Think about it.  The sitting mayor of Baltimore is on trial for petty theft.

Meanwhile, while American city mayors are bogging their cities down by committing criminal activities, Shanghai is emerging as world economic center.  Well, I suppose Shanghai did have its Chen Liangyu.

Here’s hoping Dixon meets the same fate.

ODB and I walked by Workers’ Gymnasium at about 4:30pm yesterday and saw a couple hundred Hangzhou fans cheering and carrying a dragon made of yellow balloons. Later in the evening, as JZ and I tried to hail a taxi in a cold rain, it was easy to spot an inordinate amount of Hangzhou blue on sweatshirts, umbrellas, and glowing devil horns.

Currently The Beijing-Hangzhou match is less than an hour away. I’ve got the TV on but both CCTV and Beijing TV sports channels are showing boring studio talk shows for the pregame. No College Football Gameday in China yet, unfortunately. A Reuters article quoting the Beijing Youth Daily confirms my prediction of a heavy police presence, though even I didn’t expect it to be so high:

Up to 6,000 police will be on duty for Beijing Guoan’s Chinese Super League (CSL) match on Saturday, where they could seal their first title, after fans rioted on Thursday after failing to get tickets for the game….

About 10,000 fans had gathered outside the stadium on Thursday in the hope to buy tickets, but only 13,000 of the 60,000 seats in the stadium were put on sale, leaving thousands frustrated, the paper said.

I didn’t even think a riot would be possible with all the police assigned to the ticket lines. And honestly, I don’t really trust that 6,000 cops will be able to control a stadium full of fans, who will surely walk out either ecstatic or enraged.

Kickoff is now about 25 minutes away. BTV gave a minute or two to the sideline reporter and is back to the studio chat with the sappy background music; CCTV is now showing figure skating.

UPDATE: Added a pic of the riot police lined up outside Workers’ Stadium.

The typical Beijing Guo’an game fills about a quarter of the seats in Workers’ Stadium, though those who do show up are very vocal in their support. I would not be surprised if this match brings in a full house. Here’s a photo of the crowd from a match I attended back in 2005, when the team was known as Beijing Xiandai (the Chinese name for carmaker Hyundai):

In contrast, here’s a picture of the same stadium during China’s victory over Qatar in the 2004 Asian Cup:

Beijing currently is tied with Henan Siwu at the top of the table but is ahead due to a five point lead in goal difference; the title is thus Beijing’s to lose. Changchun Yatai (47 points) also has a reasonable chance to win, and Shandong Luneng (45 points) is mathematically still in the running.

Beijing’s opponent is Hangzhou Lücheng, currently second to last in the table and facing relegation if they lose, so it won’t be a walkover. Henan’s opponent is mid-table Shenzhen (ninth out of sixteen teams), and Henan will be playing away. The greater threat is probably from Changchun, which faces last-place Chongqing Lifan at home. Chongqing cannot avoid relegation and has little to play for besides pride, so Changchun has a good chance to win. This makes Saturday’s match-up a critical match for Beijing.

Even though Beijing’s team is consistently one of the best in the CSL, it’s rare to see much open support for them. The only hint I saw of this week’s excitement came a couple of months ago, when thousands of (mostly young) paraded down Gongti Bei Lu after a match, presumably toward the Dongsishitiao subway station.

Below is a picture I took before the 2005 home match again Dalian Shide, the strongest team in the CSL over the past 15 years and a major rival. There was no line; I just walked up and bought my tickets. Note the dirt-cheap prices, which ranged from 20 to 80 RMB. The “booth” consisted of a guy sitting behind the (locked) entrance gate–you can see his empty chair in the picture. I handed my money through the gate and he gave me my tickets.

Whether in response to aforementioned post-game march, which appeared to be spontaneous, or simply out of habit after the Olympics and recent National Day celebrations, the police are out in full force today. There are perhaps 500 to 1000 officers and dozens of vehicles surrounding the ticket buyers. To avoid even the chance of anything getting out of hand, the ticket line was not a line at all but rather bunches of a few hundred fans, each completely surrounded by dozens of police officers and at least 30 yards away from the next group.

Back in 2005, police were at the games but not down on the field for most of the match, as you can see from the pictures above. Standard procedure was to have them ringing the pitch until game time, at which point they would march up to their own section and enjoy the game.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s fans tended to get very rowdy, making up dirty cheers, hold up signs attacking the refs and others, and throwing anything available onto the pitch.

The most obvious rabble-rousers would be taken away during the game. From my observation, holding up a sign was far more likely to get you into trouble than thowing things at opposing players. (The authorities are well aware of the political dangers of letter fans holding up signs).

