China Ultimate

全国的极限飞盘爱好者你们好，

首先非常感谢很多朋友就香港队的中外属性问题给我们提出了很多宝贵的意见。我们收到了一些经过深思熟虑的邮件，字里行间透露这大家对整个飞盘社会发展方向的憧憬和信心。

我们自己也很清楚前几届的中国极限飞盘公开赛中我们的一些规则并不完美，但是这些规则在过去的这个阶段确实对提高本地飞盘队员的技术水平有一定的帮助。我们希望，随着中国飞盘整体水平的提高，以后这样的规则会变得越来越不重要。梦想有一天，所有玩儿过这项运动的人都能够完全公平的在一起比赛，角逐冠军。

同时，我们坚信这些并不完善的规则对整个飞盘社会短期内的发展还是有很大帮助的。这一点在大家的邮件中也都有表明。

多数参与讨论的朋友们都同意提高整个中国极限飞盘公开赛的竞争水平是最重要的，而且鉴于比较敏感的政治因素，我们没有理由把香港人排除在中国人之外。上海队的朋友们也提出在去年上海比赛中，天津队在四分之一决赛时曾打败过香港队。我们一致认为今年的公开赛中把香港队划为中国队利大于弊。

因此，我们在此宣布：在香港出生和长大，并持有香港身份证的香港队员算是香港人，即中国队员。全队参赛人数中外国队员比例不得超过30%。即，全队参赛人数中必须有超过70%的队员是中国人或符合上述条件的香港人。而且，比赛中每次上场的外国队员不得超过2人。

希望大家都同意这样的决议并在比赛时按照此决议执行。

今年的中国公开赛即将来临，我们每一位组织者都难掩心中的激动情绪。相信这次比赛有利于香港队员和所有其他新老朋友加强联系，整个比赛也会充满友好、和平！

加油中国飞盘！

加油,

China Utlimate players,

As we stated before we were very pleased by the number of responses to our debate concerning HK. Most of you let us know, through well-reasoned emails, what direction you believe our community should go in.

We all know that the way that we have structured the past few years is not ideal but it tries to grow the local Chinese talent by as much as possible each year. As the level of play increases hopefully these types of problems will be less important and everyone who has shared our great sport in China for more than a few years would be able to compete for the finals.

In the meantime, we are confident that our structure helps the community as a whole grow in the short term and by reading your emails we think you agree.

Most of your emails overwhelmingly agreed that strengthening our level of play at the nationals is most important and that citizens who have been deemed Chinese should not excluded due to the political division between HK and the mainland. Many of the shanghai organizers were quick to point out that Tianjin beat HK in the quarter finals at Shanghai last year. We are confident that including HK is not detrimental to the 2010 China Open or the structure as we have organized it.

Therefore, we are happy to announce that HK players that were born and raised in HK and have the relevant HK ID issued by the HK government will be counted as Chinese players. Please remember that less than 30% of any team playing for the Chinese championship can by foreign. In other words, over 70% must be Chinese nationals, or the above mentioned HK designation. At most, two foreigners are allowed on the field at one time.

We hope everyone is satisfied by this decision and the way that we came to it.

We cannot express how excited we are to have all of you up here to compete for this year’s Chinese champion. We are also excited that the inclusion of HK will only make us stronger as a community of old and new friends and a tournament of friendly competitors.

Go China ultimate.

Cheers

From Jeff Orcutt:

大家好，(English below)

我们很荣幸地宣布今年全国赛的日期。极限飞盘的2010年中国公开赛将还在去年那块优秀的场地举办，日期是5月15、16号的周末。

很快，赛事的主题和外国玩家参与的规则会被决定，非常感谢全国上下所有玩家对此的投入。

我们的网站将在春节长假之后开通，到时候线上会提供相关讯息和在线注册表格。

对于来北京参赛的队伍，我们希望能提供好的赞助，可惜的是我们无法帮助到每个人。你的队伍如果需要赞助，请直接和赛事的杨燕（yangyan218@gmail.com）或者Jeff Orcutt (orcutt.jeff@gmail.com)联系。我们希望尽可能多的人会来北京参赛，这样玩家们就可以把全国团体的极限精神和精湛的飞盘技艺带回当地的队伍。

记住日期之后，你就可以为了来北京参赛和享受人生的这一飞盘时刻而开始存钱啦！

中国飞盘加油！对于五月份北京的相聚，我们已经迫不及待了！！！

干杯，

中国公开赛极限飞盘协会

Hello,

We are pleased to announce the date of this year’s National tournament the 2010 China Open. We will be holding it on the same great fields as last year on the weekend of May 15^th and 16^th.

