Women's World Cup

So Ian's girlfriend Nicole, who's involved in sports event planning, pointed out to me that the Women's World Cup was going to be in China while I was here (it was originally going to be here in 2003, but had to be moved to the US due to the SARS epidemic). I was almost embarrassed that I hadn't thought about that already when she told me in August, because I used to follow soccer pretty avidly, knew all of the players, profiles, number of dependents, etc. I went to the WWC back in 1999 I guess it was, and also saw men's and women's soccer at the Olympics in 1996 and in the men's World Cup in 1994. (Am I getting these years right?) Anyway, I went and looked up the schedule and as luck would have it the day after I arrived there was a game in the neighborhood of Beijing that the U.S. would likely be playing in, if they won their bracket. So I noted that and followed through on it yesterday; I saw it as a sort of reasonable challenge to get me a little more acclimated to China, public transportation, etc.

There were definitely a few problems. The hotel sent me on the non-express bus to the wrong train station (I'll exhaustively bitch about the staff another time), and the train stations (both of them) were pretty miserable. The woman at the first train station sold me a ticket for a train I couldn't make, as the bus ride to the other station took longer than she gave me. I got another lesson in Chinese line etiquette when trying to get switched to a later train (the first was at LAX, the second at the Beijing airport taxi queue where I a man from Malaysia pointed out that I was giving too much space and was being cut, and asked "May I help you in any way?"....). At the train station this grandmother that should have been behind me, kept pulling up even with me, and then when the line moved, she would move in front of me. Then a few seconds later she would put her hand on my back and forcefully push me forward until I was again even with her. It was as if she really wanted to cut me, would do it, and then feel guilty and give me my spot back, but not so guilty that she wouldn't leave the opportunity for herself to do it again.

Once I finally had the ticket, I had a lot of trouble finding the platform, because there were no signs for the platform. Actually, I'm sure there were, they were just in Chinese characters. I just kept seeing the number 2 next to my train on the board, and assumed that meant go to the first place marked "2" I saw, which was acutally just a waiting area. I figured that out, then went and had somebody point me to the tracks by handing them my ticket and shrugging, and then pointing in random locations until they got excited, but naturally my train ended up not being on the 2 track. I still don't know what the 2 was on the 40' by 15' display board, nor what was supposed to point me to the 5 track, but I found my train by following somebody that I saw in the "Tianjin" line that I aggressively compared tickets with and found was on the same train. (By the way, I now know three chinese characters. The ones for "Tianjin," "internet cafe," and "women.") There were seat predicaments as well, but I digress.

Eventually I made it to Tianjin, which while only an hour away on the train is really far away when you consider the trains/buses on either end that take forever. I grabbed the 8 bus because a website had said to take that to the end of the line to get to the stadium. I hope the Internet never lies to me about something of this sort, because while I try to verify the information once on board by asking or looking at a map, it's generally pretty difficult. I ended up getting off halfway there because I saw a dumpling restaurant I'd heard about and wanted to check it out. I went in and asked for what I had been told was their specialty, a sort of stuffed steamed roll. They laughed and then got their token English speaker to explain that they had "many kinds of baozi" or whatever the word was. I think I asked for a pizza at pizza hut, or comparable. Anyway, it was pretty tasty. I looked up the words for "very good!" and said that as I was leaving, but evidently I'm not pronouncing it right because I've used it several times since and just get blank stares and awkward laughs.

Later I went over to the stadium after checking out what must be the mecca of all grocery stores (Chinese grocery stores are amazing...) that happened to be in a shopping mall. I got my ticket for the U.S.-England match and was going to go check out the stadium even though it was relatively early, but the security guard gave me what I can only describe as a hang loose hand gesture. I figured he was telling me it was too early, and since I didn't really care I went off exploring. I found an apple store, as well as a "Trader Zhou's" which, disappointingly, only sells wine. I abused the apple store for their internet but prominently placed down my ipod next to me on the counter so they knew I liked their products (one of the only advantages of not speaking the language is being able to be rude like I was in this circumstance and getting away with it because they have a hard time telling me to stop since I don't speak their language).

I went over to this little park area where they were selling street meat (delicious, and it all worked out fine, Brent!) and watching the other quarterfinal game (Germany v. South Korea) on a big screen. I made an American Friend At First Sight, a middle-aged guy that has been on a lot of business trips to China and right now is halfway through a 1-year assignment in Shanghai (by the way, in Beijing not counting the train station, I have seen one other Caucasian...I'm definitely not in the tourist district...and I'm told soon I will be getting asked for pictures). He gave me lots of tips on bargaining and shopping with the Chinese shopkeepers that Jen and I will be taking full advantage of in November. He also told me that the "hang loose" gesture meant 6, as in, 6 PM. He taught me the one-hand Chinese gesture for 7-10 as well.

Eventually went to the game, which was pretty awesome to see. I don't know all the players anymore, but I know a fair number that have held over from the days I followed it. There were more English fans it seemed, or probably just louder and better organized. U.S. won 3-0, and I made another AFAFS in the stadium, sitting next to a guy that had been there for decades with his wife after they had decided to adopt 5 kids from the orphanage in Tianjin. I think this American Chinese enjoyed the distraction I provided him during the game; his current company was only asking questions like where is the goodyear blimp, where do they get the balls, why is only one ball allowed on the field, where did people get the horns, why does the sun shine, etc.

Trip back took forever (trains and buses don't run late here, even on major routes like Beijing-Tianjin, so I had to take 3 taxis), but it was all totally worth it. Took me back to some of my earlier days. :)