At 6am we heard a knock at the door of the Mansion and Mike went in his boxers to see what the ruckus was. Ana and Dale, with bottles in hand, were just coming back from the bars. The sun was peeping over the trees behind them and they covered their eyes from the light. We all went to sleep and at noon, we were all on the couch again laughing, hydrating and looking for tickets on craigslist. Luckily the mansion had a cleaning lady who showed up shortly after we all awoke and began collecting bottles and sweeping up chips.

Personally, I think having a cleaning lady is morally and ethically awkward. Another human being comes to clean up after you—I find it hard to digest. In China a cleaning lady is called an Ai’yi. Ai is the same sound as the word for ‘love’ in Chinese, and many expats living in China do indeed love their ai’yis, and would hardly survive without them. The mansion was just such a place, and the ai’yi looked at home amid the boy’s jokes and half nude greetings of hello.

Dale had to prepare for a party he was throwing that evening, so Ana, Mike and I set off to see what had changed in the past two years in Beijing. This turned out to be a far bigger project than we could manage in one day. First we went to eat lunch at a small side-street café. It could just as well have been Pairs for all its charm. Afterward we went to see the now famous CCTV building, which is shaped like a moibus strip.

Construction was not yet finished, but we took pictures and walked around marveling at the rate of development in the area. We headed off towards Tienanmen Square after the CCTV tower, eager to revisit all of our very first hostel in China—the Far Eastern Hostel near the square. A great place, which I highly recommend. However, the area around the hostel (though not the street itself) had been completely leveled and rebuilt in the past two years! People were everywhere, the street looked like a movie set where the buildings are only real on one side. Mike was visably distraught while Ana got extremely quiet and contemplative, musing at the intricate yet plastic light posts meant to resemble the Qing dynasty.

At a small tourist-trap stall Ana spotted children’s T-shirts for RMB10, or about a dollar. She tried it on and it barely fit. We both purchased them and went to a nearby bar and requested three beers and a pair of scissors. We cut the necks lower, the waists higher and the sleeves off, and then we put the shirts in our purses and headed for the subway—the athletics final would begin in less than an hour.

The Beijing subway has been greatly improved in the past two years, however, it still leaves a bit to be desired in that an exit from one line may be a good half mile underground from the connecting line. Meaning, we were extremely late getting to the Bird’s Nest. We popped out of the Olympic metro rail into the Olympic park, a massive cement field with flashing colored lights, statues and a massive walkway that truly was, dare I say—Olympian. We rushed towards the stadium, completely in awe of its glowing red design. Finding our sector we climbed a massive set of steps to the third tier and found our seats. I remember very vividly the very first glimpse I had in the Nest, we were walking up the steps to the entry way and I heard a roar so loud my feet trembled. I looked up and saw thousands of people, it looked like a vermin-infested bird’s nest alright, only humans were the vermin. I was shocked to see so many people in one place. Ana and I pulled on our modified kids T shirts, which read across the chest, “I Love China.” We pulled out American flags and sat them on our lap, and pulled out our cameras and poised them for the first spectacle.

Looking down on the field, it felt too close, like we could spit and hit a world class athlete. We all sat silently in our seats for a few moments before bursting into screams the moment our first relay began. Ana and Mike were jumping and screaming, I was half crouched under their waving arms, urging our runner to pick up the pace. This continued for a half an hour before the first beer run. Beer, as I may have mentioned, was less than a dollar a glass at the Olympics, and truly a gift from the government. When Ana got back we all sipped our beers and watched a new Olympic record in javelin. Afterward we saw several men sprint 12 laps, an Ethiopian runner took first and looked excited but not the least bit tired as he sprinted across the finish.

The night wore on amid pictures, races, throws and more pictures. Anthems were sung, medals were given, and beer was accidentally kicked all over the back of my I Love China T-shirt.

-posted by Lauren.

After a while it was obvious we were not going to win the game, and in fact it was 10- 2 Cuba when we walked out of the stadium with our heads down. We caught a cab and met some friends in SanLiTun, the infamous bar street in Eastern Beijing. The street is notorious for heavy parties, drugs, illicit film stores and hundreds of foreigners and very few local Chinese. It was, basically, what Chinese locals thought of America—dirty, drugged and laughing about it. We met up with our already trashed friends in a bar called the Q Bar. A young Chinese lady in the tiniest shorts and smallest shirt came up to Mike and took off his baseball cap and put it on her head.

Naturally I was furious, more because it was actually my hat, not his, and I didn’t want it getting an STD. She giggled and fell down on a padded sofa lounge, pulling another of our friends down on top of her. This went on for quite a while, until after some time it seemed normal and we forgot all about her presence.

At the Q Bar a friend of ours from Shanghai showed up with tickets to the athletics finals which he had scalped earlier that day from a Finnish soccer player. He sold us the tickets for only RMB200 more than face value—an unheard of deal. We happily paid our friend, who was unaccustomed to the lady rolling on the sofa and therefore uncomfortable, and he left. He was Australian.

