Absurdity, Allegory and China

I considered entitling this entry The Embarrassment of Bitches using the term bitch in one of its other-than-canine, more offensive definitions, as “a man considered to be weak and contemptible,” and bitches as its affixed plural. My thoughts on the definition of this word were a lot less kind this morning while I circumambulated Tian’anmen Square , or more accurately, as I circumambulated (CCW BTW) the security perimeter that had been effectively erected around Tian’anmen Square that turned the world’s largest public square into the world’s largest private audience space for the viewing of a flame. It was nearly papal in its shroud of mystery and holy exclusivity. Today was the day that the Olympic torch arrived in the Kingdom to heat up the One World, One Dream scene , though the People, unsurprisingly, were not invited to share in the warmth from the new Attic hearth. Neither was I.

My desire to see the arrival of the flame was spurred on last night while reading a piece in the WSJ that mentioned that the flame was being flown into Beijing this morning (March 31), and subsequently delivered to the Square. What great luck, I thought, to be in Beijing for such auspiciousness. But my bad angel was yelling, “Right! They’re gonna let you in? You’re dreamin”!”

But my plan had been formed: I would try my best to get to Tian’anmen and get a glance at what has been the Chinese equivalent of the Holy Grail. I have been here long enough to have lived through all the screaming hoopla and hammer drilling leading up to the Olympics, and I felt that I owed myself an attempt to see it.

On that faraway July night in 2001 when the announcement was made that China had, indeed, won the right to host the Olympics, we had already been here three years. My wife and I immediately got on our bikes and rode through the streets of Tianjin, which everyone suspected would be an Olympic venue if the Games were, in fact, landed. Though the celebration that Tianjin evening was not what it was in Beijing, there were signs of enthusiasm and, of course, fireworks. We were happy for China, (though we had no idea we would be here to actually see the Games, and truth be known, we still don’t know if we will be, visas being what visas are). Be that as it may, we had all been assured that China would be a responsible host, and that their long-standing record of harshly handling domestic dissension would, in fact, be addressed and brought up to an acceptable international standard. All thumbs-up in 2001. Good on them.

So finally the big day was here, and I wanted to be part of it. So in the late hours of Sunday night I went online and searched for the time of the celebration, first to Xinhua, who, I wrongly expected, would be trumpeting the arrival along with all the vital stats, such as the ETA of the visible symbol of Light, Hope and Harmony. No luck finding the time. China Daily, the same. CRI, China Radio International, too left me high and dry. No one seemed to be posting the start time. Finally I found it somewhere, though I am pretty sure it wasn’t at a Chinese site.

So on this fine March morning, staring down the barrel of the 29th Olympiad, I set out to see The Flame. After all, on April 26, 2007, the China Daily reported:

“As the prelude to the Beijing Olympic Games, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay is one of the most important ceremonies and a major means to spread and promote the Olympic spirit,” said BOCOG President Liu Qi. “As one of the grand ceremonies for the Beijing Olympic Games, the Torch Relay of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games has set its theme as the ‘Journey of Harmony’ and the slogan ‘Light the Passion, Share the Dream’.”

I am not a threatening presence. I am not young, and the fire in my eye is more blown-out glowing match head than wildfire. My close-cropped hair is grey and getting greyer every day, and today I purposely did not wear a hat so as to impress upon those who I expected would restrict my mission, that I am laole, just another old guy without an axe to publically grind. My plan was to smile a lot if I came up against official resistance, and I followed it, which is not something I always do. I also didn’t bring a pack that could be misconstrued as concealing a deadly banner, though I did have my camera. I behaved and dressed to get into the show, but the bad angel had it right. There was no way I was getting anywhere close.

I started out west of Tian’anmen beside the National Grand Theatre, a recent addition to the Beijing architectural landscape which has been unflatteringly dubbed “The Egg” by Beijingers who have a way of sarcastically cutting to the heart of things. (Some refer to the CCTV Headquarters as da kucha, or “big shorts,” as in underwear.) I’d taken a cab to the street between The Great Hall of the People and The Egg, and hopped out two hundred meters or so south of Chang’an Jie. The two immediately obvious details were that I was dramatically outnumbered by variously colored uniformed security personnel, and everything was cordoned off in plastic tape. Even the sidewalks were off-limits.

I got the ball rolling by asking a blue-uniform how to get to the Square. He seemed a little taken aback, as if he wanted to ask, “Didn’t you get the memo?” He led me to a security bus where five of his compadres were laying back, cooling their heels. He called for the youngest, the most English-ly efficient of the bunch, who stepped out and tried to engage me in English, which, actually, he couldn’t speak a word of. Nice kid, though. So we spoke in his language and he eventually told me that there was no way I was going to get to Tian’anmen from here. The first guy, standing in the background, said, “Come back this afternoon,” but I told him I wanted to see The Flame. He turned and walked away. The youngster pointed across the street and told me to ask the guys across the way if I could get to the Square through them. They were the mustard-brown uniformed tall guys, one of whom flatly told me, “Qu bu liao!” punctuating his words with a raised hand, palm out wave. He told me to head south. So, I did, toward Qianmen. Every nook and cranny that looked the least bit like a passage had uniforms standing in them.

At Qianmen there seemed to be more security personnel than there were people gathering. There I was funneled further south into an alley which I was eventually able to stroll out of. To not beat this horse too badly, I spent the next hour asking all manner and color of uniformed security guys if I could get to Tian’anmen. And in response I received the full spectrum of replies to my “Weishenme” (Why?), from contempt to shame to eyes cast down apologies and awkwardness. One guy on Chang’an Jie near Wangfujing, laughed with me, not at me, and said, “Mei banfa,” which in this case I translated as “That’s the way it is.” We both threw up our hands and laughed again.

To sum up, the morning was full of “Qu bu liao!” and “Zou! Zou! Zou!” which I liberally translate as “You can’t get there from here,” and “Keep moving.” I finally gave up in my search for Olympic goodwill, shared dreams and unified world. I headed down into the subway. AP reported later that one subway station was closed. They got it wrong. Two stations were closed: Tian’anmen East and West. And that “noticeable boost in security in downtown Beijing” that they reported was a lot more noticeable if you didn’t have an invitation or a press pass.

When I got back to where I was staying I turned on the television and did a quick run-through the channels. Between CCTV and Beijing TV the event was being broadcast live on at least five different stations. There’s a lesson here concerning information, television and harmony, but right now I’m going to pass on plumbing those depths.

But I can’t leave without getting back to my considered title: The Embarrassment of Bitches. When I turned on the television and got to see what I couldn’t quite get to, it was hard not to notice that a delegation from the IOC had front row seats, right next to the beaming political hosts, and I thought, “Hmmm…, maybe there’s a canine quality to it after all.”

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