A Writer's Life (70 page)

As Li Duan paused over my list of questions, and then looked at them again two or three times without turning toward me, I wondered if what I had written had struck him as being too invasive of Liu Ying's privacy or too insensitive to the anguish that Liu Ying might still be experiencing. I had no idea how the local press wrote about Chinese women athletes after the latter had fallen short of expectations. Perhaps such matters were approached more delicately by the media, and I thought it possible that Liu Ying had never before faced a foreign interviewer, an American no less. But I reasoned that since Li Duan worked within the soccer association, he could advise me on whether some of my questions should be withdrawn or rephrased. I did
not
want my first meeting with Liu Ying to go badly. I hoped to see her not just once but on later occasions. If I could win her confidence, and that of her teammates, I might be in a position to hang out with them as they prepared to compete in the 2000 Olympics to be held during the following autumn in Sydney, Australia.
That
is where this story might be leading me, I thought as I imagined a crowded Olympic stadium and the sight of Liu Ying kicking the ball into the net past the outstretched body of Briana Scurry, and thus vindicating herself
by earning a Gold Medal. In the meantime, I hoped that Liu Ying, who had been largely ignored by the American press except for George Vecsey's article, would accept my presence as her opportunity to tell her side of the story.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked Li Duan after he had handed me back my list and I had put it in my pocket.

“No problem,” he said.

“You mean all my questions are okay to ask?”

“No problem,” he repeated.

I could only hope that Li Duan read English well enough to pass judgment on what I had written. In my brief time in China, I had noticed, particularly at my hotel, that the two English words used most often by Chinese employees who otherwise spoke no English were
no problem
. The hotel's chambermaids, porters, waitresses, lobby clerks, and other employees responded to any request I made with a smile and a “No problem.” Perhaps they had picked up the words after hearing them said repeatedly by American businessmen reassuring their would-be Asian partners. The employees came to believe that this was simply a courteous response; they could continue to do what they were doing and politely ignore what was being asked of them by responding, “No problem.”

Finally we arrived at the soccer site. It was in the hills west of Beijing in a remote and bosky place called Xishan and was actually part of a military installation. It was surrounded by brick walls affixed with barbed wire and its entrance was guarded by two rifle-bearing soldiers. As our car stopped at the checkpoint, one of the soldiers strolled forward to scrutinize us; as soon as he recognized our driver, Liu Dian Qiu, he waved us through and saluted as we passed. Without acknowledging the salute or even turning away from the steering wheel, Liu Dian Qiu shifted the vehicle abruptly into gear and sped ahead on a gravel road, kicking dust up along the sides of our vehicle. Liu Dian Qui obviously enjoys a certain status around here, I thought; no doubt he is emboldened by an abundance of
guanxi
.

We soon stopped next to a two-story brick building, one of the barracks currently serving the women players as their dormitory. After stepping out of the car, Liu Dian Qiu headed directly into the building, followed by his female colleague Chen Jun. My interpreter, Li Duan, took my arm and together we walked in the opposite direction in silence, following a tree-lined path until we came to a green pasture in which a soccer field was marked off. In the middle of the field were rows of young women wearing red shorts and shirts, jumping up and down while bouncing soccer balls on their heads. They were being watched by middle-aged
men who wore peaked caps and warm-up suits and who, I assumed, were coaches and trainers. I tried to locate Liu Ying. I vaguely knew what she looked like from having seen her on television during the World Cup match, and there had also been a blurry photo with Vecsey's
Times
article, one showing her leaning backward as she watched the lunging figure of Briana Scurry blocking her kick. But now that I was standing behind the white chalk of the sidelines, forty or fifty yards away from the rows of jumping, dark-haired, ball-bouncing young women, I could not tell which one of them had lured me here from the other side of the world.

