Good time at the Olympiad: Volume Uno

My brethren:

It's been a while since I have had the time to blog on this most magnificent of sites, and I have many stories to tell. The two-week extravaganza that they are calling "The Olympics" went by so quickly, I am still trying to digest what exactly happened. It was like one minute I was putting on a Go China Bandanna, and the next thing I knew I was eating an overpriced plate of pasta watching the closing ceremony. I feel like a ten year-old boy who was given a Golden Retriever puppy for X-Mas, only to have it run over by a garbage truck two weeks later. A friend of mine wrote about the Olympics and used analogies of Disneyland and Epcot Center, but my experience was more like a two-week run at Vegas as a "big-player". I might as well have been watching the "Blue Man Group" every afternoon, and a UFC Main Event Card every night. Throw in beers for less than a dollar; the ridiculous culture of Chinese sports fans; obnoxious European and American fans in absurd yet hilarious costumes; and a dash of goofy mascots dancing with cheerleaders, and there you have the 2008 Beijing Games my friends. I am going to highlight some of the more memorable moments of my misadventures during the second week of Olympic glory. As much fun as Week #1 was, Week #2 was the best sequel since the "The Bourne Supremacy" flicks. It was like if you took the second and the third rolled both of them together, and added a pinch of Gary Busey.

After taking a one-day break on Monday of all days (where I rested by drinking more water than a thirsty hippo and going to work) I brought back the fury on Tuesday. I went to see the quarterfinals of my new favorite sport Women's Handball with my Swiss friend Anja, and I definitely made a mark on the game. Or at least a scratch. Round One was the mighty Chinese ladies against the Koreans from the South, and I came armed to the teeth with a China bandanna and a sticker on my face. "Jiao!" chances on repeat by the one-tracked minded Chinese blared throughout the stadium, and even though they got walloped by a dozen goals, the maniacal fans kept on chanting until the final seconds. I recently found out that the English translation to the Chinese word jiao is "add gas". There are just too many jokes for this one, so I will let the reader use his or her imagination.

In Round Two the Frenchies went toe-to-toe with the undefeated Russians. I'll tell you one thing I was happy to not be donning a French handball outfit on this day, as the Soviets had two women whom easily could have stunt-doubled for Frankenstein. I don't know how or what they made these women with, but they both looked like they had just murdered a dozen school children. Surprisingly enough, the descendants of Napoleon led almost the entire game, and this was great for Anja and I since we were in the French section and the Frenchies have way better cheers than the Russians. One of the guys in our section must have been a star cheerleader in his former life, because he was a machine. But just like the Maginot Line, the French eventually crumbled, and were taken down by the Gorbachev generation in double-overtime. To make matters worse the American family next to us had just moved out to China, and their kindergarten-aged boy was completely overtaken by my white USC hat (my undergraduate alma mater). After the game I pulled an Indiana Jones, just like when Harrison Ford gave his fedora to Shia Lebeouf, and passed the torch of Trojan prowess to this fellow American by giving him my hat. Most people would feel good about this sort of thing, BUT THIS IS MY ONLY USC HAT! Or was my only USC hat, and they don't have Foot Locker out here in the Orient. If this kid isn't the next Carson Palmer I'm not ever going to be content with my decision.

The next day my friend Anja took me with her to the women's semifinals of field hockey. As I mentioned in a previous blog Anja is a world-class field hockey player; unfortunately, she happens to be Swiss and they are to the Olympics what the duck-billed platypus is to the animal kingdom. No Olympic qualification for this swiss miss, but Anja has all kinds of hook-up's in the field hockey world and we were able to get right up to the front row. Round One in this one was "Ze Germans" against the JIAO-chanting Chinese. The Germans were heavy favorites but China was too strong down the stretch, and won a barn-burner. I found the game to be much more action-packed than I would have expected. My only knowledge of field hockey, was from the wildebeest-sized women at my high school, who it seemed only made the team because nobody else wanted to play the sport. But these women were fit, skilled, and for the most part very attractive.

The second game featured the Dutch who thumped Argentina by four goals. The fans of the Dutch team, wore bright Halloween colors, and drank their faces off. Normally, the food & drink lines of the Olympics will have one random guy getting like twelve beers for his friends. But it seemed that every Dutch guy buying beer was this random guy, and a line of only five people took me about fifteen minutes to get my brewskies. They don't believe in kegs at the Olympics, so they have to open every beer by hand. Another moment I will not forget, was turning around and seeing a Chinese guy sitting behind me with fingernails as long as Freddy Kruger from "Nightmare on Elm Street". I have had this sort of thing happen quite a few times, and these are not the meterosexual Chinese males, but just random ordinary Chinese guys who think is is cool to grow their nails four inches long. I quickly snapped a picture of this with my camera. I have found that getting pictures of these sort of things is easy: you just give your victim a wide smile and a thumbs up and they will be more than willing to pose for my photography collection of weird and unusual things in China

On the way home in the crammed bus I stumbled into a pretty Chinese Olympic volunteer named Barbara, and when I woke up the next day I noticed that her name and phone number were written on a piece of paper in my pocket. Good start to Thursday. This next day would be a great one as I had two tickets to the Women's Gold Medal Soccer game, and it was USA vs. Brazil. Since I had an extra ticket I decided to take one of the girls form my work, who I felt otherwise would not be able to attend any events. It is a shame that going to the Olympics for most native Beijinger's is completely out of the question. Getting tickets as a Chinese person is terribly difficult, and then overcoming the temptation to sell these tickets for ten times the price is even tougher. The actual face value on the tickets that one would pay if they got them in the lottery, is generally like ten or fifteen dollars.

So anyways my friend Miou (it is pronounced like Meow) went to the Gold Medal soccer game with me, and man was it a blast. There were two drunk Americans sitting one row over to the left who were hysterical. These guys were draped in an American flag, and when one of the guys noticed that I had finished my beer he demanded that I take one of his. I was reluctant to do so, until I saw that this immoral drinking duo had about fifteen beers underneath their seats. I jokingly asked if he had enough beers, and he said..."enough... we've got a freekin' brewery over here." It was also refreshing to deal with Americans who were not completely annoying. Why is it that my country has the worst Olympics fans next to maybe Canada?. The Midwest reflective Oakley-wearing I LOVE THE USA nimrods who make us all look bad with their ignorant paradigm of world domination without understanding are so damn stern. The Americans at the soccer game may have been drunk, but at least they were classy drunks. So anyways, I soon made fast friends with the two Americans, and shortly thereafter the girl who was sitting in front of me (her name is Blessing, which makes me so sad to have an ordinary name, because her name kicks my name's ass) noticed my USC jacket and told me she was currently in school at USC. She got me caught up with all of the current events and stuff, and my seat felt more like a spot on a friend's couch than a seat at a Chinese stadium.


As far as the game goes, the American women played so well. I thought the Brazilians were a little better since they have this superstar named "Marta" who is ten times better than everybody else. But the goalie for the states was a brick wall, and in overtime USA pulled it out. Great game! Oh, and the man sitting next to Blessing was wearing purple croc's with stars on them, and when he was applauding I got a picture of them. May have been my highlight of the game.

I miss the Olympics,

matt