Friday, April 25, 2008

Walk this way...

I spent most of Saturday at Wukesong Stadium, watching a Basketball Test Event. Nobody likes working weekends, but if you gotta, then this was ok. As the day wound down, and I began daydreaming of a long overdue Sunday morning sleep in, I was asked if I could pop in to the Marathon event on Sunday morning, not to take part you understand, but just for ten or fifteen minutes to watch the start. Um, sure, why not.

And so my Sunday morning began. My planned itinerary seemed straight forward enough: Rise at 6am, leave by 6.20 and arrive at the race start, Tiananmen Square by 7am and watch the 30 minute lead-in to the gun. But TIC (this is China)...

I arrived on cue, but due to strict security I'm dumped by my cab driver a good kilometre from where I need to be. I set off for the race start, but at every turn I am turned around and forced to re-turn. One young policeman would let me up some stairs only for a fellow teeny-bop cop to turn me away. Although they were helpful in pointing out where I needed to go (the big square over there) they were less forthcoming with an actual strategy of “how” to actually get there.


"This way?" I enquired. Lots of nodding and more pointing led me to believe that I was on course; walk outside this barricade 250 metres until you get to the end and then cross the road. I do this. Get to the other end only to be told (or ushered) in the direction from whence I’d come. “That way? I said. “I've just come from there.” Oh, alright then, back we go. Walk 200 metres that way, turn and walk 200 metres back. As the minutes ticked by I was suddenly jolted by a panicky and perturbed looking German photographer. “Mein Got! Vair ist unt schtartink line?” His sweaty, red and forlorn face spelled disaster; his desperation contagious. Soon the walking had turned to running. Both of us now in our own mini marathon, the Main Event only minutes from a start. Hans would have much explaining to do back at Das Spiegel if he didn't file his pictures on time!

But the maze of barricades and barrage of baby-faced policemen thwarted our every move. “Over here Hans!”. Damn, no entry.
“Ya, ya!! Ziss vay, ziss vay!”

We ran and ran like a couple of oversized Haile Gebrsellasies, darting across roads and hurdling barricades. Somewhere off I heard the theme to ‘Chariots of Fire’. We commandeered a passing golf cart that whisked us to the start line just in time to hear the starter's pistol. Hans ran to the line of spectators like a frothing, rabid Doberman, stucked his lens under someone’s armpit and snapped his little heart out. I wandered over to the VIP buffet, sat down for a cold coffee and a dry croissant.
This is the Olympics, and it’s not the winning but ‘taking part’ that counts. There was nothing left to do but say Auf Wiedersehen to Hans and head home. As I wandered slowly off under the watchful eye of Mao, across the vast expanse of Tiananmen Square, a few sprinkles of rain cooled my overheated head. Momentarily turning my face towards the sky, I took a deep breath, pulled out my camera and snapped a couple of pictures of my own. But this was not a passing shower, and without warning a savage squalling rain storm hit. I was running like a lone Tibetan freedom fighter caught by surprise in a nightmarish hell. I made my way to the road, and began waving like a saturated psychopath, star-jumping between the sheets of rain, playing chicken with every vehicle that remotely resembled a cab.


“No!” said a policeman (what is it with these guys)

“No what?” my face implied.

“No Taxi here!” I saw in his eyes.

“You’re telling me, mate!”


He was telling me to move on and that I was not allowed to hail a cab at this particular area of the Square, no matter how bad the rain was. He pointed the way and after walking 150 metres in the rain I was met by an equally cherubic policeman who politely told me...“No!”


I thought to myself ‘if he points back the way I've just come I'm gonna spank him and get myself arrested’. Fortunately for both of us he urged me further along the Square, so I kept going. I was a walking dish mop. With foggy glasses I trudged on. Rain running down my collar, down my back and legs. My jeans and shoes now soaked. Not a vacant taxi in sight and no legal place to hail one. Every time I half-heartedly put my arm out to flag an already engaged cab, the Square’s ubiquitous policemen appeared like mini-Mao Tse-tungs to tell me “No!”. At least the steady stream of water running down the bridge of my nose and into my mouth kept my thirst at bey.


And so I headed away from Tiananmen Square and Chairman Mao and the cab-nazis. I had a plan; a plan to take the back streets and avoid the growing crowd of sodden, sloshy cab-hailers...and my plan paid off. I spotted a vacant taxi. I not so much hailed it as pounced on it, Steve Irwin-style, stretched across the bonnet and holding on for dear life, knowing if I let go it was surely death! Within barely an hour and fifteen minutes from the first specks of rain I was warm and drying off in the back of “my” taxi. My marathon was over and I headed home.

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