About 10 million American TV-viewers tuned in as more than 70,000 crazy fans packed Bill Walsh Field in San Francisco. And then there was me, an audience of one in an empty bar in Beijing.
It was the first Monday Night Football of the NFL season, and after one week in Beijing I was experiencing my first real bout of homesickness. This wasn't a matter of "culture shock" or missing my friends and family - this was all about football.
What I call football, of course, the rest of the world calls American football or "gridiron" (since Canadians play it too). In Chinese, it's known as "Mei shi gan lan qiu" (American-style olive-shaped ball).
I figured my chances of finding some place to watch football in China were non-existent.
My team - the legendary San Francisco 49ers - was facing off against the rival Arizona Cardinals in one of the country's most-watched TV programs. I simply had to watch it.
I'm a relatively recent convert to football. As a soccer player in a US high school, I was regarded as a second-class citizen compared to the vaunted football players, so my antipathy towards football was ingrained. But after a while I began to understand that football is a cerebral game of chess-like moves, not just brutish head bashing, and I got hooked.
I discovered a place in the capital that would be showing the game - The Goose and Duck Sports Pub near Chaoyang Park. After a confusing cab ride, I was finally dropped right at the doorstep of the pub and paused for a moment, anticipating what may lie on the other side of the dark doors. Would the bar be packed with American expats like me, rabid fans throwing back pints and shouting at the screen?
Not exactly. I was greeted by the bowed heads of a couple of bleary-eyed bartenders on the back end of a graveyard shift. One of them flipped on the game for me as the other yawned and straightened her apron, readying to take my order. I ordered some bacon, eggs, beer and football for breakfast.
It was certainly not the prettiest game I've ever watched. The game was a defensive slugfest, and as it wore on, it became clear that the team to screw up the least would win.
I cheered all the same, pumping my fist and pounding the table at every first down and field goal, as the waitress and bartender played pool on the side, no doubt scratching their heads over this rambunctious westerner overreacting to the bizarre game on TV.
The game came down to the wire, when the Niners' young quarterback Alex Smith orchestrated an 86-yard drive down the field, and into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
I clapped and cheered, seeming to echo in the empty pub. I may have ruined what the waitress hoped would be a quiet morning at work. But my team had won and I walked home with a spring in my step.
I ambled past people playing mahjong and Chinese chess and I scanned the foreign playing field ahead of me. I was ready for the Beijng blitz.
(China Daily September 27, 2007)
