The Dumb Laowai

There are three laws that I try to live by (not always successfully): Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, Never call ex-girlfriends when you’re drunk and Never post a blog when you’re too angry to be rational. As a result, I’ve waited a couple of days to write about my Olympic experience but, mind you, I’m still pretty pissed off.

The Evil Axis of the Beijing Games: The IOC, McDonalds and Coca-Cola. This should include the government group responsible for concessions planning, but I can’t put a name to the morons yet. Let’s look at these briefly.

I just read that Jacques Brogge does not take a salary so, technically, I can not call him a whore. His sole criticisms have been of Usain Bolt for his celebrations and of American athletes who dared to arrive wearing masks which happened to be issued them. His sole, pale attempt at legitimacy, made only under pressure, has been to ask the FIG to investigate the ages of Chinese gymnasts, even though FIG had already said that the matter was closed.

The IOC has taken its absurd policy to new heights. That is, “nothing can be wrong in our Olympic fairyland except having an opinion that isn’t ours.” There is a rather earthy American saying that succinctly sums up my thoughts on the forthrightness of the IOC and Chinese officialdom, “Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.”  Remember the days when Juan Antonio Samaranch would open the games, close the games and shut up in the interim? Admittedly, he had some faults but in retrospect he’s looking better all the time.

McDonalds managed, under cover of Olympic sponsorship, to eliminate absolutely any dining choice in any venue. Volunteers actually sit on lifeguard chairs and use megaphones to direct people to the nearest golden arches. I arrived to find almost one hundred people outside closed doors, waiting for the opportunity to get inside and wait behind another few hundred.

Deciding to search elsewhere, I wandered a soulless Olympic Green, a vast stretch on concrete that makes Tiananmen Square look like someone’s patio. The only attraction are a few corporate pavilions. People were so starved for entertainment that they were actually jockeying for position to photograph a very confused man standing behind a counter of Omega watches. He never moved and I’m pretty sure that he still hasn’t sold a watch.

Spotting a Coca-Cola stand, I waited for twenty minutes to buy a beer and discovered that there were indeed other dining choices, sort of. You could choose between small, vacuum sealed sausages or an unidentifiable meat with rice. It turned out to be the best entertainment around.

I watched as people would pull their white plastic container out of a box and read the instructions on how to initiate a nuclear reaction. Take substance A and put in container, Place bag B on top of it. Place food C on top of that. Take them all out and retrieve the arming device (string) that you left at the bottom. Start over. When completed, place top on container and pull string. Run like hell.

The reactions were fairly universal. The food preparation device would start to blow steam in all directions and people would jump back, looking around for emergency services. After waiting fifteen minutes or so, they would feel brave enough to take the top off and burn the crap out of themselves on the food. After waiting another ten minutes or so they would finally take a bite. The rest was immediately thrown in the trash.

Heading into the Bird’s Nest and finding my seat made everything else fall away into insignificance. A ninth row seat with a good view of the pole vault, if nothing else. The place is amazing. I watched a few javelin throws and long jumps, mainly on television before I decided to get a beer before the races began. I once again ran into the evil handiwork of concession planners, who will probably be rewarded with lucrative Coca-Cola jobs when the games are finished.

It’s hard to believe that a building like the Bird’s Nest can have areas that receive no breeze, but there are a few. They seem to be favorite sites for the few concession stands. I stood in line with a few hundred swearing Chinese, all of us trying to maintain three inches of personal space and profusely sweating. There were more volunteers asking us to be patient than there were people who were actually serving. I’m still baffled how it consistently took 2-3 minutes to give someone a bottle of Coke and a pre-packaged bag of popcorn, but it did. All three servers were that slow.

Finally reaching the head of the mob, I got the now familiar service with a snarl. “No beer!” I asked why there was no beer, politely pointing out that all of the signs had promised me a beer and that it was 7:30, only thirty minutes into the event. “No beer!”

I stormed off with a Coke (perhaps the last I will ever drink) and reviewed the handwritten board of scheduled events for the evening. The only one of real interest was the 4×100 relays. Since they were two hours off and I’d had my fill of frustration for the evening, I stormed off. My Olympic experience had lasted an hour, half of that in concession hell.

I’ll share a long held conspiracy theory of mine that seems more and more plausible. The much discussed visa issues and difficulties involved in coming to China for these games were absolutely intentional. The powers that be preferred that you stay at home and watch the wonder that is modern China on your television. It’s much easier to present a wonderful image that way, without all of the inconvenient Potemkin Village moments.   

A high party official recently compared the Beijing sky to a sauna while explaining why you couldn’t see from Mao’s mausoleum across the square to Mao’s picture (I don’t believe he actually used that example.) When you’re sitting in a sauna, it’s sometimes hard to see clearly because of the mist was the concept he tried to apply to an entire city of 13 million hacking and wheezing people.

I felt better after that. I hadn’t realized that rather than complaining, I should be enjoying the wonders of a nice, natural phenomenon, a “Mist”. I wanted to head right out and look for some gorillas.

This may be one of the lasting effects of these games. The Chinese government has managed to redefine an English word. Showing their usual lack of independent thought where China is concerned, Yahoo has for the last week shown the weather in Beijing as being “Mist.” I’m used to Fair, Cloudy, Partly Cloudy, and a variety of other terms, but I’ve never seen the weather forecast as “Mist” before. If we can just get a couple more media companies to buy into this you could soon see Los Angeles described as being covered in Mist.

While Official A was editing the English language, Official B was also blaming the weather for the current air quality issues, saying that a lack of rain was the culprit. Let’s just think about the questions that brings to my simple mind. (You may have others.)

So, you’re saying that we want rain to clear the moisture (mist) out of the air?

By lack of rain, do you mean the usual  August weather?

But you promised us no rain during the Olympics. Now it’s a good thing?

Don’t get me wrong; a nice day-long rainstorm does make things a little clearer on the following day, but the third day sees a return of the “Mist.” The only way that we can hope to see these games clearly is if it rains all night, every night and magically stops the next morning. 

In the meantime, I’ll try to remember that my clothes are drenched from a nice, refreshing mist and not from two gallons of sweat. My spirits should be uplifted.  
    

After a day of rain - relatively good day. 8/3/08

Olympic morn with a light mist. 8/8/08