Football

Located just a few blocks from the downtown train station in the shadow of Lushan Mountain, Labor Park is best known for its enormous red and white soccer ball that commemorates Dalian’s glory days as China’s famed football city. Like Dalian’s current football team, however, the park is a bit lacklustre in comparison to some of the more beautiful ones we’ve seen. It does have some pretty spots though as well as an amusement park and acres of space for relaxation. Though I read about “a game farm full of peacocks, deer, and cranes” we saw only a few beautiful cranes strutting around cramped and bare quarters and an empty pool that might have once housed otters or something of that nature.

What the park does have is beautiful flowers, lots of statues and some great views of the city. When we passed it on the bus earlier in the spring, it was festooned with cherry blossoms but now the roses are in full bloom. We saw several bridal couples having photos taken in and around the rose gardens.

Yesterday afternoon, after strolling the broad avenue up the centre of the park, between the statues of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac (I’m a dragon) to the giant soccer ball, we took a chair lift up the mountain. As we passed over treetops and even a busy highway, I was glad that I’m no longer afraid of heights. I was even happier about that when we took the glassed in elevator to the observation deck high on the communications tower at the mountain’s peak. Though the day was a bit hazy and the ever present smog hung over the city, the views from the top were definitely worth the ride up. I’m glad we waited to do this until we’d been here for awhile and seen much of the city as it was fun to pick out the various places we recognized. Sadly, the smog and the dirty windows (nothing in China stays clean very long) made it virtually impossible to get good pictures.

Today, the second day of our Dragon Boat Festival holiday, was supposed to be a beach day with one of my students but the sky is grey and it’s pouring rain so that plan has been nixed. Instead, it might just be a relax at home day.

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I went to a professional football game last night. As in much of the world, football in China is what we North Americans refer to as soccer. I’m not an avid sports fan but in years gone by Dalian’s claim to fame in China was its football team so I really wanted to see them in action. Apparently they haven’t done as well in recent years but they did manage to win last night’s match.

I went to the game with two of our fellow teachers and five of our students. Poor Richard, the real sports fan in the family, had a class to teach so he wasn’t able to join us.

Though the game itself was interesting to watch, being part of a local crowd cheering on their team was exciting. I found myself chanting along with the rest of them and when the one and only goal was scored, I was on my feet and hollering just like everyone else!

It was some of the peripherals that I found most fascinating, however. When we arrived at the stadium, well ahead of game time, the area surrounding it was a beehive of activity. Vendors had food booths and tables set up to serve the crowd and others had stacks of seat cushions to sell. The local custom is to buy a cushion and spend the game sitting on it then send it sailing through the air toward the field at the game’s end! Most of our boys bought the thin 0.5 yuan (about 8 or 9 cent) cushions but Vicky and I decided that our bony butts would prefer the plusher 1 yuan ones! Of course, after the stadium empties, the cushions are collected and resold before the next game.

As is standard at a sporting event, the national anthem was played before the game started. Though we Canadians tend to be rather apathetic when it comes to singing our anthem, I fully expected the Chinese to belt theirs out the way I’ve seen Americans do. I could hear Vicky singing quietly beside me but hers was the only voice I heard! I was quite astonished.

I was also surprised by the presence of soldiers! Though we’re surrounded by crowds of people wherever we go in China, this was the first time I’d been in a situation where a large crowd of people had assembled in one place for a specific purpose. Clearly that’s still something that the Communist government has concerns about. Why else would there be a line of soldiers around the field facing the crowd? They stood at attention until the game started and then sat unmoving on tiny stools always with their back to the action and their eyes on the crowd. They wore dress uniforms including white gloves and weren’t visibly armed but clearly no one was going to tangle with them.

I’ll probably be watching a lot more soccer over the next few years but I don’t expect there to be any soldiers present. I’m going to be watching this little guy, my oldest grandson, play! He’s even wearing Dalian colours and I thought of him when I saw #8 on the field last night.