Adventure tales of the unexpected – pt. 5: filling Beijing’s Bird-Nest Stadium + Akrotiri Excavations.

Hi folks!

Onward – with more of my extraordinary terrestrial greatest hits…

Bizarre tale of the unique/unusual kind No. 8

Here’s an extraordinary, extraordinarily-large tale from way back in 2009…

The previously-mentioned Harry Cheung (formerly the director of our Chinese office) just so happened to be friends with none other than Jackie Chan! And together the two of them pooled their power-clout and managed to convince the Beijing authorities to sanction a huge pop concert in the Chinese capital’s main stadium – yes: the (Olympic) Bird’s Nest! The undertaking turned out to cost an arm-and-a-leg, but still we managed to recoup costs from ticket sales (the surplus went to charity) – after all, Jackie himself was to appear (and sing – and not a bad singing voice he has either!), as did other top pop artists from both China and Korea. The event turned out to be massive. Chinese style…

Here’s the scene just before the start, with the stands still-only half-full ->

Btw – this truly was “our” event – organized by us, sponsored by us. Look – only our banners are to be seen around the stands (in both English and Chinese) ->

I was somewhat overwhelmed by the grand scale of the gig – so much so that I didn’t get round to taking many photos (…

Memorable fun bit…

Halfway through the proceedings I was to get up onto the podium in the middle to say a few words – like thanks to everyone for coming or some such – to the 80+ thousand folks in the stands. So I donned the traditional Chinese national jacket, sweated an awful lot, and said my thank-yous. But not quite so “neatly”: my largest ever audience – of course there had to be a slip up…

From the get-go I was asked to express my thanks in Russian, and the TV presenter would translate into Chinese (in fact – the translation of my planned speech was all on paper, in her hand). That’s how it all went during the rehearsal. But then someone said there’d be guests from other countries, so it would be better if I spoke English. I tried to insist on Russian (the Russian ambassador would be there, and he’d have liked that), but they stood firm. Later came to my 15 30 seconds of fame up on the podium…

We’re there, with my and the presenter’s face up on the large screens. I say “thank you” and a few other words expressing gratitude, and I wait for her translation. But all she does is ask me: “And in Russian?” She hadn’t been told about the format change! Force majeure. Yikes! And there we were just looking at each other, wide eyed, bewildered, both thinking “oops” (to put it mildly, with a PG-rating:). And we carry on like that for what seemed like an eternity, but I’m sure it was just seconds. Eventually I snapped out of my stupor and duly repeated my thank-yous in Russian. The presenter, suddenly all relieved, smiled and “translated” into Chinese. Ah – what the heck: mercifully, no one seemed to notice or mind, as there was that much applause and commotion!…

That was a record for me: an 80,000-strong audience!

All-righty. Now – Bizarre tale of the unique/unusual kind No. 9…

For several years in a row we sponsored the archeological digs in Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini. Why? Check out this link for full details.

Akrotiri was an ancient Minoan Cycladic settlement that was destroyed in a volcanic eruption in the 16^th century BC – that is: covered in volcanic ash. Fast forward to today, and that ash has helped preserve much of the settlement, but of course the ash needs removing to reveal the architectural-historical-cultural secrets from so long ago (like three-story houses, plumbing, assorted artifacts…).

And, of course, the process takes a lot of time, and thus money – which eventually ran out; so we decided to get involved and support the the Greek archeologists.

Down the years I visited the site a few times to see how things were going. One time I was invited to join in the actual digging! More precisely – I joined the archologists on site, who’d just uncovered some clay boxes. And they asked me to open one up to see what’s inside! ->

And in this box…

…We discover a ~5000-year-old Cycladic figurine!

And that’s all for today folks. To be continued!…