The theme and rules concerning foreigners will be coming soon and any input from those of you around China would be greatly appreciated.

Our website will be up after Chunjie break with all the relevant information and an online registration form.

We hope to be able to offer some great sponsorships to teams travelling to Beijing, but unfortunately are not able to help everyone. Please communicate directly with Kelly yang (yangyan218@gmail.com) or Jeff Orcutt (orcutt.jeff@gmail.com) if you want to seek sponsorships for your teams. We want to help as many people come to Beijing as possible so they can bring a National spirit of Ultimate community along with badass ultimate skills back to their towns and cities.

Please set the date aside and start saving to come up to Beijing and have the time of your life!

Go China ultimate and we cannot wait to see all of you in Beijing in May!!!

Cheers,

China nationals committee

Not to bog you fair readers down in the boring minutia of minutes -- god forbid we're turning into a bureaucracy that holds meetings -- but for those interested in keeping up with developments in the planning of China's national tournament, this is for you.

Jeff Orcutt writing, with translation by Aurora Yao:

This Saturday’s meeting was very good. I cannot wait to work with all of you on this tournament over the spring. Let’s increase our use of email and continue to communicate over CNY.

Ken, sorry that we were unable to connect. Let’s Burger lied about their internet connection… and that was the second location we had gone to…

As for the meeting here are some notes that I took. Mike has others. This is not an exhaustive list of what we talked about (Tao’s brackets is one area, and what the foreigners should do on Saturday –nines?) and I encourage you to add or correct what I have written.

In attendance (clockwise from door):

Mike

Jeff

Shen

Tao

Kelly

Steven

Location/time: Let’s Burger (tasty food) from 8:00 until 10:00pm (Kelly could only count this as one hour if she is counting : ) ) on Saturday, Feb, 6, 2010.

These notes are not in the order as discussed at the meeting:

Sponsorship:

This is an area that is difficult but we were happy that if we continue to plug away we may find some good news. We all agreed that at this point we should organise the tournament as if we were not going to receive any sponsorship. However, that does not mean that we should not try to get merchandise and money as sponsorships. Some areas where we may be able to get sponsorship:

n Nokia – we have helped them put on clinics (Kelly will invite them to participate in our spring league and use that discussion to slowly bring up sponsorship opportunities)

n ISB – in addition to the free fields in the spring we may be able to get some sponsorships since they are sending teams

n KPMG – I want to get tents from them like they did in SH

n Mike’s company – a little bit o’ cash?

n Other companies that we are involved with

n Eric Wu’s father – we discussed trying to see if funds were available from him or PWC. Eric indicated that this might be a possibility

Mike, Gareth and I have been working on a sponsorship pack and we will send it around when ready so each of you can approach companies that you feel may be helpful in this regard.

Also Zahlen will continue to help support us. We will talk about jerseys for early-bird registration like two years ago.

Team sponsorship:

We also want to provide sponsorships to teams so we can increase turnout especially from teams in the south that have to travel all the way across China to get here. I would love if we could provide some sponsorship for the tournament fees but really try to get it so everyone pays roughly the same price in travel costs (if everyone took trains). For example if train tickets from SZ are 600-800 we could off set the cost over 300 or so. (These numbers are made up off the top of my head.) I know this is not really possible but it can be a goal.

Price for the tournament:

In addition to other early-bird registration deals we discussed having a discount on price per player. Most at the meeting felt that a fifty kuai increase in price might be justified especially if we have some team sponsorships like last year. So the prices would work out to:

Foreigners 350RMB

Chinese 250RMB

Chinese students 150RMB

These increases could be explained by our increased cost of fields (for more teams, and increased sending on sponsorships).

Early-bird registration:

We thought an early-bird period for registration would be beneficial. For those teams registering before this date would have a fifty kuai discount on the above prices and may be able to get cheaper or free jerseys. The dates for early-bird registration were not set in stone but April 10^th and the first of May were mentioned. We talked about not allowing registration after the first of May.

