Views From Row Z

By Pico Iyer /

Yes, the Man in the Stands had seen the 2,400 doves, the 1,500 people dancing the Flower Crown Dance, the 846 performers in masks, the one Burmese flag bearer and all the rest of the made-for-TV pageantry beamed, so it was said, to three in every five of the people in this world. But all of this was a world away from the simple reality of sitting in a $5 seat on a rainy day, in a half-deserted stadium, wrestling with a box of Curry Noodles (the box won in the opening round). Beside him, three local zanies were wearing doll masks on their heads and munching Smoked Soft Squid. In front of him, two sporting- goods salesmen from Ensenada, Mexico, were crying out Spanish exhortations to Tino Martinez, the U.S. baseball team's first baseman. On every side, four separate groups of cheerleaders, led by men in suits, were throwing themselves through furious gyrations in support of any and every team, jumping around in every direction and flailing their arms at 78 r.p.m. The Man in the Stands looked at the men on the field: D.S. Kim, K.B. Kim, T.H. Kim, K.K. Kim. This would not be an easy Olympics.

Along the third-base line, an old man in a traditional Korean black hat and flowing black gown was spinning around like a madman and waving a Korean flag. The same versatile character had been sighted just a day before at the Hanyang University gymnasium waving a Japanese flag. That time he had been surrounded by four mild-mannered Japanese matrons who were waving their own flags of the Rising Sun and calling out "Good luck! Good luck!" to the Japanese volleyball team. As soon as the unprepossessing quintet finished their cheer, a thunderous chant arose from two separate sections of the stadium: "U.S.A. ! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" The matrons looked perturbed. "It's a little frightening, isn't it?" said one. Undeterred, they bravely waved their flags again: "Nippon! Nippon! Nippon!" Once more there came a tumultuous roar of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" "It's a little dangerous, isn't it?" said another. The matrons looked around anxiously. Then, taking their sympathies firmly in their hands, they cried out once again, in Japanese, "Gambatte, gambatte, Kawai-san!" (Go, go, Mr. Kawai!)

Such are the Amateur's Games. The issue of amateurism shadows every discussion at the current Olympics, and not just because Korean President Roh Tae Woo has dubbed this the "Era of the Ordinary Man." All the divisions - have grown increasingly blurred, moreover, as governments offer medal winners homes and lifetime incomes. Even the terms are slippery now: the word amateur has actually been excised from the official Olympic lexicon, while professionalism remains a dirty word among those who want flawless efficiency in their plans but not their hearts.

So perhaps the last real amateurs in the field are those who watch, the ones who have not spent four years pumping iron or hype. They are the ones who enjoy the Amateur's Games, the behind-the-scenes, behind-the-screen games that are made not for TV but V.T. (as in "visceral thrill"): the Olympic Games for those who want to play at being kids again. They begin by sneaking around the back of the Olympic stadium just before the opening ceremonies, to get close-ups of the athletes, out of line and out of synch, as they prepare to march in, an Englishman sporting his I SPEAK ENGLISH button (ah, that British irony!), the Jamaicans holding their heads high while across the world their island was being laid waste by Hurricane Gilbert. They continue at the Han River festival, where an American pulls off a major upset in an ineffable local version of bingo, in an area in which ruddy-faced stallkeepers wave customers toward pungent wild-boar barbecues, and the only signs in English say DRAFT BEER. And they reach their climax at the buffet breakfast in the Intercontinental Hotel, where they catch a glimpse of Florence Griffith Joyner spooning down her cereal (the Breakfast of Champions, no doubt).

The Man in the Stands notes with pleasure that Pia Zadora is singing I Am What I Am at the Hotel Lotte, and that the Korean Film Week begins with such local classics as Surrogate Woman and Potatoes. But his biggest moment comes just sitting in the stands of Songnam stadium, far from the cameras and the crowds, in the balmy autumn sunshine. Most of the spectators in this rural place are locals, men with newspapers on their heads, women under parasols, large cheering sections of large women in largely billowing blue-and-yellow hambok who are singing mournful folk songs and donning and doffing their sun caps in time to a melody that crackles out of a tiny cassette recorder. Nobody is enjoying the field-hockey game as much as they are the bright afternoon. "They don't really know very much about the game," notes Arpad von Bone, a Dutch trainer intensely scrutinizing penalty corners. "But they have a delegation of children here to raise flags for every country. For Holland, they even had tulips! It's fantastic!" True amateurs, all.

The Man in the Stands savors the long blue benches of Changch'ung gymnasium, where the scoreboard announces that D. Hee is the winner of what it calls the "Light Women" taekwondo division. And he is among the earliest to know that the first American winner in the 1988 Games was a personable young taekwondoist from Chicago called Arlene Limas. When Arlene mounted the stand and waited for the first playing of The Star-Spangled Banner, however, there was only silence. Then more silence. At last, as the uneasy quiet dragged on, a few of the friends who had come all the way from Illinois to cheer Arlene on, just a group of kids and moms and weathered-looking women in wind- breakers, started singing their national anthem, alone and a cappella in the big arena. On television, they said, it was a moving sight. In person, the scene was something else: a little embarrassing, a little giggle-making -- and so, when the impromptu chorus rose up, moving in an even deeper way. An unscheduled song of national pride. A fanfare for the Ordinary Man.