Shanghai Ultimate Tournament

June 11, 2005

Weekend in Shanghai Ultimate

I was exhausted.
It was the deciding point of the semi-finals against Korea and they only needed one more score to finish us off. I had been chasing their all-tournament team member up and down the field the last two points, but it felt like hours to me. I knew the pressure well--a big game, top-notch opponent--I had been in similar situations in the States during College Regionals and Nationals. But this time I was in China, with 20 people I had met only two days earlier relying on me to shut my man down.
My guard slipped just for a second and he flashed up the sideline. Bam! Score. Game over.

After three days in Beijing on my first visit to China, I had left my fellow students for Shanghai. My professor described our trip to Beijing as a way to learn about Chinese life and culture, so I wanted to learn how parts of my culture interacted directly with Chinese culture—I wanted to play Ultimate Frisbee.
A week before I arrived, I decided find out if there was a team in Beijing I could practice with while I was there. It turned out there was a team, Big Brother, and they would be travelling to Shanghai the first weekend I was in the country. I exchanged a flurry of emails in the short time before I left from America to get a flight to Shanghai from Beijing, a hotel room and a spot on the team arranged. Thankfully, Michelle and Zhalen from Big Brother worked quickly to arrange everything with me, even though we had never officially met.
Back home, nearly every university has an ultimate team and there are numerous teams across America and Canada that include more experienced players and a very high level of competition. I have played four years at my university, where we have qualified twice for College Nationals. There is a great sense of community and personality between players. Although differences exist in jobs and studies, Ultimate players share a fun-loving bond of athleticism and sportsmanship in a sport with much less coverage than basketball or football.
I found very quickly from students in Beijing that most Chinese people are not familiar with Frisbee (fei pan) or at least not with the game of Ultimate. The game was started in America and combines a combination of skills and strategies from games like soccer, football, basketball and hockey. What makes Ultimate Frisbee unique among many sports though, is that spirit of play (sportsmanship) is respected above all other things. It is a non-contact sport with many rules, but there are no referees to make calls, all players make their own foul calls and resolve their own disputes.

My team’s tournament had ended with that point, but I never felt like I let them down. I was only passing through for one tournament, but the team included me in all respects. They welcomed me immediately, as each player made an effort to get to know me and make me feel like part of the team.
Most of the players were from America or Canada, but there were many from other parts of China and Asia. I discovered that everyone had found the game a different way in Asia. Some played in America, like one of Beijing’s captains, Zhalen. And others like Michelle started playing nine years ago after she arrived in Beijing.
“A friend introduced me to it,” she said. “I had never heard of the game before and I found out it’s not just passing the disc, it’s a structured game.”
Zhalen said he’s, “always chattin’ to people about ultimate. It spreads through word-of-mouth.”
In my case, I searched for an internet site and was lucky to find such great team-mates in Beijing.
Like any good ultimate tournament I had been to, Shanghai featured a party the night after the first day of games. Each team was to dress in a certain theme and Zhalen chose the colour pink to be ours. I was outfitted with a bright pink t-shirt emblazoned with Care Bears that said “Free Hugs” and pink pants that Zhalen threw at me to wear on our way out of the hotel.
Properly emasculated, I was ready to party.
At the bar it was hard to believe the number of players from other teams who introduced themselves to me and asked who I was because they didn’t recognize me. They wanted to know why I was in China, how long I was staying, where I was from and what experience I had playing. I had people offer to show me around their country if I visited, or come play with their team sometime and even one person I talked to had attended my university.
Then I met Sandy from the Beijing ‘B’ team, who insisted since it was my only weekend in Shanghai I needed to see at least some of the city. She was nice enough to take me outside to The Bund walkway along the river at 10:00 at night. I was a six-foot American on one of the busiest streets in Shanghai, dressed entirely in an obnoxious pink ensemble. I was not inconspicuous.
Many people stared at us, a few asked Sandy (a native Chinese speaker) where I was from and what “Free Hugs” meant. I felt awkward and occasionally like escaping, but the view of the lighted street was incredible and the people were amiable and good natured about the all-pink spectacle. More importantly, I didn’t know how to get back to the bar.
I survived the ordeal unscathed and with another memorable experience from the weekend. It was another memory for me to tuck away that I otherwise would have missed had it not been for Ultimate.
The Asian Ultimate scene was described to me as a “transient” community. Although some players stay in one city for many years working for a school or a corporation, most only spend a year or two before they are gone to somewhere else. I still find it amazing how closely a group of people can come together through a sport. In Shanghai, Ultimate Frisbee transcended countries, genders and cultures. My team didn’t win the tournament (Shanghai did against Korea), but I could not have had a better time or a better experience.
It’s rare to be able to travel to a foreign place and meet so many different people who share something similar and special to you. Luckily, Ultimate has become an international culture where players can find their compatriots wherever they go.*
Anyone looking for information on how or where to play Ultimate Frisbee in China can visit these websites: http://www.beijingultimate.com/, http://www.shanghaiultimate.com/, http://portal.hkupa.com/.

