International events

So, the 24th Winter Universiade has been and gone. The closing ceremony – a pile of boring speeches and lots of people in white floating around, mainly - was last night. We couldn’t get to Pizza Hut because of it! It’s an outrage.

Anyway, as promised to myself I went to one event last Sunday, namely some figure skating (ice dance original dance and pairs free skating to be precise). A bit girly, I’m afraid, and not my first choice as I prefer more exciting events like short-track speed skating or that thing with the tea-tray that I mentioned before, but needs must when you’re short of time and Chinese language skills and the pavements are all covered in ice and snow. Still, apart from an office outing to the races I’d never been to a live sporting event before, so I reckoned it would be an experience.

It was.

You know how I told you Harbin was hoping to bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics? It turns out I was wrong and that should have been 2018. Well, sorry to break it to you, my dear Harbiner friends, but maybe you should make it, like, 2068? Perhaps that would give you enough time to work out what’s actually involved in hosting an international event.

The key word here is ‘international’. Now I’m the first to admit I’ve been lazier than a narcoleptic sloth when it comes to making any attempt to learn Chinese. In fact I’ve made none. I can say more or less the same things now as I could 6 months ago, namely ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Receipt please’ (very important!), ‘Here’ (to taxi drivers), ‘Where is it?’ (not anything specific, so not that helpful really), and occasionally if I really put my mind to it I can manage ‘I don’t understand’, which we’ve proved is more useful than Peter’s ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ said in perfect Chinese, because they never believe him! This is entirely my own fault. I know this.

But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that if you’ve got several thousand foreign athletes and their entourages coming to your city, and you’re therefore expecting some foreign spectators, and you’ve gone to the trouble of creating an English version of the website for the event, that there might have been some attempt to make the thing accessible to non-Chinese speakers? I’m thinking along the lines of maybe some signage in English? English-speaking volunteers to assist the confused, à la Beijing Olympics, that sort of thing?

No.

And you’d probably imagine that if said English website appears to have a booking facility on it - albeit one without any means of payment, but that’s understandable in a cash-based economy where few people use credit cards – that you would maybe inform the ticket office that people might be turning up with order numbers taken from this website, expecting to collect pre-booked tickets, as promised.

No.

And you might even, in a radical move, make the location of said ticket office prominent, or at the very least let your staff operating in other parts of the venue nearby know where it is, in case anyone asks. And make sure these staff speak English, in case ditto.

No.

And indeed make the entrance to the venue itself obvious. And have concession stands selling food (western as well as Chinese, maybe – you know, just hot-dogs or something, I’m not asking for the moon here). And a well-signposted – no, let’s say several well-signposted – souvenir shops or stalls, with English-speaking staff. Oh and have English-speaking staff in the ticket office, just in case the non-Chinese-speaking would-be spectators should ever stumble across it.

No, no, no and no.

Here’s how it went.

I go on the website and book a ticket (so I think), at the end of which transaction it gives me an order number. We’ve never got around to buying a printer for the house here so I write the order number down on a piece of paper. I am told to bring this order number, and my passport, to the ticket office at the International Conference Centre to collect my ticket. I had planned to do this in advance of the actual event, but as the skating was to take place at the same venue, and as Peter pointed out that the Chinese don’t expect to plan anything in advance, I was persuaded to wait until the day of the competition itself before venturing forth.

So last Sunday afternoon I duly tramp through the snow to the place where the Conference Centre is (next to our supermarket), only to realise I don’t actually know where the entrance is. I search for signs either to the event or to the ticket office. There are none, but some red LCD lettering above a couple of doors indicates that the adjoining hotel is indeed something to do with the Winter Universiade. Avoiding the one which appears to be for delegates only, I approach the other door. This is blocked by several security guards, none of whom appear to be older than 14 as is the norm here, larking around in the doorway. On seeing me, they look at each other and after a moment’s whispering they laughingly push forward the only one who can speak any English. (This is also quite a common reaction we get.)

‘May I help you?’ he says haltingly.

‘Yes’, I reply. ‘Could you tell me where the ticket office is please?’

‘Ticket office…’ he repeats wonderingly. He thinks a moment, then points towards the ‘delegates’ door. ‘This way please’.

‘Here?’ I reply in some scepticism, but he seems adamant, so off I go.