I stood watching while Li Duan wandered off to exchange a few words with two young Asian men who had just arrived on the sidelines carrying a tripod and a camera bearing the letters CCTV. They were from the Central Chinese Television Network and I assumed they were here to get film clips of the practice session for inclusion on a sports show. I remained alone for the next ten minutes, continuing to observe the women. They were now standing on one leg while extending the other leg in a bent-kneed position and balancing a ball on their toes. They then kicked the ball a few inches in the air and retrieved it securely on the tops of their soccer shoes. After doing this several times successfully, they spread themselves around the field, rearranging themselves into four circles of six players, and, with a single ball assigned to each circle, they practiced short-distance passing, swiftly and accurately. As their pace picked up, they varied their manner of kicking: They kicked the ball not only with their toes but with their insteps and the outer edges of their feet.

At the sound of a coach's whistle, they began to jog around the field, encircling it three times, and as they came closer to where I stood, I could plainly read the white numerals printed on their red jerseys—and finally I was able to see Liu Ying, number 13. She was small and boyish, and her black hair was cut shorter than that of most of her teammates, many of whom had long hair pulled back in ponytails or braided. She quickly moved past me with the others and ran along a path leading toward their two-storied quarters, a flat-roofed rectangular brick building that had a double row of windows trimmed with white stone and was architecturally similar in design to an old-style Holiday Inn.

My interpreter came over to say that we should follow them; ten minutes later, after he had briefly left me in the foyer and had gone off to find her—I heard women's laughter coming through the halls and smelled the aroma of cooking coming from a dining area nearby—he returned with Liu Ying, although she had positioned herself so closely behind him that it was not until he had stepped aside that I realized it was she.

She was now wearing a full-length red warm-up suit that had the Chinese
flag with its gold stars stitched upon the upper left side of the jacket. Piercing her left ear was a gold ring. She had wide-set eyes, a round face, stood around five-four, and she was trying to smile, although she appeared to be quite shy, or ill at ease. We shook hands. She said something in Chinese that I assumed were welcoming words. Then she led us down the hall to her bedroom, a small space of about ten feet by twelve feet. There were two cots placed along the sides of the walls, both covered with army-style olive drab blankets. If she had a roommate, and I guessed that she did, since there were two cots, the roommate was staying away. There were no chairs. Liu Ying gestured for me to sit next to her on the cot, while the interpreter sat on the cot across from us. I tried to introduce myself and explain why I had come to China to see her, but it was a slow and awkward process. I would say something to her in English and pause while the interpreter communicated with her in Chinese, but this led to lots of back-and-forth conversation between them in Chinese; either she did not understand his interpretation of what I was trying to say, or
he
had not understood me well enough to convert my English into words that she could understand well enough to respond to.

I then removed from my pocket the article by George Vecsey, held it in front of her, and then waited to see how she might respond to the photograph showing her watching helplessly as Briana Scurry blocked her kick. I pointed to the headline over the article—
WHEN IS IT GAMESMANSHIP, AND WHEN IS IT CHEATING
?—and asked the interpreter if he would translate the question it posed. I also pulled out the list of questions I had shown him earlier in the car, but this time I read the questions aloud and slowly, and after he had assured me that he understood, I asked him to take all the time he needed to get her reaction to the key issues raised in Vecsey's article:

What did she have to say about the possibility that Briana Scurry had violated the rules?

What about Scurry's observation that Liu Ying had been too “tired” to kick straight, which led Scurry to conclude confidently “This one is mine”?

And now that three months had passed, was Liu Ying still haunted by that moment in the Rose Bowl?

As the interpreter concentrated his attentions upon Liu Ying, and as I sat listening as they conversed back and forth in Chinese, I saw various expressions coming into her face—her eyes narrowing, furrows in her forehead, her lips tightening. She seemed at times to be sad or angry, although I could not tell which. But the interpreter had definitely gotten her attention, and then he recounted her replies to me:

She did not appreciate what was said about her in the
Times
. She did not like Briana Scurry. “Yes, I was tired,” she acknowledged, “but all the girls on the field were tired. We had played in two overtime periods.” She disrespected Scurry for violating the rules. “How can a person like that be called a winner?” she asked. As to how she felt after missing the kick, she said that she had cried afterward. Commenting on the flight back to Beijing, she admitted to thinking, “I hope we never get there. I do not want this plane to arrive in Beijing. Better it should stay in the sky forever.”