Direction and priorities of the tournament:

I wanted to emphasize that while we want to encourage teams to register as early as possible and may have these favourable prices and merchandise for them we have to remember that the most important aspect of the tournament is that we get the most amount of Chinese nationals to attend.

The website:

Was discussed. We talked about the need for it to be simple and easy to use. Mike will lead on this front and Jeff will send him what he will need from last year to get the website running in the next few weeks.

Mike has more on this.

Rules for participation:

We talked about allowing teams to have unlimited numbers and we reached a tentative agreement on using the old rules for foreigner participation on the Chinese teams (under 30% with only two allowed on the field at once). Mike brought up allowing a lower number of foreigners might help the level of play and overall comfort of the Chinese nationals. In the end it seemed that the old rules were agreed upon. Right, Mike?

The ratio was set at 5/2, 4/3 offense decides.

Everyone agreed that it was too early for WFDF rules as the Chinese nationals needed more time to grow on their own. As it isn’t clear there will be a viable WFDF organisational committee around Chinese in the near future nationals can concentrate on promoting the sport among the locals.

Theme:

We were a little baffled at what Balance wanted when he was talking about more people mingling at the Saturday night party. Jeff was worried what he would have in store for the SZ tournament.

Some theme ideas that we talked about:

A pajamas theme

三国

Transformaters

Blizzard games (i.e. world of warcraft, starcraft, etc.)

Movie theme

As last year some ideas for games were talked about and some icebreaking games would definitely help people mingle as many of the Chinese players are shy and do not drink like the foreigners.

Fields:

At this point the fields are settled on the weekend of May 15^th and 16^th. We will use their lunch and water services again as they were fine and convenient. After CNY Jeff will confirm the details with Zhouyan, our contact at the fields.

Media:

We agreed that media was important for this year especially highlighting the competitive play and good spirit of the tournament while downplaying the drinking.

We will:

- Put together a pack for media consumption talking about the game and media pieces that have already covered the sport in BJ (Tao and Shen?)

- Approach Casey about CCTV involvement

- Tao also has media contacts that we can pitch to.

Hotels:

We were hoping to find good hotels with a party stop like last year within walking distance. We all agreed that the format of the party last year was good (with a dinner and drinking all in the same location near the hotels) and hope to repeat it. Wudaokuo was a location suggested for the hotels this year as it is close to the fields and will probably have cheap hotels for students.

Future meetings:

We agreed that future meetings can take place on Sundays either around eleven (ie before pickup) or in the evening (after pickup). Steven’s cafe is available in the future.

We agreed that we don’t have to meet again until the first weekend in March and then meeting twice in march and up to four times in April and then weekly in May.

To do:

n The website needs to go up and Jeff and mike will prepare a version for comments.

n A general role call of teams around china and their contact people should be taken and this includes a formal announcement of the date and venue. (who?)

n More discussion on the rules that we have adopted so they can be finalised.

n Sponsorship opportunities need to be approached

n Hotels need to be found (Mike and his company offered company time to support this effort)

n Priorities of the tournament need to be thought about. What best favours increasing Chinese turnout that we can reasonably do

n And jeff will finish up sponsorship packet

n Media packet – Tao?

I would also like to talk to leaders around China so we can find a way to agree where next year’s nationals will be held and make a fair way of picking locations in the future. Hopefully, we will already know the next location before this year’s tournament so they can get the most out of our expertise and their time at the tournament.

This may have to be developed in tandem with a Chinese national Frisbee organisation. I will put out an email for this.

Ok. Rock on. We will meet again in March and I will set out an email about that but before that I hope to see a good email discussion.

上周六的会开得很不错。我已经等不及在春天和大家一起努力了。

Beijing has had a good two-year run hosting China Open, but could that end in 2010? Balance of Shenzhen, in an email titled "Shenzhen is going to hold the 2010 China Open Ultimate Tournament.", wrote:

Hi everyone

This is Balance. How's your 2009?

As you can see from the title, it is our pleasure to tell you that Shenzhen is going to hold the 2010 China Open Ultimate Tournament, and that will be the first China national ultimate tournament in the south.

In 2007, the first China Open was held in Tianjin. Several Chinese teams joined.

