Dalian update: Business is business

As I was watching the poor North Korean soccer team suffer a humiliating beating by Portugal this week (7-0), my eyes fell on the words Legea written on their shirts. This aroused my curiosity. Legea must be the producer of their sportswear, I thought, but I would have expected a no-brand name or some obscure North Korean brand to provide the team with proper clothes. Or the Chinese giant Li Ning at best. So after the match I did a bit of research and found out that Legea is a relatively young southern Italian sportswear company based in Pompei, in the province of Naples. Apart from several second - and third league club teams, Legea has other popular countries on its customer list, such as Iran, Zimbabwe and Albania. "Business is business, we do not care about politics," a Legea company chief has stated. Could the Camorra be involved in this? And if so, what other goods and services are being exchanged with the renowned dictatorial regime of Kim Jong Il?

One has to feel sorry for those North Korean players. It is said that Kim Jong Il had threatened them already before the game against Portugal with " penalties " should they not perform up to standards. 7-0, and the match was broadcast live in Pyongyang, which was a primeur - a first - for the crippled nation.... And as if things were not bad enough, their South Korean arch rivals did manage to qualify for the second round of the World Cup. Kim Jong Il must be fuming. I hope that the players are spending more time on planning their great escape than on preparing their third and meaningless final game against the Ivory Coast tomorrow.

By the way, those few supporters cheering on the grandstand are not North Korean, but Chinese paid to wave the DPRK flag...

As most of you know I am no soccer fan at all, but various factors have lead me to watching at least one game per day. First, the time difference helps: here in China the first matches of the day kicked off at 19.30 and 22.00 respectively. Only the day's third game poses a problem (kick off at 2.30 a.m.). Second, it has turned out to be rather pleasant following the World Cup in the local Chinese bars in Dalian (and Ningbo previously). Third, the famous soap series factor: once you start watching you want to know how it develops and ends. Nevertheless, this World Cup will not turn me into a soccer enthusiast. Most games are plain boring affairs and the most interesting character on the field is still Diego Maradona. Only for him I would support Argentina to win the Cup, 24 years after the flamboyant ex-cocaine addict guided his country's team to glory in Mexico 1986 - beating Belgium in the semifinals. As far as I can tell, today's Argentinean team bulks with talented players, too. In their well-paced second match against South Korea I often got excited by their technical ability to bypass the other team's defenders: precisely the sort of skill I never seem to notice with the uninspiring European teams.

A celebrated American commentator has actually written a nice column for the Global Times, an English-language daily based in Shanghai. He explains why the Americans still remain largely unimpressed by all this World Cup mania in the rest of the world, and requests FIFA to consider a few ideas to enhance the spectacle and arouse the American people's interest in soccer. Here's the link:

Global Times - Column Barry Cunningham

What's on in China these days? Probably you have already heard of the massive floods that have hit the South and South East of the country. They are the worst in 50 years and have already left 175 people dead and lead to the collapse of 144,000 houses and the evacuation of 1,7 million (!) people. Meteorologists warn that the worst of this year's storm season is yet to come... Most hit are Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangxi provinces, so if anyone was considering a trip to China this summer that includes a visit to pictoresque Guilin - doublecheck the current situation before take-off.

The weather in China this year is also said to be anything but normal. The winter took forever and the South West suffered for months from a major dry spell that deprived many communities from water.

Finally, I read an interesting article concerning the closure of the Hilton Hotel in Chongqing. A local police operation lead to the arrest of over a 100 people as the hotel management is accused of cooperating with gangsters to enable prostitution and drug activities. This is interesting because managers at a number of Holiday Inn hotels in China must now be shitting their pants. In the latter American hotel chain you can indeed hardly enjoy a drink on your own for longer than five minutes...