Dodger Blue in Beijing

The weekend I had been waiting for since January came and went in a flash. I got into Beijing Friday afternoon and hardly recognized the city I had lived in during the Summer of 2002. Despite the smog, the city is very, very clean and I would say about 80% of the buildings are brand new with infinite more being built. The streets are very clean and what makes Beijing even better is that they don't allow residents to hang their clothes outside to dry so the high rises look like proper apartment buildings as opposed to Shanghai where nearly every building is disgraced by the lines of granny-panties hanging out the window for all to see. Moving on... I met my friend Andrew, a new friend Jeremy I had been introduced to through a friend and his friend Catherine (I need a synonym here for friend I think). Catherine is really interesting: She works for the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi and didn't go to college but speaks english with possibly the best fluency of any Chinese person I have met here. And she lives right by me near Fudan so I have a new friend. Yay! Here is a picture with Me, Cat, Andrew and Jeremy.

So on to the game.

It was a beautiful, clear day and perfect for a game. The stadium was brand new but lacked any sort of character. You can't blame them though for not putting too much effort into is since the stadium is being torn down right after the Olympics so that new apartment buildings can be built. There was a makeshift tent called Texas Roadhouse BBQ that sold hot dogs, chicken burritos, beef sandwiches, peanuts, etc. After a close look at all the pictures of the food I went with the hot dog which came pre-smothered in relish and mustard...ick. Umm...I'll just say it was no Dodger Dog :( . Beyond that the game itself was pretty uneventful. I only recognized two players, Matt Kemp and Chan Ho Park, as the Dodgers brought all rookies, AAA players AND the token Chinese player from Taiwan Hu Chang-shei. Hu is his last name so when he made it to first base there was a wave of chuckles that rippled through the few Americans in the crowd (if you don't get why think Abbott & Costello). The score ended in a tie, 3-3, and with not much action. However the real action came in between innings when the entertainment took the field. Sometimes an emcee would come out and a play would be shown on the big screen and she would ask an audience member what the play was or other typical in-between innings entertainment. BUT the real fun began when these girls came out after the 2nd inning.

Unfortunately for us MLB's funds are all going toward steroid probes and we had to be subjected to this "entertainment" about 6 times. I just felt weird watching it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cheerleaders but they seemed to take the worst aspects of cheerleading: skimpy, yet unflattering outfits, oversized pom-poms and uncoordinated routines. Talk about setting the women's lib movement back 50 years. The best part about it is that they would come out and do their routines about 15 feet in front of the players dugout. So odd.

So the weekend was great. I found a new appreciation for Beijing and even found the old Outback Steakhouse I lived at in 2002 after 6 weeks of Chinese food did me in!