Letter from Qingdao: Eeeek! The Aliens have landed
'2008 Olympic Regatta - Day 5 - Coach bear'
Richard Gladwell Click Here to view large photo
Greetings from Qingdao, on this the fifth day of the 2008 Sailing Olympics.
Today was an interesting day, not so much because of the riveting racing, which it wasn't on our course, but as an opportunity to explore the huge differences between the East and West.
Working on the Media Boats are two people provided by the organisers - a boat driver, who doesn't speak English, and an Interpreter who acts as voice-pipe for the English speaking media to the boat driver. The interpreters are all students who speak varying degrees of English and understand varying degrees of accents.
In the early days of the regatta the conversations became heated arguments, with the poor interpreter being harangued by both parties - one in Chinese and then back the other way in English.
However that is not our point today, in the two hours downtime we chatted as you do on these occasions with others in the boat, including the Interpreter. After a couple of these sessions you begin to understand the huge chasm that exists between the eastern and western cultures, particularly China and New Zealand which are even more at the extremes.
One of the first questions I was asked was 'how many countries have to been to'. I don't really know the answer to this question but it is not a lot, but I quickly gathered that realised that the reason for the question was that our interpreter had not been out of China at all. He would be about 20 years old I guess.
So I asked him directly and was told what I expected. We then turned to talk about sailing and how many yacht clubs there were in the region where I lived - where there are about 45 for a population of about 1.2million people. Here I gathered there was just one, yet to be born - which was the facility that this regatta is based - for a city of 8 million, which has a coastline not dissimilar to North Shore's East Coast Bays, off which the 2000 and 2003 America's Cups were sailed.
The fact that young sailors in my region could sail a regatta in a different venue every other weekend, also seemed like Nirvana, for sailors who would get their first yacht club after this Olympics.
And so we continued covering sports, costs of University accommodation in New Zealand and professional sailing. Apparently current wannabe profession of the students is that of an international journalist, who is some they see as touring the world at someone else's expense, and generally having a great time. 
It seems like a completely different world to our interpreter.
Against this backdrop, it is quite easy to understand the reaction of the volunteers to the arrival of the international sailing media ratpack, six days ago.
Given that most of those behind the counter have not been outside the country, the onslaught would have been a daunting experience as the aliens invaded the media centre.
However while we are well versed in the apparent Chinese state paranoia with protecting their people from the influx of the worst of the West, the same can be said for the US Government's paranoia with things from the East. 
We were told on arrival that this Olympics would be covered with less than state of the art television lens, as the US authorities did not want this sort of technology entering China.
Similarly with some of the cameras on the back of the TV boats, which have to be removed each night, again because of the paranoia that somehow the Chinese will pull these to pieces in the night and discover the secrets therein.
Then of course we see the reports on CNN of those dreadful Chinese having the girl lip-sync through her song at the opening ceremony; and that they had inserted extra pre-recorded footage of fireworks into the TV feed from the Opening Ceremony - just in case it rained, ruining the image of China and the Opening Ceremony.
Around this compound, which is as close as you would get to a military base, groups of what we first thought were soldiers marching around the compund. After a couple of days we realise that they are really just police, and without visibly carrying guns - just dressed in neat brown unifiorms.
Or our man at the gate who we give a wave to and get a smile back from every morning as we pass in the bus.
For the first few days he looked fairly awesome, with the blue amoured vehicle, blue uniform and standing outside, gun at the ready. But again he is just a member of the police.
As this regatta progresses a lot of the tensions, caused by misunderstanding begin to ease, the first names come in and everyon just lightens up.
Maybe that will be the benefit of this Olympics - which has been a cultural eyeopener for both sides. Hopefully the Olympic legacy will be that both East and West are a better, and more understanding place, for the experience.
Good Sailing!
Richard Gladwell
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World 
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