Michael Burgess at the Asian Games: Crowd control

Herald on Sunday sports writer Michael Burgess at the Asian Games.

The recent boorish events at Eden Park put Kiwi behaviour at sporting events in the spotlight. It seems a conundrum - we can't really express ourselves, cheer, chant and sing without alcohol but too many beers and New Zealanders can't control themselves.

Certainly the events at the league test were not the first time that New Zealanders have displayed a complete lack of etiquette, in sporting victory or defeat.

With Heineken as the major sponsor of the Rugby World Cup there will be plenty of the 'liquid' gold on sale at all venues so it will be an interesting test as to how we behave.

Also, what we will be like as hosts? You would hope gracious, welcome and culturally sensitive, with an ability to be even-handed in victory and defeat.

In China of course this has not been an issue. There has been a detailed, scientific and long term approach to ensure that the good people of Guangzhou were 'civilized spectators' and outstanding hosts.

When the Games were awarded in 2004 the local government pronounced that "the way people watch sporting events reflects the quality and image of a nation and [so] improving the environment within the venues and advocating civilized sports events watching are of great significance to these Games."

A panel of experts and scholars put together the "Etiquette handbook for Guangzhou citizens" and these pocket books were distributed throughout the city.

Later in the same year there was a public vote to decide the "Ten major highlights of civilized acts among Guangzhou citizens" which complemented widespread advertising throughout bus shelters of "Citizens civilization highlights".

The second stage lasted from 2007 to 2009. During this period the aim was to establish Guangzhou as a 'national civilized city' and the media guide informed us there were six major strands.

The first four were fairly self explanatory - "All citizens learning etiquette, all citizens learning English, all citizens doing physical exercise and all citizens cleaning." The last two - "All citizens keeping order and all citixens passing love" were a tad baffling.

There was also a campaign aimed at the notoriously wild driving in and around the city. The slogan was "Civilised traffic starting with me" and 100 'model' traffic crossings and ten 'model' road sections were set up around the city.

From 2009 there was monthly assessments of something called the 'public civilisation index' in cities and towns throughout the province, which measured "public environment, public order, interpersonal communication and public-spirited behaviour".

This would seem enough but the bureaucrats went into overdrive when the third stage was launched earlier this year. The focus shifed from 'social education' to 'education on civilized events watching'.

The handbook was reformulated and re-published, with over a million copies given away. Four million 'events watching etiquette bookmarks' were printed as well as 70,000 publicity wall maps of 'civilised event watching'.

There was a guideline of teenagers etiquette for Asian Games, which was proudly trumpeted as the first popular book on the etiquette of minors in China, and given out to school students for free (bet they loved that).

The organising committee volunteers department collected cheering gestures from social media and internet sites and made a demonstration video which was regularly played on local media.

The busy organisers also informed they will be sending 40 million text messages about civilised events watching to the public.

But what is cilivised event watching?

The mandate is as follows; "Respect athletes, respect judges, no taunts, no booing and no catcalls."

Inside the stadiums it seemed to be more sanitised rather than civilised, but it depended on a sport.

There were always earnest headset-wearing volunteers who led the chants and the cheering. Scoreboards would remind spectators "Clap now" or "big applause please" while the stadium music was just as inane as it can be here.

In the crowds following traditional sports like badminton, gymnastics and table tennis the crowds were well behaved and knowledgeable. An abiding memory is of the gasps that went around the gymnastics arena when one of the Korean took an ungraceful tumble and the cheers when she recovered in the next event. It was nice to see spectators supporting an arch rival.

In other sports there was much more confusion and inappropriateness. A personal favourite was several members of the crowd yelling "Break it; break it" when the Indian player Sania Mirza had break point on several
occasions during one of her matches.

- Herald on Sunday

Michael Burgess travelled to China with the support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation, which is an organisation dedicated to building New Zealanders' knowledge and understanding of Asia.