Just got back from Tianjin where we we watched the women’s football preliminaries between Argentina/Sweden and China/Canada. The crowd–to put it mildly–was supportive of their countrywomen. I’ve been in Fenway during playoff games with the Yankees and that’s a boisterous crowd on its worst day, but the partisan boosters of the Chinese women’s soccer players were something to behold. I gotta say: the crowd behaved pretty well though Chinese spectators do have a habit of…not quite ‘booing,’ more ‘wooing’ when the other team has the ball. Overall it was an excellent game, a fun time with YJ’s parents, and even though players wilted a bit in the 90 degree heat and high humidity, the match went down to the wire with the Canadian women staving off a final desperate flurry from the Chinese squad as the match closed to a 1-1 draw.
We had a small problem with the hotel in Tianjin. YJ’s mom booked us at the Home Inn (如家饭店）near the family homestead, she called to confirm several times, each time reminding them that I was, after all, a foreigner. Not a problem. Not a problem.
When we got there: problem. We were told Foreigners can’t stay at