A friend of mine gave us some tickets to attend the opening of the six-day 2007 International Boxing Invitational Tournament over at the Worker's Stadium last week, and despite shoddy turn out, it was quite the evening.

The event, organized by Good Luck Beijing and supported by the foreign owned Emma ticketing agency, seemed to serve merely as a warm up for next year's upcoming razzle dazzle Olympics and was spectacularly organized and run like a well oiled machine. As with any Chinese opening ceremony, there were more performers on stage than there were people in attendance, and hundreds of dancers and performers of all ages bopped around the boxing ring in an impressive display of... oh, I don't even know what.

To be perfectly honest though, despite the well organized staff and the spic and span shininess of the newly improved Worker's Stadium, I found the whole thing to be rather creepy and unsettling. Sat up in the mostly empty arena were two full sections of colorfully dressed hirees, who's only job was to sit in the stands, cheering on the Chinese competitors, remaining deadly silent when anyone of non-national Chinese status entered the arena. Not only this, but in front of their sections stood a "cheer coach" armed with a whistle and noisemaker, guiding them along with their cheering in a way that reminded me of how television talk shows and sets have that blinking sign that says "Applause NOW!" Rather tacky, don't you think?

It never ceases to amaze me that even with hundreds of performers, countless yuan spent on lights and dizzying effects and hours and hours of man power behind these events that the Chinese can put on a show that's still so depressingly boring and ordinary. Is my idea of fun so much different from a Chinese person's idea of entertainment?

I had dinner tonight at a restaurant that was holding some kind of celebratory dinner for three tables of badly dressed, baijou drinking businessmen from out of town. Every few minutes they would jump up and noisily cheer and toast one of their fellow colleagues, shouting at the waitresses and running about the restaurant like little leprechauns on speed. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the level of noise they created was deafening. Personally, I'd rather drop dead than endure an intolerable Chinese dinner, but maybe this is just another cultural gap that I haven't quite managed to bridge yet.

--Jenn Wong