In 2008, the second China Open was held in Beijing, more Chinese teams parcitipated.

in 2009, the Third China Open was held in Beijing again, stronger Chinese teams appear.

in 2010, the Fourth China Open will be put on where?? It is a good oppurtunity to welcome you to the south and engage in a new China tournament. It is nessesary to have a full China ultimate tournament in the south to develop China ultimate. Do you agree?

Since 2006, we have been working on spreading out China ultimate and have made great efforts. We are growing up and becoming one of the most important part in China ultimate. We feel confident to do this by consideration of our attitude, passion, human resources, circumstances, knowledge, etc. Most importantly, we had done a ultimate tournament proposal and handed in it to our government.

So, it is our honor to make this decision and announce it to everyone who concerns. Hopefully, I will see you in Shenzhen next year.

深圳欢迎你！

Beijing's official response:

Hi everyone,

I'm writing on behalf of Beijing tourney organizers. Apologies for this email's length, but please take it as a reflection of our interest in this topic.

We appreciate Balance's enthusiasm in China Open and are grateful for his ongoing efforts in promoting Ultimate, in Shenzhen specifically and China in general. Moving forward, we agree it's important to grow Ultimate in places like Chengdu, Kunming, Guangzhou and Tibet (which has a local team, believe it or not), whether that means encouraging more regional tournaments or moving China Open around. To Balance, Ivan, Barbara in Kunming, Kwong in Guangzhou, and anyone else trying to organize a tournament of any sort, whether that be Ningbo Hat or Shenzhen Open, please know you have Beijing's full support. (Here I'll put in a plug for the second annual Kunming Hat Tourney, March 6-7.)

However, that said, we feel China Open should stay in Beijing, at least this coming year. It's not that we don't have confidence in Balance, Ivan, etc. -- on the contrary, we fully recognize their passion for Ultimate and their ability to organize -- but we just think our city has more to offer.

First and foremost, we have been having ongoing discussions with various people from all over the country about holding China Open in Beijing again, and we were not, until yesterday, aware of anyone wanting to hold this tourney in 2010 outside the Northern Capital.

Beijing can offer great fields, restaurants, hotels and transportation, as we have the last two years, and we enjoy the support of Zahlen's company, Five Ultimate, which is based in Tianjin. An added bonus is the media presence here: Beijing Ultimate has received, in this past year alone, coverage from China Daily, Beijing Today and China Sport Magazine. We have a CCTV contact that we hope will further help expose Ultimate to a greater Chinese audience.
Third, most of China's local teams are in the north -- I count three each from Beijing, Tianjin and Dalian. I do not mean to minimize the presence of teams in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Ningbo and Hong Kong, but in purely practical terms, Beijing is more convenient for a greater number of teams. We hope to help Tianjin, Dalian, etc., build their respective Ultimate communities so that they can travel more extensively in the future. In the meantime, Beijing is looking forward to hosting China Open in mid- to late-May, same as in years past. We sincerely welcome input in the form of comments, suggestions, questions and criticism, because in the end, our sole ambition is to provide the best possible experience for China's Ultimate players. Anything you can do to to help in this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Tao, Jeff, Ken Su, Mike Shyu, et al.


(Ivan of Shenzhen adds):

Hi Dear All,

I would like to express a few humble opinions on this issue.

I saw a poll of "which city do you like to host the 2010 China Nationals" that Balance submitted on China Ultimate Frisbee QQ Group.Almost every chinese ulti players are on that group, and people have started to vote. I think Balance's emails are just to start the discussion, and of course I don't think its a decison that Shenzhen will host the 2010 China Nationals.

Since late 2007 I have played ultimate in Wuhan,Kunming,Guangzhou and now in Shenzhen, I can feel that the Ultimate in the South is growing well and the South is deserve to host a Nationals. The Shenzhen Ulti Crew are excited to work hard to prepare a GREAT tournament, and we also get the support from Guangzhou and HK Ultimate Friends.

Most of your may know Balance as an Ultimate Cameraman,but I think he is much more than that.I admire Balance's full dedication and energy for the Ultimate development in China, and he also have worked hard to build the chinese ultimate website www.cupa.cn. I think Balance's first email is just represent the strong will of most southern ultimate players to host the 2010 China Nationals, and he represent well.

