Yee Fong’s Blog

So the no-no list for the Beijing Olympics spectators is out - no long umbrellas allowed in the Olympics stadiums, folks.

There are other items restricted or banned – liquid cosmetic, crossbows, huge banners, flags representing Tibet and Taiwan Island, and oh, nudity!

Why have I picked the most ordinary of the lot –the brolly as a subject of this post?

Well, cosmetics and liquids have all been said and done in airports; crossbows are obviously something absurd to bring to the games; big banners and flags with political content…bring with them even bigger questions that call for far too many blog pages to address; as for nudity – yes, it’s a sexy topic, but we are in China, excuse me, its all about subtlety here.

And now, back to why the umbrella.

Apparently, one of the reasons cited for imposing the umbrella restriction was this:

In view of foreigners who have a penchant for sunbathing, and the Chinese spectators who tend to avoid the sun, long umbrellas are not allowed in the stadiums to prevent users from blocking the view of other spectators during the Games.

Collapsible umbrellas are allowed, though, so that they can be used in the event of rain.

I was rather tickled by this contention of brollies.

As always, the Chinese have taken pains to try to cater for the needs of both their comrades and foreign guests.

The Chinese’s obsession with fair skin is evident in shelves jam-packed with sunscreen and whitening skin-care products at the entrance of every Watson’s store here.

I still remembered how some Chinese friends looked at me in horror when I raved about getting a tan from my tropical holidays.

On the other hand, foreigners, especially those coming from temperate climate, would grab every opportunity to get kissed by the sun, even if it’s from that one ray that sneaked in between the clouds.

Perhaps what is so telling about the guideline is the message embedded beneath: the respect for personal space.

Many Chinese tend to be less bothered by the infringement of personal space – they press up against your back in queues and even peer over your shoulder as you fill in your application documents.

Here, getting bumped into at train stations and on the streets is taken as a given, and without apology. Maybe it’s simply too crowded; maybe life’s so rough that there are more important things to rush for than to dwell into another person’s space. You are on your own, mate.

In cities like London, New York, Tokyo and even Singapore, where it can get really congested in the subways, chances of getting bumped into are comparatively less, from my experience, as these cities have somewhat established a standard “social speed”, if you will, such that everyone gets their space no matter how busy the streets are.

Perhaps China is so much a mixture of people progressing at such different speeds that it will be some time before it finds that order of space.

But what happens when people with such different concepts of space (and sun-culture, for that matter ) come under one roof?

It would really be a spoiler for anyone to have to stare at the tip of an umbrella shielding Liu Xiang as he charges towards the finishing line.

To find that delicate balance between such glaring differences, the Beijing organizers have stop short of imposing a complete ban on umbrellas.

The collapsible umbrella is perhaps the ideal middle-ground for now.

It could be a potential obstacle, or a flexible tool, depends on how you look at it.

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