From field hockey to the camera mall

Playing a bit of catchup...

On August 11, I had my first opportunity to enter the Olympic Green area. My friend James knew someone with men's field hockey tickets to unload and we picked them up at face value. Much has been made of the new subway lines in Beijing. Actually, the process for getting to the major Olympics venues is fairly convoluted. We took the 10 subway line and then transferred to a very crowded standing-room-only bus that took us northward to the field hockey stadium (next door to archery). Along the way, we passed Olympic village, new apartment buildings with many national flags hanging from the windows, many of which I did not recognize. The facilities were secured with high chain-linked fences and heavily armed guards. We saw two games, Germany vs. China and Britain vs. Pakistan. When the national anthem was played for the Germany vs. China game, the stands were almost empty. Later in the day, they filled out a bit, but there were still thousands of unused seats. It was fun to be there although field hockey is not my favorite sport. The ball makes an annoying clink every time someone hits it and goal line action is frequently halted for penalties (apparently, players often instigate penalties on purpose by hitting the ball against their opponents' feet). We sat next to a couple of grandfather and grandson from India who said they'd made a spur of the moment decision a few days earlier to go see the Olympics. Historically, India has had a strong field hockey team, but this year they had failed to qualify. India, a nation of more than a billion people, has had only limited Olympic success. Our new friends for the day spoke of the reasons for this, including political corruption–explanations that were echoed later that day in a New York Times article covering Abhinav Bindra's gold medal in the 10-meter air rifle competition. During the halftime for each day, cheerleaders came out to perform. During the British game, James stood up and roused the crowd leading cheers of "Yingguo Jiayou!" and various taunts against the Pakistani team. He got some help from the Chinese around him, but might have gotten more echoes from around the arena if he'd shouted some of the chants in English.

After the field hockey game, I headed to the Wukesong area, where baseball and basketball are being played. Actually, I was going there to look for a photo mall I had visited five years earlier. I remembered it was in the middle of nowhere... upon finding it, my first thought was it was in an area that makes the middle of nowhere look like mid-town Manhattan. I got out of the subway station and headed north along a highway, passing the sports stadiums, some new developments, getting a bit discouraged, asking for directions, being pointed onward ahead, then... I ended up at a building that looked exactly like a run-down strip mall in America–a rare sight in China, where most people use public transportation and low-storey buildings with parking lot fronts are rare. Inside the building was a camera collector's dream... numerous used camera shops, along with new camera retailers and wedding and costume shops. The new camera stores focused on equipment a bit expensive for my taste... many featured Leicas and Hasselblads, clearly some of their shoppers had a bigger budget than I did. I wanted to see if I could get any long-range zoom equipment in the $100-$200 range, even if it was a cheap mirror reflex lens. I didn't have any luck on that end but the mall was a fascinating place to stroll around in.