China: the first two days

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

It has been a slightly inauspicious start to the trip thus far. We spent an extra two hours in O’Hare Airport after our flight was continually delayed, but finally we left the ground at two o’ clock CST. Thirteen hours, four movies and three unattended children later, we arrived at the Beijing Airport, 11 students and one chaperone in tow.

We took a small transit/taxi bus to our hotel/hostel/boarding room and were given a half hour to roam about outside while Judy took care of some bureaucratic business. Almost immediately after leaving, Jeff, Eric and I were accosted by a woman with a baby at a nearby park. She tried to lead us off behind a person-sized boulder and in hurried Chinese tried to hustle DVDs she pulled out from underneath the baby’s blanket. We scurried quickly trying to be polite about refusing as she hollered at us for another 100 feet or so.

The accommodations are decent here. Our room is a triple with three single beds, a TV, a fridge and a little patio with a couple of chairs. The only serious drawback was our shower which was missing an important component allowing it to actually function as a shower. It took four service people, Judy and her student friend to get a pair of pliers so they could cobble it back together enough to spray water out of the shower head. We were informed later by another student of Judy’s that it was all-too common to require three times as many people as needed for a simple job. For example, it took three to tell us the price of a power plug converter, write the receipt and then take our cash.

Our first dinner was an experience in itself as well. Nearly everyone looked dazed or frightened or a combination of both. The culture shock of immersion in Beijing combined with sleep deprivation and unconventional food may have brought most of the group to their breaking point. It took 15 minutes for our waitress and Judy’s student Yeng to decide on a dinner menu, which eventually included a banana dish, snap peas, tofu, eggplant and a whole fish. I was told to simply dig into the fish and grab a few pieces with my chopsticks, but eventually had to be shown how to separate the meat from the spine/head/tail. It looked far more interesting than it tasted, but an experience nonetheless. We also sampled some Chinese beers for the first time. Jeddin and I tried the local Beijing brew [name escapes me…] while everyone else had the Qingdao.

Grocery shopping followed, nothing exciting there, although everything was ridiculously cheap. Wine is about $3US with the nicest bottles at maybe $10. Good night for now, two hours sleep in the last 48. Rock.

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

An early 8:00 start was the greeting for our day. Some group members had been awake for several hours already, while others looked to have already been suffering from the confusion and exhaustion of jet lag.

We met a group of female students from the University of International Business and Economics (the school where we’re staying) in a classroom close to our rooms. The students introduced themselves with their respective English names. Some of the names were given to them by professors early in their English learning careers (Elaine, Helen) based on the similarity to the pronunciation of the Chinese names. Others chose their own names based on how they sounded (Crystal), their fondness of a movie character (Dory, from Finding Nemo), or their simplicity compared the Chinese (Emma).
Everyone separated and split into smaller groups that would be together for touring Beijing on Saturday. My group consisted of me and three Chinese students: Emma, Elaine and Helen. All of them were incredibly cordial and sweet and had a good grasp of English, although their pronunciation failed at some points (“Friends” sounds like “France” and so forth). It was slightly uncomfortable to be in a group of Chinese speakers when I didn’t know the language. They continually would say something to me in English and then whisper or quip something at one another in Chinese knowing I was completely oblivious to its meaning. I’m grateful I know the Chinese that I do at this point, however. Even the miniscule amount I picked up in eight weeks has proven helpful from hello (Ni Hao), goodbye (Zaijian) and thank you (xie xie).
Another quick interesting note; they must be taught that pointing is impolite in American culture, as Helen seemed to catch herself multiple times pointing at me when asking a question, and if not, Emma would stop her if she did. I couldn’t have cared either way, but somebody must have told them it was important.