I was particularly struck by her last response—“Better it should stay in the sky forever.” I was writing it in my notes, when, suddenly, into the room came the man who had driven us here, Liu Dian Qiu. He stood near the doorway, speaking firmly to the interpreter, and shook his head disapprovingly at the
Times
article he saw spread out on the cot. Then he waved us out of the room. I could not tell if he was infuriated or merely officious, but, following the lead of my interpreter, I got up and left. Liu Ying remained behind.

We waited in the foyer until we were again joined by Liu Dian Qiu, who was followed by Chen Jun, whom I had not seen since our arrival. Liu Dian Qiu then began a lengthy conversation with my interpreter, who, in turn, told me that my interview with Liu Ying was over and that we would soon be headed back to my hotel, but that we would first dine here with the soccer team.

Five minutes later, I was having dinner. I was not with the team. They were at a long table across the room, and I saw Liu Ying looking away, talking to one of her mates. I was at a smaller table, seated between my interpreter and Chen Jun, along with their boss, Liu Dian Qiu. It was a buffet-style dinner. I had helped myself and greatly enjoyed what I was eating. I had often gone to Chinese restaurants in downtown Manhattan and elsewhere, and I was pleased with the fact that I could adroitly use chopsticks. As I sure-handedly picked my way through the food, I hoped that the people around me were aware of this and approved.

W
HAT
I
THOUGHT
I
NOW NEEDED WAS AN INTERPRETER FOR
my interpreter. It had been naïve, if not arrogant, of me to assume that the women's soccer team should have facilitated my meeting with Liu Ying by providing me with someone who was completely bilingual, someone on the order of the English-speaking, dark-suited young Asian gentleman whom I had seen the day before in the hotel lobby standing next to the slim blond-haired president of the Hewlett-Packard company, Carly S. Fiorina, assisting her as she was queried by a dozen members of the Chinese press. As they peppered her with questions, her interpreter swiftly communciated them to her in English and just as quickly relayed her remarks in English back to the Chinese journalists. He was a double-tongued wizard playing Ping-Pong with words, unhesitatingly shifting back and forth from English to Chinese, Chinese to English, English to Chinese. I was indeed impressed as I stood watching near the concierge's desk, and the entire press conference was over in ten minutes, after which Carly Fiorina was met by a delegation of older Chinese and American men who escorted her to a luncheon elsewhere in the hotel, followed by her interpreter.

He must be highly paid, I thought, and interpreters of such competence were no doubt greatly in demand in this country because so many important people from other parts of the world were now in China on business, or diplomatic assignments, or making speeches at luncheons and dinners attended by joint venturists and policy makers. I had read in the
China Daily
that the U.S. treasury secretary, Lawrence H. Summers, was soon scheduled to address the American Chamber of Commerce of Beijing, and that the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, would be arriving the following week to meet Party officials in the Great Hall. Within a fortnight, the Chinese leaders would greet United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The former U.S. secretary of state, Dr. Henry Kissinger, who had helped to arrange President Richard Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972, was regularly in the country these days in his role as an international business consultant, and, indeed, on the afternoon after I had returned from my meeting with Liu Ying, I read a news item saying that Kissinger was currently in Beijing, and my knowing concierge told me that Kissinger was staying, as usual, at the International Club, a few blocks west of us on Chang'an Boulevard. I had occasionally chatted with Kissinger in recent years at New York dinner parties hosted by such friends as the former executive editor of the
Times
, A. M. Rosenthal, and, recalling that Kissinger was an avid soccer fan, it occurred to me that I should approach him and ask him if he might open a few doors for me at the highest levels of the Chinese sports ministry. At the very least, I might meet one of his assistants and learn where to hire a first-rate interpreter.