As Norway earned another point against Switzerland after a superb spike at Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Stadium, the fans from Norway sitting two rows behind me launched into a new round of song. This was the sixth of 14 olympic events that I attended this summer, but it was by far the one that encouraged the most audience participation. Culturally, Chinese audiences are not used to hollering and screaming at sports games, at least not in the same way Americans are. So the two MC’s of the game, one speaking Chinese and the other English, taught and led the audience in different cheers. By their combined efforts and the help of the “beach girls,” who are specially trained cheerleading volunteers, the audience was finally able to do “the wave.” Never mind that it took four tries and that there were pockets of empty space where people didn’t stand up—it still made its around the entire stadium. Sitting next to me was Naomi Jiang ’07. We happened to be volunteering together at the Beijing Volunteer Association, but we had been oblivious of our PA connection until half an hour before. Our responsibilities as a volunteer centered on translating news articles, and occasionally we were sent on the streets to stand in one of the numerous information booths to help tourists with directions. That night the volunteer association put all of us on a bus and announced that we were going to watch beach volleyball. While walking towards the security checkpoint, Naomi and I started chatting and the inevitable “Where are you from?” came up. By then whenever someone asked me I always said “the Boston area” because if I said “Andover,” people were bound to ask, “Oh where’s that?” But instead of the standard “oh wow that’s cool” response, Naomi said “Really? So am I! Where in Boston?” After nearly a forty-second intro, I finally broke the name “Andover” into the conversation and all I could see was her face drop in shock. I held out my foot with an Andover flip-flop on it and she held out her right hand, which displayed a Phillips Academy class ring. From that point on, there wasn’t a moment of silence between us. I guess once we’re in PA, no matter where we are in the world, we’ll never be alone.
