Footy in Nanjing

Last weekend, Dave and I headed to Nanjing to meet up with Kerrin and Ashley, two Americans also here with CIEE, whom we befriended during orientation. They are teaching in Xuzhou, a city in northwestern Jiangsu. I had yet to meet up with them, as they were both trekking around China during the entire Spring Festival break. We met up in Nanjing to go to a soccer (football) game. Kerrin played soccer in college and I became enamored with the sport while studying in Spain. We had been talking for awhile about seeing some games, and as the Chinese Super League started recently, we checked out the schedule and headed to Nanjing. Dave and Ashley came both with less enthusiasm for the soccer, but we really just wanted to see each other anyways.

Now, soccer in China promised to be pretty interesting. The most popular sports here are clearly badminton, ping pong, and basketball. But soccer does pretty well, and the government is really promoting it through its many sports academies and national programs. This is due mainly to the Chinese obsession with success in international sports, and as soccer is the most popular sport in the world, it sees quite a need for the Chinese to be successful at it. Yet, the Chinese national team is ranked 100th in the FIFA world rankings, just behind Cuba and ahead of Ethiopia. That's not exactly the company with which the world's largest country expects to be associated. Even the most avid soccer fans can most likely not name a Chinese player or a team from the Chinese Super league. Even with plenty of cash from the government, it has struggled to even be a competitive league in Southeast Asia, with South Korea and Japan fielding much stronger leagues.

When we got to the game, we had no tickets, but seeing that the game is played in a stadium that holds over 60,000, we didn't think it would be a problem. Outside the stadium were a bunch of people selling noisemakers and many also selling what looked like advertisement fliers. They said they were tickets, but we decided that the ticket office would be more trustworthy (and I am not a big enthusiast of the scalping profession). Well, the ticket office was as closed as closed could be, so we went out, bought some tickets (which were advertisement fliers with a ticket in one corner), and headed on in. The tickets were 15 yuan. Yes, that's $2.19 for those keeping track at home. My small economics education tells me that the supply and demand for these tickets has a long way to go until 'equilibrium'. The stadium was about 1/3 full, and we got good, midfield seats. The game was a good experience. There was a motivated and entertaining cheering section, a la European soccer, the play wasn't horrible (although still a bit inferior to that of TU), the "line" (and by line I mean rambunctious mob) at the concession stand was so typically Chinese, and the only really negative thing was the ubiquitous cigarette smoke throughout the stands. We were cheering for the Jiangsu Sainty, the local team in Nanjing, so the result was disappointing. We lost 1-0 to the team from Changchun, a city in northern China I visited on my trip to the northeast in January. More frustrating was that one of the forwards (who Kerrin and I were very annoyed with) actually missed the goal on a penalty kick. This miss swung the momentum to Changchun, who soon scored the games only goal.

The most interesting thing about the game though, wasn't on the field. It was just outside it, on the track surrounding the field. Located at two of the four corners of the field were troops of riot police. About 20 in each group. There were also about ten lining each sideline, facing the crowd. They were legit, full fledged riot police, with helmets, masks, shields, and billy clubs. It was outrageous. Now, I am pretty used to the constant police and security presence here, as China is a pretty well policed state (even if they are aggressively pursuing 'reform and opening up'). But this was just obnoxious. Although they push crazily in lines, Chinese tend to be very well behaved and regard authority with a lot of respect (dissident jails aren't a lot of fun). So I was incredibly surprised to see such a large security presence, even if there is a small history of conflicts surrounding the fledgling soccer league.

My trip to Nanjing did feature two other highlights. A Subway sandwich was the first. In a more positive move than the McDonald's and KFC expansion, Subway has caught on in a few of the cities in the south Jiangsu area. Sadly, Changzhou isn't one of them. But Nanjing is, so with some help from my friend Qin Chen on her computer and on the phone with me, we made it to a Subway. The sandwiches were a little different, but the small differences didn't hurt the great sandwich too much. We also ate at a passable Mexican for dinner. But, as Mexican food is almost non-existent in China, even mediocre Mexican tasted great. Only other thing to note from the weekend was that Dave and I chose to save thirty yuan by choosing the windowless hotel room. As I see it, everything looks the same when I am sleeping, so it's a great bargain.