Only in the final minutes of the game would the police march back down to their positions around the pitch. Based on the security presence today, one can only imagine how many police they’ll have out for Saturday afternoon’s match.

UPDATE: Talked to a guy at the Subway sandwich shop across from the stadium at around 5pm today; he said tickets had sold out hours ago, and that many of the fans had been camping out for the last two nights. Probably some good business for Subway.

UPDATE: Titan Sports has some good slideshows, including the strict police control of the crowds, happy faces of fans with their tickets, and of course the pretty girls in line.

Share This ]]> http://www.truthfromfacts.com/2009/10/29/all-aboard-the-beijing-guoan-bandwagon/feed/ 1 http://www.truthfromfacts.com/2009/07/30/french-guy-in-wuhan-plays-policeman-embarrasses-china-west-self/ http://www.truthfromfacts.com/2009/07/30/french-guy-in-wuhan-plays-policeman-embarrasses-china-west-self/#comments Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:04:34 +0000 Nator http://www.truthfromfacts.com/?p=482 Wuhan made headlines a couple of months ago when the chengguan, “urban management” officers in charge of enforcing public order, simply surrounded and stared at an illegal street vendor until he was shamed into leaving. This was news because chengguan are typically expected to use more forceful methods to clear out the riffraff.

Now Wuhan’s chengguan are taking it a step further and deputizing a foreigner to put help save Wuhan from utter chaos by forcing shopkeepers to move boxes of bottled water off the sidewalk:

On July 26, Beijing played Tianjin in a run-up to the 11th National Games of the PRC, to be held later this year. China News Wrap has the story:

In the second half of the competition, head referee He Zhibiao gave three successive red cards to Tianjin players Liu Qing, Liang Jie and Ma Leilei, causing intense dissatisfaction and resentment amongst the Tianjin team, who felt that the referee’s decisions were unfair. Prior to the overtime, Tianjin goalkeeper Li Gen walked over to the stands for the Tianjin team and proposed that they refused to play any further. The team’s head coach refused, however, and the match continued. In the second minute of overtime, Tianjin player Geng Yin scored an own-goal, giving the Beijing team a 3:1 lead.

Once the whistle blew to signal the end of the match, Tianjin goal keeper Li Gen rushed over to head referee He Zhibiao and began to verbally abuse him…He Zhibiao attempted to avoid Li Gen, and walked towards the stadium exit. At this point, Tianjin team member, Hao Tanjiao, rushed over the rushed past security guards, and Tianjin players began to attack the head referee on the field. He Zhibiao, after falling to the ground, crawl up again and rushed towards the exit, while Tianjin players were prevented from pursuing him by security guards.

The inflammatory words and unruly behavior of football fans caused the spectator stands to fall into chaos, and after the match fans from both sides threw water bottles at each other. Three female fans from Tianjin in particular drew a great deal of attention. After Tianjin players were penalized with a red card, they became especially agitated, stood up, began waving their arms and shouting “fake foul”. Security guards repeatedly asked these three fans to leave the stands, but were ignored. After the conclusion of the game, just after the agitation in the stands had subsided, these female fans resumed their conflict with Beijing fans on the stands, and began throwing water bottles. The Tianjin female friends were escorted by security guards from the stadium.”

The cameras caught all 20 minutes of chaos; so far, “Beat Referee Incident” and “ViolenceGate” (video and pictures at both links) are the two most popular names for the event. Tianjin’s team has been banned from the upcoming National Games as a result.

————————————————————

All this excitement reminds me of several years ago, when ODB and I started going to soccer matches at Workers’ Stadium. I remember watching China beat Qatar in the 2004 Asian Cup, but missed Japan’s victory over China, when the Chinese fans were so famously gracious in defeat. Most of the time, though, we would just watch Beijing’s professional club, Beijing Guoan (sometimes Beijing Guo’an). Back then they were known as Beijing Xiandai. (Xiandai is Chinese for “modern”; in Korean the word is Hyundai, the team’s former sponsor), and the matches were always fun, though not always for the skill of play on the field:

• Dirt-cheap tickets, as little as 10-20 RMB–far less than the hundreds of RMB charged for tickets when the international clubs come to town, even if it’s a relatively obscure side like Hull City (who beat Guoan in penalties last night).
• Perhaps twenty thousand fans, all packed around the center of the pitch, would keep up a constant stream of “[so-and-so], shabi!” chants for most of the match. The obvious targets were the opposing players and refs, but occasionally non-soccer figures that were making the people mad would be cursed as well. Whenever they got too loud, white noise or the Guo’an fight song would blast from the speakers at full volume in an attempt to drown out the cursing for the TV audience.
• Although police lined the edge of the field, fans were more or less allowed to throw whatever they wanted onto the field. Many brought toilet paper, and many others threw plastic water bottles–often full. The Gongti stadium has a track around the soccer pitch, so most of the missiles couldn’t reach the players. But anytime the opposing team lined up for a corner, objected rained down on the kicker.
• Fans shouted insults and jokes about the refs and the other team, as if they were performing for the crowds around them. Many fans also brought signs with funny, offensive, and risque rhymes on them.  Plenty of people got kicked out, but the police were never too rough, and no one seemed to mind getting kicked out.

