This was on Aug 26 as well, the last day of the Olympics. We set out early morning at around 7:20 am to get out to the main street past our campus. We had heard that the men's marathon route would pass by our university. There were just four of us (three guys and I) cos the others bailed out at the last minute.
We walked across Zhongguancun street and found a spot close to an intersection. My friends were obviously the foreigners cos there were no Caucasians around. One of my friends wore a USA shirt. We drew lots of attention wanted or not. The police and security had their eyes on us the whole time.
When we parked ourselves at the fence, a friendly policeman came over and asked us quite a few questions. It was a friendly chat, but an interrogation nonetheless. How many of us? Where we live? Why we are here? We answered those, but few minutes later they were repeated. I told him there are more but they are sleeping. He said in English, "Lazy bums, your friends!". We laughed.
We also got interviewed by BTV. It was so funny... when my friend has the video up, I'll post the link. I had to play the interpreter and I'm embarrassed. I think I translated about half of the questions and answers. LOL so much for being huaqiao (overseas Chinese). Another funny thing happened.. a policeman fell when closing off the street. One of the metal cordons fell on him... hahah, he laughed too!
There was an older man next to us who was saving two spots for his elderly parents. He was a real interesting fella. The crowd started gathering at around 8:15am and of course, there was a lot of pushing and shoving. One lady kept shoving us, elbowing her way and I wasn't about to give in. This man all of a sudden gave her a mouthful, basically telling her off and that we have been here for an hour... if she wanted a good spot, she should have been here early.. she was giving a real bad impression to foreigners.. and that I was being a good friend for bringing them here to see the Olympics... that when the runners come, we'll surely make room for her to see them. WHOA!!! I pretended not to understand a word.
I was pretty surprised the crowd was very quiet when the runners came by. Of course the Kenyans, Jamaicans were in the first group. They cheered the CHinese runners of course. When the US runner came by, I yelled "Go USA" so loud I think I shocked myself and the people around me. My friend yelled "Jia you mei guo (Add gas, USA)" and the giggly girls around him laughed. The same man was trying to rouse the crowd and he almost succeeded until a Japanese runner came by. I was clapping at that point but bowing to peer/crowd/Chinese nationality pressure, I stopped. It was a very obvious silence. I felt very sorry for the Japanese runner. The Belarusian runner almost dropped out of the race and started walking towards the cordon. The crowd cheered him on and he picked up his feet and kept going. That was encouraging to see. The last two runners in the race received the most cheers.
Later my friends decided it would be really cool to get China flags. I had them go up to ask the Olympic officials for the flags. It was so amazing. They just handed them over and the Chinese people were snapping pictures of this whole process. I mean I felt like we had some paparazzi following us. IT was a fun morning and we decided to go to the Bird's Nest asap.
No comments:
Post a Comment