The finals were the next evening at 7. We had four tickets and it did not take long to convince our friends Ana and Dale to go with us. They were more than happy to oblige. After a bit we left the Q bar and sat around outside on a park bench marveling at the clear sky.

Pollution in China is a massive problem, and one without an obvious answer. Development and industrialization is their right and aim, yet to achieve this is it really necessary to go through such a period. Already China’s progress has mimicked Americas in that we had out industrial revolution and then, when wages were high in the US and manufacturing was not really economically feasible—we outsourced our factories and became a service society. China was already following this trend in outsourcing to India. Soon, would it be a reality that all the factories in China would move outside the nation and it would too become a service industry. Meanwhile, pollution in China was rampant as most factories remained in the mainland. The next phase in a free market economy is not yet fully underway and the pollution from factories, and 1000 new cars a day added to the streets of Beijing, has left the city permanently under a heavy grey cloud. We lay on the park bench in SanLiTun and marveled at the clear sky because it was not more than two years ago we lived in Beijing and had chronic coughs, blew our nose into white towels to reveal black goo, and generally could not run more than 100 yards without collapsing. Now, looking up at the full moon we were astonished at what had transpired. Would Beijing go back to its shitty air and poor traffic and collapsing citizens after the Olympics? Probably. We got in a cab and headed back to Dale’s mansion.

-posted by Lauren.

Scalpers in Beijing

I woke up at 6am, still on the train in my mini-bunk. I rubbed my eyes and, out of the corner of my sleepy vision, saw a Chinese local with a business suit on standing in front of Mike’s bed—watching him sleep. Somewhat startled and unsure of how to react, I simply watched the man silently. Eventually he bored of his voyeurism and wondered down the hall. I rolled over onto my stomach and washed my face with a napkin dampened in bottled water, then finished my book. When I was done I looked over and woke up Mike and told him about his on-board fan club.

We arrived in Beijing two hours behind schedule, and happily so. We were on our way to drop off our backpacks at Dale’s house. Dale recently took a ‘real’ job where he previously played a certain card game for income. His roommates all made money in a similar fashion. Needless to say, they lived in the penthouse of a downtown Beijing apartment, literally a two story (with two balconies and four bathrooms) suite. The fish tank in their entry way was larger than the walking area of our entire apartment.  At 11am, when we arrived, no one was awake—having suffered a serious night of drinking and playing the previous evening. We knocked to the sound of our own echo.

Eventually a very friendly hangover answered the door. We were later to learn his name was Ben. His girlfriend, Kristy, was sleeping soundly—unamused perhaps at our ‘early’ arrival. We set down our bags and hooked up Mike’s laptop to their Wi-Fi to search for tickets. The games, sadly, were sold out. We wondered if coming to the city on a whim with no plan was a bad idea….. and then we found online scalpers.

Online scalpers are a strange lot. They openly advertise aspirations for an illegal transfer of money for tickets—something the Chinese government fought earnestly against. Craigslist.com and other social selling spots were brimming with tickets to every possible event—though at a markup, of course.  We quickly found tickets online for a reasonable fare to the Cuba vs USA baseball quarterfinal game. They were RMB 300 each, not bad.

After calling the ticket holder on the craigslist posting we were advised to trek to a specific street corner near the subway, once at that street corner we were to call the ticket holder again and he would deliver further instructions. Now, we had been watching the hit TV show The Wire, and were amazed at the similarities between dealing drugs and dealing tickets. The phone rang as we stood at the street corner, dripping sweat and wonderment. We were to head into a nearby building and await further instructions. We did do, giddy at such a silly secretive illegal dance for something that was blatantly posted all over the web (with IP tags).

A kind, overweight Armenian man came out of a nearby elevator and spotted us on the phone. He marched over and made small talk—making sure we were in fact the saps who were overpaying for baseball. We assured him we were. He produced the tickets in a sealed envelope with Mike’s name written on it. Very subversive! I put the tickets, labeled with Mike’s name, into my purse. Meanwhile Mike reached for hit wallet. The Armenian screamed and then looked around the lobby. “Not here!” and then he marched off down an unlit hallway. Confused, and somewhat too honest for our own good—we followed. In another lobby, with CCTV coverage of the whole area staring back at us as the Armenian put his palm out under Mike’s nose and looked around suspiciously. A real pro.

With the transaction complete we sat in the cab silently blinking away amusement at what had transpired. I pulled out the envelope with the tickets. Despite having watched The Wire, we had not checked the ‘purity’ of the goods. I starred at our seat assignments- the tickets were not for the same row or aisle, though they would be in the same general area. At least, we sighed, no stadiums had appeared full on TV—maybe we would be able to swap with someone?

-posted by Lauren.