleaders at sporting events. Can’t you at least give me something more… distinctive?

Then, after the first game ended and as I was dreading the intermission show, a group of natives walked out onto the court. Blimey, if I wasn’t about to get an honest-to-goodness Kung-Fu show!

These guys were wicked awesome.

I especially loved this woman. She could kick your ass.

The Chinese had saved the best for last, apparently. When it comes to pure spectacle, they really know what they’re doing… As for selling tickets to these games? Well, that’s a different story.

After the Track & Field excitement it was on to the next event for the day, one of my most-anticipated of the games: Table Tennis.

The Chinese love Ping Pong. They are crazy for it like Indians are crazy for Cricket and Brazilians Football. During an advance trip here in February the World Championships were being held in Guangzhou, China. I had actually been seated on the plane next to the team from Puerto Rico and had a great time talking shop with one of the players for about an hour as we crossed over the North Pole. I played a lot in college and I like to fancy myself a fair player, perhaps at the low end of “intermediate.” My buddy Alex is an avid player and he will probably quickly dissuade me of this delusion when we finally get an afternoon to go head-to-head.

During my time in Beijing that week in February the games were on TV everywhere. I actually found myself in an Irish pub one evening with Alex shooting pool, listening to a rock band play while Ping Pong was playing on the big screen TV. It was a surreal moment.

You can imagine then, that when I was able to score incredible face-value tickets to the Men’s Team Semifinals, I was stoked. No matter which countries were involved, the crowd would be really into it and because it was the semis, the play promised to be pretty amazing.

I was not disappointed.

When I started this blog, I vowed to myself that I would not spend any time covering the events themselves, so much as I would use this space to talk about the things that I see and what I learn about China as I navigate through it all. NBC, ESPN and the 500 other media outlets that are here pretty much have things covered in that regard, but this match deserves to be the exception that proves the rule, especially since it is one that people back home probably didn’t watch (even though I told you to). If you can get it on-demand via the interwebs I highly recommend it.

Here’s a quick primer: You play a game to 11 and must win by 2 points. The best of 5 games wins the set. Best of 5 sets wins the match. In team play, the first 2 sets are played between single players. The 3^rd set is a doubles match. The final 2 sets (if needed) are singles again, with the opponents from the first 2 sets swapping. Got it?

Japan came out slow and lost the first 2 sets. The first set was competitive but a heartbreaker for Japan as each game that was lost was a squeaker. Often, the Japanese player, Yo Kan, would come back from pretty large deficits and twice extended a game, but ultimately the German, Dimitrij Ovtcharov, proved to be too strong. This initial defeat seemed to take the wind out of Japan’s sails because the next set, between Jun Mizutani & Timo Boll was barely half as long and the German cruised.

Things didn’t change at the start of the 3^rd set. Germany jumped out to an early lead as Germany’s Ovtcharov and Christian Suss looked to continue to steamroll over Japan’s Mizutani and Seiya Kishikawa. The first game was over in short order and things did not look good at all for Nippon. But the diminutive pair knuckled down, played hard-nosed and won 3 straight games, including a thrilling 4^th to take their first set.

Set 4, again, was all-Germany at the start. Christian seemed to tower over Kan and he pummeled him easily in the first 2 games (11-5, 11-8) and was on his way to taking the 3^rd game (and the match) easily when something happened… Kan was down 9-5, then 10-7, with 3 Match Points looming and the energy seemed to shift in the arena. The Chinese don’t really like the Japanese (my friend Rachel says, jokingly, that she only dislikes Koreans more) and they were cheering for Germany pretty lustily. But they also love a good ping pong game. And as Kan won point after hard-fought point, the cheers for his success started to get louder.

Long volleys made the 6 minutes of this game seem to stretch on for hours. Ken would make an incredible shot and the tall German would somehow contort and extend his body to return it, only to get back into place in time to return the next offering… But Ken would not be denied. He tied the game and finally won, 12-10. The next 2 games were just as thrilling, with Japan taking the set and tying the game. The Nipponese had turned what looked like a sound thrashing by the Deutsch into an amazing spectacle of tenacity, fortitude and quiet determination.

The competition did not let up in the 5^th set. If anything, it got more intense as the Japanese sought to build on their newfound momentum and the Germans fought to stop their once-certain victory from slipping away… It was back-and-forth (literally and figuratively) as Japan’s Kishikawa lost the first game from Germany’s Boll, but then played an insane 2^nd game to beat the German, seeming to make up for Boll’s easy dominance over his countryman in the earlier set. Then Boll came back and took the 3rd game from a seeming-to-tire Kishikawa. Then the Japanese fire-baller gutted out a thrilling 4^th game to tie the Match at 2 sets all and 2-2 games in the final set.

But it was not to be. Boll was too strong and in the end the 5^th and deciding game was not close (11-5), as Kishikawa’s tank looked as if it was on “E” the whole time. It was Germany’s day.

I can’t begin to describe how much FUN that match was! Rachel turned to me and said that the Chinese all round us were remarking how they had really gotten their money’s worth with their tickets. And since we were sitting in prime seats only 3 rows behind the players and the ping pong table, one can assume that they paid a pretty penny for them.