It only takes a second to work out I’m in the wrong place. There’s a red carpet, security screening, a desk with information packs, uniformed attendants with security passes around their necks. This is clearly not the place for Joe Public.

One chap springs forward and says in apparently fluent English, ‘Good afternoon madam. May I check your card please?’, indicating his security pass.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a card. I just want to pick up a ticket. Could you please tell me where to go?’

‘Ticket….’, he repeats, just as wonderingly as the first chap. He looks around helplessly for a minute, then urgently beckons a colleague across. This chap really does speak a little English, so I try again.

‘Ah,’ says Chap 2. ‘You go out of this door and you turn, ah, right? Yes, right. You will see hotel called the Hua Ha Hotel’ (turns to friend) ‘Hua Ha Hotel?’ (Friend shrugs). He continues, ‘You can collect ticket here’.

There is now only about 10 minutes to go before the skating starts. I repeat these instructions and thank him. Retracing my steps past the first door, I go round the corner and come upon an obscure and unlikely-looking door, with a very small, indistinct and ambiguous sign which could possibly be interpreted as meaning one can purchase tickets inside. The door is virtually impossible to open but I fight my way in.

Now maybe I’ve been spoilt by living in Edinburgh, but when I’m told to go to a box office to collect a ticket booked online, I imagine something like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Box Office. A long but patient roped-off queue; banks of computers manned by hyper-efficient staff calling ‘Next’ and turning over thousands of customers in an hour by printing off tickets in batches thanks to their state-of-the-art computer system.

Guess what? No.

This ticket office turns out to be one tiny, dingy room with one tiny, dingy computer, manned by one harassed girl and a bloke who looks like he doesn’t work there but has just dropped by to chat to his pal and is watching with interest while she does her job, and occasionally trying to help despite not having a clue what he’s doing (another common set-up in Chinese shops). A group of excited Chinese are gathered around Girl with Computer, one man waving a bunch of tickets and all shouting.

I hang back and attempt to wait while they resolve their dispute, but after a minute or two, Girl with Computer’s Helpful Friend spots me and beckons me forward. I present my order number. He stares at it in some perplexity.

After a while, the excitement of there being a westerner in the shop distracts the shouting group from whatever other excitement had been preoccupying them, and the hubbub dies down. Helpful Friend shows my paper to Girl. She grabs it with both hands and stares at it. She starts to follow the numbers with her finger, muttering under her breath and shaking her head in utter incomprehension as though I had given her a scroll in ancient Aramaic. I attempt to explain. She asks me something. Not knowing what else to do, I present my passport as instructed by the website. She checks this with a little more confidence, thanks me and hands it back. Having thus, apparently, concluded our business, she returns her attention to the shouters. We have reached an impasse.

After a couple of minutes, seeing I am still waiting, Helpful Friend tries again to decipher my paper but is hampered by the fact that he has taken it from me upside-down. I turn it round and try again to explain what I want. Eventually a woman from the shouting group leans on my shoulder and asks me something urgently. I shrug. She runs into a back office and drags out a young woman with long, highlighted, fluffy bunches in her hair which exactly match her long, highlighted fur coat. She has her arm round this girl and is laughing and shouting something at her in an encouraging manner. She pushes her forward.

‘Can I help you?’ says Fluffy Bunches.

‘Oh yes please!’ I exclaim in relief. ‘I booked a ticket on the computer. This is my order number. I just want to collect the ticket and I was told I could get it here.’

She, too, grabs the paper with both hands and stares and stares at it. ‘Online?’ she says.

‘Yes!’ I cry, ‘I booked it online!’ but still she stares.

‘But, what is the date?’ she asks eventually.

‘Today’, I say in some desperation. ‘Now!’

‘Now? Figure skating?’

‘Yes!’ I reply. At last we’re getting somewhere.

But she’s still frowning and staring at the paper. ‘But, how much do you want?’ she asks.

I think for a minute. How much do I want? Not much really, just the love of my husband, the assured safety and health of those I love, world peace, enough money to live on comfortably without ever having to work again, maybe a big house in the country, a cat would be nice…before I realise what she means is How many do I want.

‘Oh’, I reply. ‘One. One ticket.’ I hold up one finger for emphasis and smile pleadingly.

