Liuzhou Weather
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Smoke on the Water
The river has been busy.
A couple of weekends ago, we had a bunch of overgrown rich kids turn up and play with their expensive toys. This was known as the F1 Powerboat Grand Prix and I was going to ignore it. Then I read that the local government are praising themselves for its success and that it was greatly appreciated by Liuzhou's citizenry.
Total garbage.
The event was supposedly sponsored by SAIC-Wuling-GM, but the local government also managed to spend a rumoured 30 million yuan on the two day event. 30 milion of the locals' money. Then they made sure the locals couldn't see it. All vantage points - bridges, parks, mountains - overlooking the relevant section of the river were closed off by police and the only people who got to watch were those with connections to government. No tickets were put on sale.
Locals were kept well away and could only peer hopefully through the few tiny gaps that allowed you a view of a postage stamp section of river which a fast boat may or not pass through. The locals I saw were far from "appreciating".
Then last weekend we were treated to this.
No, they haven't declared war. It was an exercise by the river police / firefighters.
This one, I'll leave for you to work out.
Are you sure that no tickets were on sale? I was told I had to pay 380 kuai
if I wanted to go (which I didn't) and was also later told that "all 10,000
tickets have been sold"!!
Totally agree about the disgraceful use of locals' money. One individual
involved in this tried to convince me that it was money well spent because
it was such a popular sport world wide - the fourth most watched sports
event apparently (after the Olypics, the football world cup and F1 motor
racing). I am yet to find anyone who has actually heard of it though...
Yes, I'm sure. I had a pair of tickets which I gave to a guy and his kid in
the crowd which I showed. The tickets were nominally ¥380 but there was
nowhere to actually buy them. They were available nowhere unless you had
guanxi, and then of course you don't pay. In fact, many seats were empty
and the only people in the viewing arena on the Saturday were cops, army
and 'volunteers'.