I was invited as a speaker, my CV and details were posted on their website. Only one problem. I didn’t know about it and worse, I had to talk in Beijing at the same time. It turned out that six months ago, between two beers at a reception, I had agreed to talk “in Guangzhou” but the organizers never contacted me. Panic in Guangzhou when I said I couldn’t go, lots of calls and finally the schedule was changed so I could talk on 28 November in the morning, rush out of the seminar, catch the next plane and head to the Bencham seminar in Beijing.
The topic: “The future of sports in China & post-games use of facilities – the legacy of the 2008 Olympics, a case study”.

The organizers got the text in advance to facilitate translation. What happened next, not clear. Maybe the interpreter had a bad night, the journalists did not bother to check the printed text of my paper, the journalists don’t understand English or had hearing problems. Probably all of the above.
In the next days Chinese websites were busy reporting on my speech, I would have said all kinds of very unfriendly things about Beijing and also gave a figure of 5,000 sports facilities existing in the capital – my paper mentions 40 major existing facilities excluding those belonging to the many schools, universities and other organizations.
On the way to the airport I was told some journalists wanted to interview me… Who knows what nonsense would have come out of that.
Nobody called to reprimand me of my hostile words. Anyway, I had the official text ready, graciously provided by the organizers.
Just imagine you work for a company and your boss gets the angry feedback – that would be a bad day to remember. One of my luxuries. No boss.