Flashes of Panic

Well, maybe it would. But I doubt it.

It’s raining this afternoon in Beijing. (On the plus side, the rain clears the smog up nicely; it rained on Monday and my arrival on Tuesday featured nearly-blue skies.) In a lull, I started walking back to my hotel from the main press center, but the pouring accelerated as I passed the Water Cube and I took shelter along with a few dozen others under the umbrellas of a snack counter on the Olympic Green.

After I’d stood there for fifteen or twenty minutes with my feet getting wet, a young man came up to me and offered me an umbrella. By that I determined that he was happy to walk me wherever I was going, under his umbrella.

And he did walk me all the way around to the exit closest to the hotel. He was on vacation for the day and had no tickets to any events; he was just walking around the green soaking up the atmosphere. He was very excited to learn that I was American; he’s been studying English for about seven years and did pretty well with it, though I doubt he’s reached the point of thinking in the language. He was quite effusive about how happy he was about the brief encounter.

I left him at the exit gate and started splashing up the sidewalk to the hotel. I hadn’t made it fifty meters before a woman going the same direction ran a few steps to catch up with me and hold her umbrella over me. She didn’t speak a word of English; she was just going the same direction, and I clearly lacked any kind of rain gear. She stopped at the volunteer’s booth near the hotel, and I had just a few more steps to go.

Ever had total strangers offer to share an umbrella with you before?

(Things I wouldn’t be seeing on US TV: women’s archery. The woman shooting in the bronze medal match for South Korea has a pink bow and a pink shoulder guard with hearts and pandas on it. And she’ll put a shaft of aluminum in you at fifty meters.)

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