I was so engrossed by the match that I did not even notice that Rachel & I were on the TV monitors pretty consistently during the final few games. There I was in my Pats jersey for millions of Chinese across the country and untold millions around the world to see and I didn’t ham it up once. The energy in the arena was so great that I forgot all about that stuff and even my exhaustion. I had only slept 3 hours the night before and had been up since 6:30am so that I could make it to Track & Field on time, but it all seemed to fade away as the intensity of the match continued to build.

THIS is why I came to the Olympics!

Saturday was a wicked long day for me. After another late night I had to get up at 6:30am in order to get over to the Olympic Green and the National Stadium for the 9:00am start of Track & Field events. After that, it would be a mad dash across the city to get to the Men’s Team Semifinals in Table Tennis in the afternoon. It was quite an adventure! (NOTE: Click on any of the images below to jump to my complete photo album from this day with lots of additional details.)

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. The skies were blue, the temperature was a warm but dry 85 degrees and the crowds were in high spirits. The road to the Bird’s Nest was interesting. There is a rail spur from the Metro’s Line 10 that runs the very long length of Olympic Park (think 2 Central Parks in New York) to get to the main venues: The Swim Cube, The National Indoor Stadium and the National Stadium. There are others in the area, but those are the biggies.

Anyway, you need a ticket to an event that day and to pass through the now-standard security checkpoints to even get onto the rail line, which is, incidentally, spacious, efficient and absolutely gleaming.

And once you get onto the plaza leading up to the national Stadium, you see just how awe-inspiring it is.

My buddy Alex came through again. He scored seats for him, his fiancée Amy and myself to see the 20km Men’s Walk, the prelims of the Women’s Pole Vault, the Women’s 100m Dash prelims, Men’s & Women’s shot-put prelims, Men’s 400m prelims and the Women’s Long Jump prelims. Our seats were just 10 rows off of the field at one end, directly across from the Pole Vaulters.

What’s more, all of the vaulters’ coaches were sitting in the first few rows (rules prevent them from being on the field with the athletes) and during warm-ups and after each competitive jump the women would come over to talk with their coaches. It was awesome to be able to shout encouragement at these women while they were just a few feet away. That, and they were wicked easy on the eyes…

I had to cut out a little early so that I could meet my friend Rachel, who was attending the Trampoline competition across the massive plaza in the National Indoor Stadium. As I was standing in the middle of everybody coming and going waiting for Rachel, I had a by now familiar experience. Chinese people kept coming over to take pictures with me. It was like I was a celebrity or something.

Let’s not beat around the bush- I’m a big dude. That in and of itself is unusual in China. In fact, culturally, a big guy is seen as successful and wealthy here. It has to do with the cyclical famines that have ravaged the country during the last 5,000 years. Somebody who has the means to feed themselves too much must be very rich indeed. I am also sporting my red White and Blue everywhere that I go, usually in the form of Boston team jerseys and t-shirts. The Chinese love that stuff.

But beyond that, the Chinese people seem to have a genuine curiosity about Westerners, and Americans in particular. Our economies have become symbiotic over the past 15-20 years and as much as our financial booms of the 1990s and mid-2000s were greatly dependant on Chinese investment in us, they know that their phenomenal growth during the same time has been just as dependant on our consumption of their goods. What’s more, they are more keenly aware of this relationship than Americans are and they do not see it as a negative thing like many American politicians seem to. They see further engagement with the world -economically, politically and socially- as vital to their interests.

So when you hear a news commentator say “the world has come to Beijing,” this has a profound meaning to the Chinese. Playing host is not only a great honor, but it is an accomplishment. If they can pull off a memorable international event like this and leave everybody wanting more (which they are doing so far, IMHO), then they will have truly arrived.

I mention this because while I have had lots of Chinese stop me and ask for my picture during the last week, I have never been standing around for the better part of an hour in a plaza with tens of thousands of people -mostly Chinese- passing through, which is exactly where I was while I was waiting for Rachel. And keep in mind that many of the Chinese who are in Beijing right now are tourists themselves. People have come from all across the country to their capital to see these games, and in most areas outside of the magnet cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong there are not many Westerners hanging around. To them, white people are quite the oddity and are part of the “exotic-ness” of Beijing.

The cameras were constantly going: People were taking photos from a distance surreptitiously. Small knots of people would gather 10 feet away, huddling, trying to decide 1) if they should come over to ask for a picture or 2) if they even knew *how* to ask for a picture. (Eventually I started just walking over to them to get it over with.) Small children would walk over cautiously, staring at me like I was some kind of storybook character come to life. “Is he real?” Their eyes would say.

Of course on a certain level I love the attention, but honestly, after standing around in the hot sun for almost an hour it was getting really tiring. I tried to stay gracious through it all because as excited as the Chinese are to meet a real-life American, I am just as excited to meet them and to convey as much goodwill as I can.

Thanks for making all of this necessary, G.W.