Best wish to all of you,

Ivan

Most of these jerseys created by Five Ultimate

The champions (from Perkin Chai's album)

Hey everyone,

大家好,

Thanks for a great weekend. We were lucky to have such nice weather (Monday and Tuesday were 35 degrees in Beijing!!) and exciting Ultimate. Zahlen, I, and all of the organisers were very enthusiastic to see the level of play more than double from the year before.

首先感谢大家参加上周末的比赛。我们很幸运，有那么好的天气（北京周一和周二的最高气温有35度!）和那么精彩的极限飞盘比赛。Zahlen、我、以及所有帮忙组织今年活动的人都很高兴能看到今年的飞盘水平翻倍的进步。

I am really glad that all of you could take time out of your busy schedules and use your hard earned money to come to Beijing. I think most of us can agree that it was totally worth it.

我很高兴你们都愿意安排整个一周末的时间并用辛辛苦苦赚的钱来北京一趟。相信大家都能同意，这次来北京很值得。

It is dedication and excitement like what we saw this weekend that will grow our community and lead to more and more weekends full of fun like this last one. Hopefully, all of you can sit down and think about how you are going to make it to the next tournament so we can all be together again. Maybe there is some way that we can save money and time in our ordinary lives in order to get together more often for tournaments.

我们这周末见到的努力和积极性就是以后会鼓励飞盘发展的因素，也会在未来给我们带来更多类似于上周末的飞盘活动。希望大家都有机会时可以好好考虑你能够怎么举办下一个飞盘比赛，把我们再次聚到一起。希望我们以后都能想办法安排出来更多时间和金钱为了一起比赛。

Whatever it is I hope that all of us can make it a priority to get together and have great weekends like this last one as much as possible. I hope we can grow our community, ultimate skills, and our bodies.

无论怎么办，希望我们以后都能更积极的去实现类似上周末的幸福。这样我们全中国的飞盘社团、技术、和体能都能见到发展。

I would like to thank everyone who made this past weekend possible. Without all of them it could not have happened. I hope everyone realises the time that all of them put into organising the 2009 China Open.

真的想特别感谢所有帮忙安排这比赛的各位。没有他们，这一切都不可能实现。希望所有人都知道这些人付出多少时间和经历，为了2009年的中国公开赛。

Please join me in congratulating Hong Kong. It is up to them to defend their title next year. Also, congratulations to Beijing Bang and all the rest of the players from this weekend for stepping up their play and having a great tournament.

我们再次一起为香港队喝彩一下。明年看他们还能否是冠军。恭喜北京帮和许多选手，你们上周末发挥的相当出色，让我们能够看到很多精彩的比赛。

Captains please share this email with your teams and I look forward to seeing all of you very soon. Please keep a look out for frequent updates of skills, information, and new tournaments on www.chinaupa.org. Hopefully we can use this tool to promote our fast growing community.

队长们，请把这封邮件转发给你们的队友，希望在近期能够再次见面。可以经常查看www.chinaupa.org.，以后会有更新的信息、技术、比赛等。希望我们能通过这网站更多发展我们全中国的飞盘社团。

And last, if anyone would like advice or help on organizing their own local tournament, feel free to contact us.

还有，如果有谁想要安排或组织自己的比赛，请联系我们，我们很愿意帮忙。

中国飞盘加油！

欧阳杰

Jeff

From Tao's Facebook albums titled China Nationals 2009 - Saturday; China Nationals 2009 - Saturday night; China Nationals 2009 - Sunday (part 1 of 4); (part 2 of 4); (part 3 of 4); (part 4 of 4)

Kevin Chao: Buncha Azians in Beijing


Roldy Luo: 2009 China open ultimate frisbee by XY


Mike Shyu, setting a new record for Facebook albums:
China Nationals 2009 1/17


China Nationals 2009 2/17


China Nationals 2009 3/17


China Nationals 2009 4/17


China Nationals 2009 5/17


China Nationals 2009 6/17


China Nationals 2009 7/17


China Nationals 2009 8/17


China Nationals 2009 9/17


China Nationals 2009 10/17


China Nationals 2009 11/17


China Nationals 2009 12/17


China Nationals 2009 13/17


China Nationals 2009 14/17


China Nationals 2009 15/17


China Nationals 2009 16/17


China Nationals 2009 17/17


Ivan Xu: 2009 China Nationals

Picture by Mike Shyu

Hong Kong began its tournament with 13-1 and 13-2 wins -- the latter against the Beijing Ugly Trolls, a Big Brother split-squad -- and never looked back en route to capturing the No. 1 overall seed and winning its first team championship in Asia Ultimate in quite a while. (Someone know how many years it's been?)

