ISpyShanghai

Me with a volunteer

Admittedly, in the past I’ve slagged off the Olympics. They’re just an overgrown sports day, any real sports (Tennis, Boxing, Football) have their own, more important competitions, and for the minority sports: well, there’s a reason no-one normally stays up late to watch Water Polo.

On the other hand, it’s only 4 years, and I wanted to see some action damnitt.

So on Friday night I met up with WoAi, his workmate Neil, and He Who Must Not Be Named (as he gets embarassed when workmates look him up on the internets).

We got to the hotel a little after midnight. The staff there, and I assume everywhere in the capital, were in a security frenzy- photocopying all of our passports several times, searching our luggage for who knows what (luggage searches at hotels now?!), until they eventually let us go to our rooms. (Interestingly, two chinese guys had brought prostitutes to the hotel and managed to check in without any ID whatsoever. Ho hum).

Highlight of the night (other than some amazing late-night Chinese food) was talking to an American guy who was so drunk that he claimed to speak “United Nations, Asian, and other languages”- he then started talking about the word “Bloke” and how offensive it is to English people. It didn’t seem to matter that 3/4 of the table were English and told him it wasn’t offensive at all.

The next day we met up with a few friends including Chas, a mate of WoAi’s from back in the day (WoAi lived in Beijing for 5 years). We talked about going to various events; (mens) Beach Volleyball, Rowing, Sailing, Cycling but then Chas got a call from someone who was prepared to sell let him have two tickets to the athletics for face value.

Me “Is there anything good on tonight?”
Chas “Well, the men’s 100m final…”

WoAi shows the goods

I’ve always thought of the men’s 100m final to be the event in the Olympics. The race to be the fastest man in the world is the purest expression of sports I can think of, and I can remember races going back to when I was a boy. Linford Christie, Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson- it doesn’t get any more tense than the silence just before the starting pistol as the best sprinters in the world take their place.

Chas was happy to go and see other stuff whilst we had his tickets and for that Chas- I stand up and salute you (note: I am literally standing and saluting as I write this).

We still had two tickets to find and, long story short, we got them for about double the price on the ticket (OK OK- actually we went to a ticket agency in a pub bought two tickets for the athletics today and then two Fencing tickets as back up. Sold the Athletics on for a profit, and offset that against the 5,000 the guy wanted for the other two tickets).

Touting (scalping) is open and easy at the entrance to the secure zone, and since the tickets are security scanned very close to where you buy them, there was practically no risk. In fact WoAi and I waited with the tout and only gave him the money after the other two guys were through security.

Once we got through that first check point we had to take a subway (the new line 8 ) to the complex with the Birds Nest stadium, Water Cube, Olympic TV tower and whatever else they have in the grounds. The atmosphere was buzzing, people were taking photos of and with me in my Union Jack British get-up, and the sun was shining on 100,000+ happy people.

Usain Bolt's 9.69 new World Record

Since John and WoAi are as geeky as me (between the four of us we had 4 laptops, 5 cameras, and enough paraphenelia to be arrested and hung as spies) we spent a good hour outside the stadium taking photos of this and that. I expect we’ll see the results from those two in 6-8 weeks after they finish tinkering with the white balance and photoshopping out any minute specks of dust on the lens.

Neil and I eventually got bored and went to the stadium to make a start on those 30RMB beers I’ve been reading about.

The stadium is as enormous, impressive and buzzing as you’d expect a 91,000 capacity venue to be. Everything is new and well built, and although the staff serving up the snacks and drinks were pretty clueless (I think for some of them it was the first time they’d tried to pour liquid into a cup) there were so many of them that the queues were short and sweet.

After watching long jump, 800m and shotput competitions the time finally came for the main event. Tyson Gay had gone out in the semi-final so all eyes were on Usain Bolt, the Jamaican who had already broken the world record several times.
Presumably you all know what happened next.

The crowd went beserk- it was an insanely fast race with personal bests and national records being broken all over the place, but no-one was even close to Bolt who is the first man ever to break 9.70 and did it whilst stopping with a few metres to go and moonwalking over the finish line (kind of).
An amazing thing to see live, we were still talking about it as the sun came up and we finished our last drinks at 10:30 am Sunday morning.

Ticket for Athletics 1600RMB
Windowless Hotel Room in Beijing (per night) 600RMB
Flights to Beijing (return) 2100RMB
Union Flag (thanks WoAi!) 60RMB
Beer in stadium 5RMB

This weekend I broke a mirror and interviewed a prostitute.

In The Beaver, a classy bar for gentlemen, I’d just won a game of table football that was pretty much a play-by-play re-enactment of the 1966 World Cup Final. When the ball hit the tin for the final goal I went bananas with joy, banged my head against the mirror, knocking it to the ground.

If Kit from The Beaver reads this, I’m sorry. Oh and whilst we’re chatting, can I have a VIP card?

It was time to make a quick exit after that, and via a couple of bars on Tongren Lu I ended up with my boss’s nephew in one of the lower class bars on Julu Lu.

It was the kind of bar that is filled with very friendly, very thirsty girls. In fact the girls are borderline prostitutes, and I’m being pretty generous with the borderline.

At some point during the evening, one of the girls saw my name card for a website called Shanghaiist

Oh you’re a journalist!

She says

Hmmm. Yes!

Said I, (not 100% truthfully).
Well after that there was no more flirting and asking me to buy her a drink, and lots more of her telling me all about the lifestyle of Shanghai (borderline) prostitutes and me asking what seemed like insightful questions at the time.

Here are the facts that I remember:

• If you pay 45RMB for a girl’s drink, she gets 15
• Most of the girls come from the provinces and work to send their money home
• The girl I spoke to sends home between 500-2000RMB per month.
• Her momma don’t ask where the money comes from (and baby don’t tell)
• Rum makes you drunk

Most people grow up wanting to be the good guy in the films. The cops, not the robbers- the guy in the bowtie with the laser watch, not the one with the bald head stroking the cat.

Somewhere along the line though, the line between right and wrong becomes blurred; is lying OK if you’re doing it to prevent hurting someone’s feelings? Is it stealing if you don’t tell the waitress she’s given you too much change? Is it really an ‘unprovoked’ physical assault if you bash someone’s head in with a desktop printer because their ringtone is “The Shoop Shoop Song”?*

Similarly in the sometimes seedy nightlife of Shanghai there are many subtle shades of what the uneducated would call ‘prostitution’ . There are entertainers, Tiger girls, bar girls, ‘butterflies’, hostesses, ‘chickens’, and those girls on Tongren Lu who will literally jump into the taxi with you if you don’t shut the door quickly enough.

But if you yourself are starting to worry that you are a prostitute , help is at hand from the kindly bouncers at Zapatas- Shanghai’s premier place to hear the Grease mega-mix 6 times a week.

Thanks to Peter for taking the photo, and (surprise, surprise) Wiggy for passing it along.

*Unfortunately the Wolverhampton Magistrates court ruled that, yes. Yes it was.