CHINA: Jasper Becker in Beijing talks to a Chinese "cricket sage", whosays that the insect competitions, plagued by drug problems and illegalbetting scandals, are getting like the Olympics.
China is going cricket mad but the sport is plagued with doping scandals, illegal betting and overshadowed by international political tensions, says top umpire Prof Wu Jichuan.
"We now have some 10 million fans in China alone," says Prof Wu, who is one of China's leading cricket fans and the author of a number of books about a passion dating back to the emperors of the Tang dynasty.
A slight, intense figure with thick pebble glasses who is trying to organise an international cricket festival for the summer, he thinks commercial sponsorship is still some way off.
Once outlawed as a frivolous and bourgeois pastime during Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, these days the government takes a relaxed attitude to what some other governments might regard as a blood sport.
Chinese cricket fans are making the most of the government's tolerance. Enthusiasts are spending as much as 100,000 yuan (about €11,800), or 10 times the average urban salary, to train or buy the top competitors. Spectators are ready to fly all over the country to watch the best matches.
"That's a lot of money when you think even world champions don't last longer than a season," he observed and he brought out one of his favourites, an ugly-looking brute who sidled backwards and forwards with a coiled intent.
"This is the Chinese Mike Tyson - he can finish off any opponent by biting off their head," he said. "People used to do it just for fun but now it is very intense and competitive, like heavyweight boxing. Some rely on special techniques like Shaolin monastery martial arts experts or Japanese Sumo wrestlers," he said.
Still the sport has its gentler side. Prof Wu has a collection of ink portraits complete with verses eulogising famous champions and believes the sport has a civilising influence and that it should be introduced around the world.
In the 15th century some Chinese emperors became so obsessed with fielding the best teams in the country that loyal ministers introduced a cricket tax. Instead of delivering up a share of their harvest as a grain tax, peasants had to collect the best crickets and hand them over to the cricket- assessing Mandarins.
"Failure to pay the cricket tax was a capital offence in the Ming dynasty," China's "cricket sage" noted, a bit wistfully.
Not all crickets are kept like Roman gladiators. Many crickets are cherished because they are expert musicians whose exquisite, plaintive sounds have earned them golden or ivory cages.
Some Beijingers still nurture them in carved gourds, placed close to the skin to keep them warm throughout the winter to preserve that elegiac sound of summers past.
Some of these cricket homes are works of art in their own right and prices have risen steeply in recent years to fetch several hundred thousand pounds. The earliest ones date back 7,000 years.
China's first cricket festival was held in 1991 and Prof Wu hopes to organise an international cricket festival this summer either in Beijing or in Shandong province.There, 800 years ago, at the foot of the sacred peak of Mount Taishan, a Song dynasty emperor fleeing in haste from northern invaders scattered his collection.
He is also trying to attract more participants from South East Asia, Japan and Korea but recalls that in the past, cricket competitions became ugly exhibitions of nationalism. "During the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, the Japanese pitted their champion against a Chinese cricket. If the Japanese won, the Chinese would have to turn east and kow-tow," he said. Only after a battle lasting all day could the wounded Chinese cricket, which lost four of its six legs, finally triumph.
These days many Chinese will wager big on the outcome, even though any form of gambling remains forbidden. With so much riding on the outcome, Prof Wu is often called in to act as umpire.
As a professor of Biochemistry, he says he is often forced to carry out tests to ensure that no artificial performance enhancers are used. "It's like the Olympics. We have a lot of drug problems these days," he said.
His expertise in the art of preserving insect specimens also brought him to the attention of China's secret services.
The "relevant departments", as he calls them, summoned him in 1976 for a matter of national security. Chairman Mao had died and the Communist Party wished to preserve and display his corpse like Lenin's on Red Square.
At first the corpse was pumped full of formaldehyde but later, Prof Wu took part in extensive research carried out by scientists to find a way to restore it to a natural appearance.
Chinese experts went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London to examine techniques to create a lifelike dummy. This was put on display in his tomb built on the middle of Tiananmen Square while scientists carried out experiments to find chemical solutions to best treat his skin.
"He can now be kept for another 100 years," Prof Wu said. Every two days the mummy is lowered underground and sprayed afresh with a special bath of chemicals.