Around 2006, Workers’ Stadium was closed for renovations before the Olympics, and we didn’t care the follow the team as they moved south to a stadium in Fengtai for the matches. But now it’s 2009, the Olympics are over, and Guoan is back in Gongti. We didn’t really have our act together for the spring matches, and they haven’t had a home match in the CSL, China’s top professional league, since July 2.

Last night I heard the familiar strains of Guoan’s fight song from my new office near Gongti:

喔噢…… 北京国安 我们永远支持你
噢…… 北京国安 我们永远热爱你

Oh-ohhh, Beijing Guoan, we will always support you!
Ohhh, Beijing Guoan, we will always love you!

Guoan plays six matches at home in August and September, and it will enter the second half of the season at the top of the CSL table. ODB and I will be there. And given that Sunday’s incident was between under-20 teams, we are confident that the next generation of football in China will bring the same spirit of friendship onto the field that today’s fans show in the stands.

SHTig’s commentary to this news story are in blue

We had managed to ignore the old man peering in through the window, beckoning alternately to sell flowers to us,  have a glass of our plum wine, or just for a cash handout.  But as we headed for the exit at 11pm, the stirring activity outside caught my peripheral vision.  I put my girlfriend on notice ~ if they accost us, I’m not backing down.

About 10 steps out onto a road, a boy who looked about 2 and a half (but turned out to be 5) came up begging for money.  Shooed him away a few times wasn’t working.  Then  I froze and looked around.  Where the heck is his adult handler?   There is no adult.  That’s it!

Next thing we both knew, the little boy was hoisted up in my arms.  We’ll either find out where the adult is or we’ll walk him to the police station.  Either my Mandarin or my muscles are about to get a workout.

Turned out to be both.  After we turned the corner, a lady of 50 years old or so emerged, grinning big and shadowing from a far distance.  That’s her I knew, but I kept my direction toward the police station.  She got closer, and so I started shouting at her why she was using this little boy to beg for money, and why the heck he’s not in bed! The boy was sobbing all the while and, as if in a trance, uttering “xie xie, xie xie” over and over and over.  As we walked on, the lady got closer, asking to have the kid back.   My girlfriend, a non-Shanghai Chinese, was a hero and tough, repeating to the little boy that we were going to the police station and ordering me not to try and talk reason to the beggar woman.

We walked 20 minutes down Shanghai’s Beijing Road, a major thoroughfare.  Lots of rubbernecking at the site of me, a white foreigner and my girlfriend taking turns carrying this little boy, with the beggar lady trailing.  No one even came close to intervening or trying to mediate the situation, which is all too typical for China (I’ll note here that picking up the boy and carting him off is not a good or respectful thing to do to him as a person, and I know that.  Open use of children night after night for panhandling just get to me after a while.)

About 25 minutes after we began this journey, we reached the police (turned out my gf had to call them.)  Two patrol cars and 4 officers, who took turns discussing the situation.

Amazingly, as we explained what was going on to the police, none of them tried to take the sobbing child from my arms.  The beggar woman consistently positioned herself to keep eye contact with the kid, mouthing words to him, which of course I couldn’t see as I was looking forward and he backwards over my shoulder.  The police asked me several times if my complaint was that I suspected the child was not the woman’s.  Although he called her “ayi” (auntie) and not mom, that wasn’t where I was coming from.  I told the police that it’s nearly midnight and this kid is being used for panhandling.

The Shanghai police told me that Chinese laws are different than foreign laws.  I had no choice but to shrug and accept that.  I had played the cards well throughout the saga, telling the boy within earshot of the police that he was brave and could grow up to be a good hero like these cops.  The police assuaged the situation by putting the woman and child into the patrol car “to check their IDs”.  So ended a perfect night…

Two nights ago, on the same road and 2+ weeks later, I saw that boy begging a group of men for cash, and the woman holding roses for sale.  She got one look at me and immediately called out to the boy (who were about 150 meters apart), and together they ran down the street away from me.  Booking at full speed and not looking back.  Last night, I was on the road again with my girlfriend, and another older lady beggar approached.  My gf said to her, “don’t you know who we are?  We’re the ones who got the cops involved.  The beggar stepped back in shock, speechless, and staggered off.  I conclude that whatever the cops did that night disrupted the beggars business for the night, and made for quite a story.