She turns to Girl with Computer. ‘Blah blah-blah blah blah blah blah’ (indicating me) ‘blah blah, blah, blah blah blah-blah’ (indicating computer and waving vaguely in outside direction), ‘blah blah blah blah. Blah.’ (facial expressions clearly implying, ‘Go on, go on, go on, just do her a favour, for me, eh?’) ‘Blah-blah. You pay cash?’ (Me, startled), ‘Yes, I’ll pay cash’, ‘Blah blah blah blah-blah. One hundred and fifty. Here is your ticket.’

‘Oh thank you!’ I say. ‘But, where do I go?’

‘Please, follow me!’ she says. The woman who fetched her seems to find this highly amusing and embraces her again, repeating ‘Follow me! A-ha-ha-ha-ha! Follow me! Ha ha ha!!’ Meanwhile I’m attempting to pay for my hard-won ticket while she tries to drag me out of the door, saying ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ I just about manage to hand over my 150 RMB to Laughing Woman, who hands it to Girl with Computer, and thank everyone, whereupon they all happily resume shouting and we make our exit.

It turns out that by pure chance Cassie (for such is my new friend’s name) is also going to see the figure skating. She leads me outside and down the steps into the shopping centre, which seems to be the wrong way, but I dutifully follow. We are accompanied by her friend who walks the whole considerable distance backwards in front of us taking hundreds of photos of us both, even after Cassie asks her to stop. She pauses to buy some Chinese flags, and gives me one. We go through the shopping centre and walk up the escalator which is never switched on and appears to go nowhere, at the top of which we meet up with Cassie’s boyfriend, bearing bags of bread.

After about a half-mile trek we join up with the entrance where the rest of the public (99.99% of them Chinese, I wonder why!) are filing in from outside. A guard lifts a barrier to let us through. We go through security like at an airport. After about another half-mile we reach the auditorium and Cassie tells me which area I can find my seat in. I thank her profusely and tell her, truthfully, that I could never have found it without her. ‘It is my pleasure,’ she replies in great seriousness.

My issues did not end here. There was the health & safety issue (trailing wires everywhere, a large wooden ramp half-covering a staircase for no apparent reason and over which I had to climb, thus nearly pitching head-first onto the ice rink), the seat numbering issue (that in which I was told to sit bearing no obvious relation to the number on my ticket), the lack of food & drink issue, and the souvenir stall issue, which involved queueing to get a number which you then took to another desk to get your goods, but not being able to find out the price of anything before joining the long queue – it seems the Chinese can queue to get in a queue, but not at any other time.

But the skating was good, if a little riddled with falling-over mishaps. It turned out that everyone had come to see two particularly good Chinese pairs skaters who were streets ahead of everyone else and won by miles. The crowd were the most partisan I’ve ever heard, cheering wildly whenever anybody Chinese did anything, and pretty much ignoring everyone else. After the Chinese Pairs pair had won, everybody left (including me, it must be said, but mainly because I was cold and hungry and Peter was due home from a business trip), leaving the unfortunate male solo skaters to compete in front of a virtually empty auditorium.

So a fun time was had, but not quite in the way I expected. And the Winter Olympics? Maybe next century.

Stop Press!

Talking of international events, we have a little one of our own to tell you about, for those of my readers who haven’t yet been privy to this information. In July we will be bringing a new small international person into the world. Yes I’m 21 weeks pregnant, and planning to give birth in Shanghai – hence our frequent visits there for the past couple of months, for me to attend a western clinic.

Being pregnant in Harbin has given rise to some interesting experiences, such as trying to buy a pregnancy test in a Chinese chemist (I ended up drawing a fat stick-person with a question mark over their head!) and a scary visit to a Chinese state-run maternity hospital. So we opted for Shanghai where you get English-speaking doctors and we know lots of people who can help us out. We’ll be decamping to live there for 6-8 months from the end of March.

Which leaves me with a dilemma, blog fans. My blog is called ‘From Scotland to Siberia’, and I’ll be deserting Siberia for much warmer climes for a while. I wish I could do it the other way round – summer in Harbin and winter in Shanghai would be SO much more pleasant, weather-wise – but Baby (and airline regulations) won’t let me.

So can you forgive me if I write about Shanghai instead for a bit? Peter will still be making frequent visits up north so he can report back. And with my blogging friend at Living the Hai Life about to return to Blighty, maybe I can fill her gap a little. So don’t desert me, please. Shanghai is fun. And we’ll be back in Siberia in the autumn!