Then to the Olympic Media center, which was in an upscale hotel a cab ride away from our “joint” as Judy calls it, since we can’t decide if it’s a hostel or a hotel. It ended up as two cab rides for some. The first cab to leave was given slightly skewed directions and ended up somewhere else than the rest of us. The car full of girls was AWOL when we arrived at the hotel and it was a half hour later before they called Judy and she could give directions to the correct address. Nobody was harmed and we learned an important lesson about what to do should that situation arise again (which it did).
What they missed, though, were some clips and videos about the 2008 Olympic Games. We watched three videos about the upcoming event. The first was a broadcast by CNN about China hosting the games featuring Wang Wei from the Bejing Olympic Committee (BOCOG). He was interviewed about how China was preparing for the games, to prepare the cities and meet its contractual obligations for hosting, and what behavior they expected from their own athletes. Wang was very composed and diplomatic when giving answers, always responding with the politically minded and uncontroversial answer about fair play and sportsmanship and success for all nations.
The second video was directed by famous Chinese director Johnny Mo. It was an all out production of cinematography about the formation of the Olympic logo and the meaning behind it. It was all done visually, with only ambient Chinese music playing in the background, no words. Afterwards I felt inspired to compete in some sort of athletic competition, to visit the games in China and to get myself accredited as a journalist here to work them. I think the film did its job.
The last of the three was the video shown to the International Olympic Committee about the progress Beijing has made in its preparations for 2008 and what more to expect. Beijing is working diligently to honor the environmental and structural commitments made in their 2001 bid.
Press Coordinator, Chen Ping, showed us a model of what the Olympic Park will look like. The model was about 8 feet long, representing 10 km of distance and prominently featuring the Olympic Stadium (Bird’s Nest) and the swimming facility (Water Que), which features a translucent membrane covering the entire building that lets in natural light without affecting change in pool temperature and is also self-cleaning. From the way Chen described it, it would be worth coming to the games just to see the building.

That night we traveled to an eastern suburb and the Beijing Broadcasting College. We were greeted by 11 broadcasting students who paired up with us and led us around their campus. George, a 6’3” Mongolian student grabbed me first out of the other students, I think because of our similar heights. He spoke excellent English for a freshman student. We were taken to a running track with a large field in the middle where some students were playing football. George then asked if I played ping-pong and brought Eric and me down under the bleachers into a ping-pong room to play a little. I’m not terrible at ping-pong, but George definitely made me look like it. I guess it’s hard to compete with anyone at their national sport.
We left ping-pong for the school cafeteria and our host students helped us pick out different dishes to try. I met a female student, Sapphire, here who was paired with Sarah and very excited to meet as many American students as she can. There seems to be a large number of girls who choose their English names on their own based on how they sound, rather than translate. Candy, Cherry, Crystal, Sapphire, Ocean…I can’t help but think it sounds like the Saturday night lineup at a gentlemen’s club in Reno.
After dinner we walked more around campus and I spent some time talking to their group leader [can’t remember her name…], who was quickly joined by a classmate of hers who happened to be walking by, Leona. She had a ton of questions about me and about American students and I spent most of the next two hours talking with her about all kinds of topics. We discussed parents, sports, dating, love at first sight, journalism, and her impressive use of English colloquialisms. I was amused by her expressions like “youngsters” and “social butterfly.” She came to Beijing from Shanghai in order to get away from her parents who she said are too conservative and protective of her, but she understands it’s because they love her so much.
Leona said she wanted to go out at night with me sometime while I’m in Beijing, but apparently because she was disappointed that she had no way to get in contact with me, she gave me one of her two cell phones to use so she can get in contact with me. She also gave me two odd pear/potato-like fruits, “in case you get hungry.” I have no idea what the connotations of this are in China as far as girl-boy relationships go. She mentioned earlier that traditionally boys and girls meet, then a month later maybe they hold hands, then a month later they might kiss and so forth. She skipped the fruit and cell-phone exchange part. But Leona also conceded that “youngsters” were moving much more quickly now and she liked it. I don’t know what’s up, but I’m fairly certain my girlfriend would not be pleased.