It was a redemptive weekend for Hong Kong captain Mike Hsu, who was part of an epic meltdown in the first China Nationals in 2007, when HK took half 7-1 in the finals only to give up seven unanswered and eventually lose. He was all smiles this time around -- when his teammates doused him with ice water during a combined team picture with Beijing Bang, when the awards were being presented in the stands, when he was handed the trophy, when he drank out of it... sweet and satisfying.

His team won with defense and precision on offense, two areas of the game the Chinese teams can still improve on. It didn't hurt that they added Kwong from Ringers of Fire, who made the tourney's eight-member all-star team, and a couple other key foreigners. For the most part, though, Hong Kong was a squad of local players, and their pride and determination showed. Their only blemish came in pool play against Shanghai Y in the third game. It didn't matter: they still finished its four pool games with a plus-24 point differential. They were pushed in only two other games, both against Tianjin Five Star, the tourney's 1-seed going in. In the semis on Sunday, Hong Kong led 7-2 and 8-3, only to see Tianjin roar back and tie the game at 9. Hong Kong prevailed only after a dramatic universe point, setting up its finals against Beijing Bang.

Yes, Beijing Bang: the sixth seed entering the weekend and seventh seed after pool play, a team that had to play a fifth game Saturday (pre-quarters) and beat the second and third seeds to reach finals. It was, needless to say, one of the most improbable runs anyone's seen in a long time, especially considering they lost to the Dalian Smurfs and Tianjin Speed in back-to-back games on Saturday.

The upset of the year, against No. 2 Shenzhen, was aided by gusting winds and a solid cup zone -- and also because Shenzhen's best player, Gareth, injured his hand on a layout catch. Bang's zone carried them to another two-point victory against the 3-seed, Air Kazak, whose two-year run as China's best team ended most shockingly. Let it be said here for the record, however, that they wore the crown well.

The finals started out close, with Bang's Mike Shyu making a couple spectacular catches and Ds. It was 3-3* when Hong Kong called a timeout and Bang's captain, Ken Su, delivered one of the more entertaining and hilarious team speeches anyone's heard in a while (you'll have to ask them what he said). It wasn't enough: behind a zone of its own, Hong Kong reeled off 10 of the next 11 points to win 13-4.

*I've been informed Bang was up 3-2.

A big congratulations and thank you to tournament director Jeff Orcutt, who spent hundreds of hours preparing, and Five Ultimate co-owner Zahlen Titcomb, whose organization has more or less made China Nationals happen in each of its three years. This year we had 20 teams -- up from 15 in 2008 -- and about 250 players, by far the best turnout thus far. We only expect this tournament to grow.

We'll have pictures up as soon as China unblocks Blogspot (we're writing this via proxy, so: no hyperlinks, no picture uploading), which could take a couple days or weeks, if the history of YouTube censorship has taught us anything. In the meantime, here are some links to Facebook albums:

Duff Douglas, player-coach of the International School of Beijing Dragons (Red), a team of high school students who really played above their heads and beat Shanghai X in the quarters on Sunday before pushing Beijing Ugly to universe point in the semis: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=80278&id=504839598

From that album, this http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1864952&id=504839598#/photo.php?pid=1864953&id=504839598 is a photo of Joe fouling the sh** out of a high school student in the end zone.

Stephanie Kwan:

--Some nice action shots: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=3&aid=2175520&id=12812853

--Saturday night party and Sunday showcase and finals http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2185635&id=12812853 (Joe's sweet layout http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=35648653&id=12812853)

--Mostly group and team pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=1&aid=2185796&id=12812853

Much more coverage later. We should note, for posterity's sake, that Beijing's combined team beat Shanghai's combined team in a shortened showcase game, 6-4. Perhaps they'll meet again in the Shanghai tourney in four weeks.

If by chance Jeff Orcutt's directions to the fields aren't enough, here are a couple pictures:





Just look for the big pile of cow dung. (But the grass is nice, promise! And green (those pictures were taken in early March). And unlike in Tianjin, there won't be an abhorrent stink hovering over us at all times.)