15 Minutes of Fame

Yong Chao, Mr Xu, invited me to attend a propaganda day for his place of work on Saturday morning. He works for the Tax Fraud section of local government. We duly pedalled to the main square of Xintai City, parked our bikes where you get a wooden pendant as a receipt and must pay a nominal amount. We ascended some steps to the central plaza. Here we found a couple of hundred employees deployed in front of a stage. On either side were booths with info on each section's function. We arrived from the side but caught the attention of the back couple of rows of civil servants. Meanwhile I was introduced to some flunkies and was just about to get my camera out to capture them in their fine uniforms and with their colourful banners when out of no where I was surrounded by about ten cameramen, several with zoom lenses. I had no inkling they were coming but had no alternative but to suddenly conduct myself as though I were a dignitary. I was given a red and yellow cap with chinese characters and posed for staged shots. Apparently I now was a walking billboard urging the populace to pay up. So for the next ten to fifteen minutes, for no other reason than that I was a Lao Wai (friendly old foreigner), I was a celebrity. At one point I was in a reviewing line behind a local leader to whom much deference was paid so I quickly backed away not to in any way steal his thunder. My picture has already been on the internet and probably to-night I will hear it has made some newspapers. We all have 15 minutes of fame sometime. I think I have used mine up. I then was driven away in a chauffeur driven car but that is another story.