The Human Curtain- Tales of Chinese Racing
Bean Update November 15th, 2008As mentioned in yesterday’s post, we’re currently stuck behind the “The Human Curtain”. While it is certainly a cultural difference, it may well be the most effective way to keep a population of 1.3 billion people busy.
What I’m referring to is the disconnect, via layers of middlemen, between the race organization and the teams. Each team is assigned a liason, usually an English student, to facilitate getting anything done. They pass down all the commandments from the race organization (a.k.a. The Man Behind the Human Curtain), all of which have unreasonable deadlines. But since they must obey EVERYTHING their superiors demand (a cultural difference you cannot possibly belive until you visit China), we have to hurry and complete meaningless tasks such as filling out passport information cards. And FAST.
All conspiracy theories aside, I think the liaisons are probably spies for The Man (like failing to hand meal tickets to the buffet police). All of this intel is probably passed on to yet another layer of The Human Curtain for tracking and archiving purposes, giving jobs to dozens more people.
A task as simple as collecting room keys in the morning becomes a gigantic hasstle as inevitably someone loses one, and an ensuing yelling/hyper-ventilating/shirt-tugging suession results in our liaison crying and going empty handed to the room key police (al layer between the hotel guest and the hotel’s front desk personnel).
This trip, we finally have a liaison that is truly helpful. A second year English student in the university, Michelle is both helpful and understands our jokes (kind of!). She understands that Danny is rarely ever angry, he’s just crazy, and she thinks he is very nice. She also understands that we will accomplish the meaningless tasks The Man wants completed, and that she doesn’t need to freak out on us to get it done. Last night, we spent 45 minutes talking to Michelle about her favorite American TV shows (Prison Break, Gossip Girls, and Sex & The City). If your company is in need of a Chinese translator, she would be a fantastic help. She’s also learning Japanese.
All part of racing in China!
PS. JPows- Kiel pegged your Ukrainian nemesis with a bottle the other day. He was being a dick. Kiel got him good.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:55 am
No one understands the meaningless tasks The Man wants completed let alone mere liaisons who are hovering somewhere between being exhilaration and absolute terror at being here.
I’ve worked for The Man for three years and five major events and I still don’t understand what they want half the time or why. I compensate by playing stupid white person though, as I work for more and more organizing committees, this is getting harder and harder to do.