Pictures of the ground-to-air missiles guarding Olympic venues in Beijing

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/leftcoastleaner/archives/2008/07/post_2.html

Scared away by the men and green guarding these big bombs...

The other day I took a short bike ride out to my envisioned disc golf course in Beijing. It was (another) "overcast" day and a little muddy. No one really out there aside from some workers knocking down a wall and planting some sod on the other side.

I took out the few discs I brought along with me and prepared to launch what I can only imagine is one of the first disc golf shots thrown in China in, well, for the sake of self-aggrandizing, let's say ever. I was having a blast, scoping out clever fairways and trees to aim for at, getting more excited after each shot about the potential of this piece of land.

About five holes into my game, a soldier dressed in pale green approached me. I intentionally turned my back and tried to carry on as if I never saw him. But he got closer and I couldn't ignore him for long.

I can't tell you what he said; I don't understand Chinese. But I got the general vibe and knew that he wasn't happy that I was doing... whatever it was that I was doing.

I said OK and went over to the other side, an area overgrown with weeds in which I had seen people enjoying themselves as if it were a public park just one day before, flying kites and so forth. I readied to throw with an eye on the gathering group of soldiers behind me. They saw I wasn't leaving and walked toward me.

I knew they were coming but kept my back turned. One of them started clapping, like I was some sort of dog digging in the flowers. I turned and a man in a full-on uniform was standing there with a mean scowl on his face. I knew what he wanted -- me to get the hell out of there -- but I couldn't even verbalize my protest. I felt completely helpless and mute as a rock, so I took my time turning on my iPod, getting on my bike and pedaling away.

I miss the "Land of the Free" sometimes.

Anyway, I can sort of understand why they wouldn't want someone like me (whitey) running around the area doing god-knows-what (and really, I'm sure they were very confused watching me hurl those discs a hundred yards at a time).

As I noted before, the site is directly across from where the military has set up a number of ground-to-air missiles, Hongqi 7 missile launchers this story. There are pieces of burly, spinning radar equipment and burlier guards standing there armed with burlier-still machine guns. It's quite something to behold. Here are some pics.

Incidentally, I went back a few days later with my girlfriend who speaks Chinese and we saw another guard and she asked him what the "disc golf" area is for. He said it's a public park and we were free to do as we pleased. We asked about the frisbees, he said "what's a frisbee?" A toy, she told him. He said fine, and we played on, truncated, unfortunately, by a prior engagement, but hope lives on. Yes I know my golf throws are like missile launches themselves, but c'mon... let a guy play his game.