Safin, Blake, Bar Street, and Moon Cakes :)

I’ve never had a huge obsession with celebrities. I have my favorite actors, actresses, and athletes and occasionally read about them in magazines or online, but that’s about where my celebrity hunting ends. But after spending the day about five feet away from Marat Safin and James Blake, I think that could change.

My day started off as an eventful one. I got to sit in on Serena’s pre-match press conference. It was only about fifteen minutes long with simple questions asked since she hasn’t played any games in the tournament yet, but being in the front row of a press conference (aka about three feet) away from Serena Williams, with her staring you down the entire time, is a thrilling experience.

After the press conference, I was able to wander around the tennis complex a little, stopping in to watching Zack’s ITF semi-final match for one set. He lost the set that we watched, but ended up winning in the end, putting him into the final match tomorrow. It’s been really fun watching his matches and staying at the same hotel as him and Ahmed; we’ve become really good friends.

As I was wandering around the practice courts, I happened to see that there was a small crowd of people around one of the end courts. Since I’m special and have a cool press pass, I was able to get up right next to the court, and to my surprise, it was James Blake (down to the left) and Marat Safin (above) playing! They were pretty intensely practicing against once another, getting really animated and into the session. Since I was basically the only person there watching that wasn’t Chinese, I was the only one that could appreciate the jokes they were telling each other and all of their trash talking. For this reason, they acknowledged my presence a few times, smiling and glancing in my direction, which was the greatest feeling ever since James Blake has the most amazing smile in the world. I got to take a bunch of great photos too to add to my collection of all of the athletes I’ve shot so far this week. Also, as I was beginning to head back inside to the media center, Caroline Wozniacki, the 19-year old who just last month was the runner-up the U.S. Open, took the court to practice. I stuck around for a few more minutes to snap some photos and see her hit some balls.

Afterwards, I was assigned to cover the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations taking place at the tournament. The Chinese celebrate this Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. Since I am not sure when or where my article is going to be published, here is a copy of it:
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Players and spectators celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival at 2009 China Open

By Sarah Callahan


Tennis players Ivo Karlovic and Zhuang Jia-Rong helped welcome the Mid-Autumn Festival to the China Open this evening by cutting a cake surrounded by fans. The cake represents what is known in China as the traditional mooncake.

The cutting and sharing of mooncake is an important part of the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival. The festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest.

The story of the mooncake dates back to the Yuan Dynasty, when Mongolians ruled China. Leaders from the preceding Sung Dynasty did not want to submit to foreign rule and attempted to coordinate a rebellion. As the moon festival was drawing near, the leaders of the rebellion baked the plans of the attack into the moon cakes, and today moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend.

Julien Gaudfroy, a television host and actor in Beijing who is originally from France, was asked to host the Mid-Autumn Festival event at this year’s China Open. Gaudfroy explained that the tradition of eating moon cake is a large part of the holiday because people feel the need to present moon cakes to all of the important people in their life.

At this year’s China Open, people also gathered around lanterns hanging from wires in the carnival area. Each lantern contained a different clue hanging from it written in Chinese. These clues are sometimes full sentences but may also be Chinese words that allude to another Chinese word.

When the answer to a clue is revealed, the clue is removed from the lantern and the person who guessed the correct answer is given a small charm as a prize. People move in groups, working together to try and reveal as many secrets as possible.

The guessing of the clues hanging from the lanterns is a traditional Mid-Autumn Festival activity. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a 3,000-year-old festival dating back to China’s Shang Dynasty.

Centered on sharing time with family and friends, similar to the American holiday of Thanksgiving, the Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most important holidays in the Chinese calendar. The day was also originally a harvest festival celebrating the abundance of food, since it fell when fruit, vegetables, and grain had already been harvested.

This evening, people also gathered around with family and friends to watch an orchestra of Chinese traditional musicians perform, as the holiday is a time of relaxation and celebration.

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When I finished my article, I was also able to run over to Center Court just in time for Venus Williams’ first round match against. It was absolutely amazing to see one of the Williams sisters play firsthand. I expected to see a complete blowout, but it ended up being a pretty close match, with Venus winning an extremely close second set with a tiebreak.

(To the left is a picture of me at the tournament. There are walls of children's artwork throughout the venue)

In celebration of the Moon Festival and after a suggestion from Ben, one of the Emily’s friends in the players lounge, Emily and I decided to have a date night and hit up what is called “Bar Street.” The name really said it all…it was an extremely long street of bar after bar after bar, packed together as tightly as possible to make room for more bars. It was definitely more of a touristy area, since there were a variety of people and accents there- and we ended up talking to a few of people from England and Germany. We visited a variety of different places, sitting outside and enjoying the beautiful weather and full moon. It was one of the most fun nights in Beijing- thanks for the great date Emily.