Every few days I try to wake up early and go to the university's track right near my apartment. Ostensibly I am there to run, but I hate running. Its just that moving my legs in a repetitive motion lets me gawk at as many people as possible.
At six in the morning there are hundreds of people out. Every piece of equipment in the weightlifting area is taken, and there are people hanging around, talking with those lifting or stretching or just aimlessly standing around. The equipment itself is a combination between workout equipment and jungle gym, as its all made of brightly colored metal piping.
The first day, I walk onto the track and feel the eyes on me. Here, at the International University of Economics, the sight of a westerner is nothing new, but still, I have never been stared at like this. So I perform some self-conscious stretches and take off. It feels good, and today is clear for Beijing, which means that you can see sky. The sun pulls itself hazy and orange over the buildings, and as I round the track I pass middle aged women in loafers and dress pants, chubby young men wearing too-tight shorts and fake Nike t-shirts and foggy glasses, old husband and wife couples walking deliberately around the outside lanes. As the sun gets higher and it gets hotter, some of the men pull up their shirts, roll them up under their armpits and rest them on their significant bellies. Almost all the working men do this—it's one of those Chinese habits, along with spitting, that the authorities are trying to re-educate out of the people in time for the Olympics. After lunch time groups of construction workers sit in the shade, dirty shirts pulled up, slightly fat bellies stuck out. The street-vendors, couriers, taxi drivers, they all do it. It's common enough that there could be a few hundred thousand people in Beijing walking down the street with their gut out at any one time, so the re-education seems a losing battle. Apparently The Man is worried that the bellies will offend westerners just trying to catch some speedwalking or maybe some ballroom dancing. As long as the loogies keep missing my person its all good with me.
There is one man who predates the revolution who I have seen all over campus. He is here every morning at 5:30. He is no more than five feet tall, and his skin under the few irregular tufts of hair is spotty, dark and leathery. I know this because it is what I usually see of him, as he and walks with his head bowed. His stride is about 4 inches, one foot placed just in front of the other, all the way around the track. I run three miles around the track, he makes it one lap. There are plenty of young Chinese in much better shape than me, and they will sometimes run a mile before he makes it around the curve. But still, he has determination and the knowledge that he will get there when he gets there, and he stays in lane two as everyone else blows by him. To walk in lane two takes balls.
6 on 6 BasketballI run down the backstretch and pass the basketball courts. I've stopped to watch a few times, and it becomes immediately clear that not only is basketball the most popular sport of the younger generation, but that the older generation has no idea what's going on. The young guys have some game. They know how to dribble with both hands and their heads up, they get down on defense, they make the right pass and generally seem comfortable on the court. One of them plays a lot like John Stockton, and I like to watch him flick bounce passes between two defenders to a cutter on the baseline, or abruptly pull up on a breakaway for a smooth ten-footer.
Some of the young guys have clearly been watching Yao Ming's games. You can spot them easy—the no looks, between the leg dribbles, complete lack of defense. Even down to the longer shorts its clear they watch a lot of the NBA. It seems that most of the flashier players, having realized that they don't exactly have the height to be Yao, have resigned themselves to simply being Tracey McGrady. Lots of 3 pointers on the break.
But the older guys suck. There is one guy who plays often. Must be around 50 or so. Every time he gets the ball he jacks up a shot. It's a pathetic shot—both hands on the outside of the ball, ball behind his head, flicked off in a jerky spastic kind of motion. He apparently thinks he has Reggie Miller range. Everyone knows by now the guy can’t shoot, so they lay off and dare him. He takes the dare every time. He’s good at getting it to hit the rim, but the ball is usually still headed up when it gets there. This makes it hard to make shots. His five other teammates always look a little pissed off that he keeps shooting, but they keep passing him the ball. They must not be watching enough Kobe. He wouldn’t pass his mom the salt if he thought he had a better look at her plate.
In case you missed it, I did just say his five other teammates. As you may have heard, this is a crowded country, and if 12 want to play, then 12 play. Or 13, or 14. At the rate of population growth, by 2020 basketball will be played 100 to a court, and you'll be only be able to pass by handing your teammates the ball.
Today there are 11 playing on the near court, but I don’t stop to watch. I finish my run and sit on the surface just off the track to stretch. I notice a young Chinese man a bit away who keeps looking toward me. Finally he comes over and starts talking to me in English. I find out he’s a boxer named Iga. “My thing's on?” I think he asks.
“Your thigh's on what?”
“Mike thigh's on.”
Who's Mike?
“Mike Tyson.”
“Mike Tyson?”
“Yes!” He mimes some jabs. “I like him.”
I think about Mike Tyson threatening to eat another boxer’s children before a fight. “Me too,” I say.
We talk for a little bit longer about boxing. He likes the De La Hoya/Merriweather fight of last May, has never heard of Sugar Ray Leonard, and doesn’t think the fact that Mike Tyson bit of a piece of another man’s ear is a big deal. Then he asks, “You like Jesus?”
“Jesus?”
“Yes, Jesus.” He lifts the cross that hangs from his neck. “I like Jesus.” He points in the direction of the church he goes to. “I’m here every morning, except on Sunday. On Sunday I go there, to church. Do you like Jesus?”
I think about how to answer this. How do you say, “I wasn't there or anything, but seems that Jesus was a revolutionary human being whose message of tolerance and compassion for all other human beings has been twisted and abused for more than two millennia by people more interested in riches, power and control than spiritual salvation, and that the same people who brought Jesus to fine countries like yours were usually followed by armies and diseases and conquest, and that inquisitions, witch-hunts, and boy fondling come to mind” in Mandarin again?
Then I look at Iga’s face, waiting patiently for my answer, fingers still lingering on the cross, and then I think about his choice of ideology in the land of Mao. For some reason I think about a Doobie Brother's song I haven't heard for years.
“Jesus is just alright with me.”
