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Sunday, August 10, 2008
The gold medalists of serendipity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Evan, left, and Will Randall of Marietta and Rachel Cathy of Jonesboro are having MOR fun than you can imagine here in Beijing.
A guy and a girl are walking down a street in Beijing. She spots his UGA hat and goes, “Go Dawgs!”
“You’re from Georgia?” he asks.
“Atlanta,” she says.
“I am too!” he says, and they start talking about what they miss back home.
“Chick-fil-A,” he says. “Man, do I miss Chick-fil-A.:”
She smiles, reaches into her pocket and pulls out one of those little “Eat Mor Chickin” cows.
Evan Randall of Marietta has just run into Rachel Cathy of Jonesboro, granddaughter of Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy and niece of its president, Dan Cathy. He’s a 2006 UGA grad, now living in Beijing on a Fulbright scholarship. She’s a 2008 UGA grad just here for the Games and figured what better way to spread international goodwill than some free sandwich coupons and stuffed cows?
“I was like, maybe I’ll carry these around,” she said, never dreaming she’d run into folks from metro Atlanta.
Cathy and Evan and his brother Will, a Rice University student, were celebrating Will’s last night in Beijing when the chance meeting occurred. He’s got to head home to get ready for the school year.
“I am so sad to be leaving,” he said.
But at least he can hit Chick-fil-A soon.
International diplomat John Mion at his seat of power: a table at the Beijing Hooters.
Atlanta’s corporate community has exported much of itself abroad. You can’t take three steps without spotting a Coke logo. A giant General Electric sign is one of the first things you see upon landing at the airport. And when I ship my clothes home to make room in my suitcase for souvenirs, it won’t be hard to find a FedEx or UPS location.
But let’s not forget the Atlanta-based corporation famous waitresses in clingy orange shorts and tank tops. That’s right, there is a Hooters in Beijing.
That’s where we went to watch the U.S. team play China tonight, figuring we’d run into some Yanks in the crowd. And that’s where we met John Mion, who has lived in Beijing for two years. He works for a company that salvages materials, like the platinum in old carburetors.
He says he’s gotten many a deal going here over plates of chicken wings and that introducing Chinese to Hooters takes on something of a diplomatic air.
“I don’t mean that in an arrogant way,” said Mion, whose brother lives in Alpharetta. “You’ve got to spread real Americana. They think everything is just McDonald’s and KFC.”
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Shop, then play
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo had a few hours to kill this afternoon, what with tonight’s game against China not starting until 10:15 p.m.
So why not get a little shopping in?
I happened to be in the Pearl Market doing, um, research, when a swarm of people rushed past, all yanking cameras and cell phones out of their bags. Seems the former Atlanta Hawk had decided to drop by.
Sorry this photo’s so crummy. I fired off one shot, then security guards flooded the area where the crowd had gathered.
Afterward a fellow shopper came by to show me the picture he’d taken (it was much better, by the way) and asked, “Is he from the U.S.? Does he play basketball?”
Speaking of the Pearl Market
I must have good taste. Laura Bush and I shop at the same jewelry store here.
Just not at the same time.
The first lady’s visit was all the buzz today on the top floor of the Pearl Market. Unlike the boisterous lower floors, where grabby vendors shout and shove, the top floor is a a serene haven where genteel staffers ply you with bottled water or Diet Coke, invite you to sit down and compliment you lavishly, in the hopes you’ll buy something.
Mrs. Bush bought a strand for a friend, as a gift, the staff at one shop was all too eager to report.
“She said, ‘hello everyone,’ and was very nice,” shop owner Ru Pei Pei said. Her store didn’t make the sale, but has previously sold pearls to former President Carter. They must have hit it off because there’s a photo of Ru and President and Rosalynn Carter hanging in her shop.
“They bought pearls here before, and when I went to the U.S. I called his secretary,” Ru said. She visited Atlanta several years ago and met the Carters at the Carter Center.
They were so friendly,” she said.
Weather report
It’s raining here, which I’m hoping will clear the air a little. (My eyes look all bloodshot from the smog, like I’ve just come off a bender or something. Not really the ideal ‘Fly look, you know?)
The big news is that yesterday, for a time, the sun came out. Sort of. Enough to cast a shadow anyway. This brought out a lovely display of parasols, brightly colored and made of silky fabric, unlike the utilitarian umbrellas that popped open today.
Turn it up!
You’re going to think I’m making this up, but I’m not. Most of what I hear on the radio during cab rides is Chinese singers and talk shows. Yesterday, out of the blue, one local station’s repertoire expanded for a few minutes and played, I kid you not: Sweet Home Alabama.
He’s not just another tourist
A guy in shorts and a polo shirt walks into one of the buildings on the Olympic Green, to admire a collection of statues on display.
But this is not just another tourist. And these are not just any statues.
Michael Shapiro, director of the High Museum, is taking in the display of Terracotta Warriors being shown at the Johnson & Johnson pavilion. A major exhibition of warriors is headed to the High this November.
Given Beijing and Atlanta’s Olympic connection, Shapiro says, the timing couldn’t be better.
“It’s a harmonic convergence,” he said.
Five warriors, including a general, are on display here, along with some tools of their trade and several cases of fragments. It’s a cerebral addition to the Olympic Green (nearby, a group of street performers were juggling basketballs to the sounds of “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas).
Back at the exhibition, Shapiro was gracious enough to give us a brief but highly informed tour. Although he’s seen the warriors half a dozen times, both in their native Chian Province and on display at the British Museum, he retains a fresh sense of delight about them.
“A number of the pieces have clay stamps that indicate quality control, like when you buy a shirt and it says, ‘inspected by No. 7.’ No. 7 was working in 220 B.C,” he says.
Shapiro and his wife are here with Coca-Cola exec Tom Mattia, who is on the board of the High. Watching the opening ceremony, he was struck by similarities between the 2008 drummers who performed at the beginning of the event, and the ancient warriors.
“Our culture is based on the individual, this culture has been based on the group ethos, which is manifestly evident here,” he said.
He hopes that with the Games wrapping up so close to the opening of the High’s warriors exhibit, Atlanta’s interest in China will bring them to the museum.
“it’s the ideal way into Chinese history,” he said.
Song of the South
I packed a few things to keep from getting homesick, like a t-shirt that reminds me of a good friend and a candle (thanks to my gracious, tenacious, extraordinarily talented colleague Michelle Hiskey for that suggestion).
As it turns out, there’s Southern hospitality all around you here: cicadas. As in the South this time of year, the air is filled with the sound of their vibrating wings. Unlike the South, you can find cicadas on the menu here, and packaged for other uses. I’m not sure if the guys pictured above are pets or what, but they rang out a welcome in a little shop I ducked into yesterday.
Inside, the proprietor offered some for sale.
