VIP for half a day November 9, 2007

 

Our conference started with panic when the organisers discovered we weren’t where we should be (i.e. checked out). We were summoned to a VERY important meeting and spent most of the afternoon variously being ushered into hotel bedrooms to meet mysterious Mr Xin, getting loaded onto coaches (Lindsey) and running – literally – around Beijing looking for lost presenters behind Mr Xin (me). There was then a prestigious performance at the Great Hall of the People in the evening, with crowds held back by police and barriers. The show was massive, spectacular, kitsch and just a little camp. It started with the communist party leaders and ministers sitting in a row, and went on to include acrocbatics, orchestras, Swan Lake performed on someone’s head, more acrobatics, kung fu displays, Mongolian throat singing and soap stars singing TV theme tunes.

The conference proper started the next day, and Lindsey and I were late. We sneaked in the back of a vast conference hall of staggered desks and 400 people resembling a UN summit. At the front was a long row of seated presenters behind a wall of flowers, photographers and film cameras. Although the main speech had started, Lindsey was spotted and told to go sit with the presenters at the front. Then, worst of all, I was informed there was a place there for me too and I had to go – now – and take my seat!  From where I was sitting I could see far more significant VIPs in the audience. However, my uplifted staus didn’t last beyond lunch and I was demoted back to audience member – albiet behind a fetching pink sign.