The next night, businesss again as usual.  Except now they keep their distance from me.

The register is reporting that China is about to take measures to clamp down on lip-synching:

China’s ministry of culture has announced a clampdown on miming professional musos, marking an end to lip-synching and fake guitar strumming…

…the new regs will not affect amateur performers such as Lin Miaoke, who famously mimed Ode to the Motherland at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

The ministry’s Sun Qiuxia said it would first “consult with the public over the next few weeks, before agreeing final details of new rules on commercial performances”.

Nator, in case you were worried, the new regulations will not apply to Air guitar, so we are definitely still on for next Friday!

As reported by Ars Technica:

Those who are using pirated versions of Windows—particularly those in China—are getting riled up over Microsoft’s latest tactic to “encourage” them to purchase legit copies. The software giant recently began issuing an update that changes users’ desktop backgrounds to a black wallpaper with a reminder to switch to a legal copy of Windows as part of the Windows Office Genuine Advantage program. Now, Chinese users in particular are getting up in arms over the tactic, saying that Microsoft is violating their rights and isn’t thinking of its users.

How dare they!

It’s worth pointing out that the update wasn’t just issued in China—it was released to XP users across the globe who have opted to allow Internet updates from Microsoft. However, Microsoft says that there has been little outcry in other parts of the world, with Chinese users apparently alone in their angst. And angsty they are. “Why is Microsoft automatically connected with my computer? The computer is mine!” one commenter wrote on Sina.com

So let me get this straight. Users are upset because their stolen unpaid for copy of Windows is reminding them that their copy is not legit, because they downloaded the latest Microsoft Genuine Advantage update, which is completely voluntary. I am confused. Why didn’t they listen to the guy at Hailong that told them to turn off the automatic updates.

A few other sections in the article caught my attention:

Still, upsetting what could potentially be Microsoft’s largest software market could turn out to be a bad move…

it could add to Microsoft’s troubles in monetizing a huge market with a proven appetite for its software.

A proven appetite indeed, but for fake unpaid for software.  Let’s do the math. Let’s say a half of Microsoft in China users now get a black screen on their computer, and of those a quarter decide to switch to another operating system. Microsoft’s net loss would be: 50% x 25% x 0$ = 0$ .

China may decide it’s fed up with Microsoft’s antics and either try and build its own software solution or make a serious investment in other, open source options, practical or not.

Good luck!

China has “successfully” explored this path before: WAPI instead of WiFI, their own version of RFID, TD-SCDMA their own 3G standard. Why would someone pay for such a software solution when they can get free copies of Windows?

But the worst part is that, after the very first time I am actually on Microsoft’s side, they go on and do this:

Microsoft, of course, has already begun to do damage control on Chinese users’ reactions to the blackouts. “We are extremely grateful for our users’ attention. At the same time, we believe there are numerous misunderstandings about the Windows Office Genuine Advantage program,”Microsoft wrote in an open letter to its Chinese users, published on Sina.com

There is a follow-up post which examines the possibility that the bus driver insulted the girls in the video:

Last week, video footage from Wuhan bus line 519 showed two Northeastern men from Heilongjiang Province ruthlessly beating and kicking the female bus driver. Chinese across the country were outraged, many calling Northeastern Chinese violent animals. But, some Chinese wondered if the video showed the whole truth, noticing that parts of the video recording was cut out.

Soon, other posters claiming to have been on the bus when the beating happened told a different story about what really happened that day between the Wuhan bus driver, the two Northeastern girls, and the two Northeastern young men who eventually beat her.

A couple things from the translated user comments struck me. First, they reveal the strong regional attitudes and stereotypes (Wuhanese as rude; Northeastern girls in other cities as prostitutes) that rarely are reported in English language news about China. Second, many of the users quoted seem to think that, if the bus driver did insult the girls, then it was either acceptable or at least understandable that she was repeatedly and viciously kicked in the head.

Finally, some commenters argued that the attacked must have been justified because no one else stepped in to stop it:

If it was really like how it was reported, that the female bus driver was completely justified and in the weaker position, that the young men attacked her, why did none of the many people on the bus come out and prevent/stop it? Not even anyone to say a word? The answer is obvious, that although the driver was weaker, she was unreasonable, and even her words and performance made the other passengers on the bus feel dissatisfied, such as being tough or viciously cursing people. Of course, it also possible the other passengers were just different and wanted to avoid causing trouble for themselves.

Personally, I think the final sentence is closer to the truth. In eight years of observing fights in China, I have seen crowds gather to watch even the hint of a fight, but I have never seen anyone step in and try to break up a seriously violent fight.