'Erin go bleagh' turns out no different in Beijing

• Source: Global Times
• [22:06 March 21 2010]
• Comments

What was missing from the celebration in Beijing was everything leading up to a night of serious drinking in New York. The Big Apple has many colorful ethnic parades, but the Saint Patrick's Day parade isn't one of them.

It's a religious walk to Catholic mass at the aptly named Saint Patrick's Cathedral, where Irish politicos kneel to kiss the archbishop's ring.

There are no floats, a few skirling bagpipes, some Irish step dancers, the entire police and fire departments, and a lot of old gents with knobby knees showing under their kilts.

But mostly, the parade is about politics, for which the Irish have their own gene. The parade is really the start of the political season with candidates marching at the head of the parade and gays in handcuffs dragged off from the rear.

For several years now, Irish gays and lesbians have been forbidden to march under their own banner. So they do a ritual sit-in demonstration to block the parade route. Police officers politely shackle them in plastic cuffs and smile for the camera.

Each arrest must be photographed with the cop standing next to his arrestee; the cop usually grinning ear to ear and the gay Irishman screaming stuff like "death to fascist pigs!" The gays are then picked up like sacks of potatoes and tossed in a paddy wagon.

The parade is controlled by a group of Irish hard-liners called the Royal and Ancient Order of Hibernians who believe, along with the Catholic Church, that homosexuality is an abomination condemned by the Bible. Meanwhile, in past years, the Hibernians have had no problem allowing a group called Noraid to parade its belief in funding IRA terrorists.

But that's just a prelude to honoring Ireland's patron saint the traditional way: drinking yourself into a coma.

My last stop at the Beijing pub was the men's room, where one Irish toilet bowl hugger was already on his knees in a puddle of urine, upchucking a drink called an "Irish car bomb."

Still, he was able to look up and smile through the vomit: "Happy Saint Paddy's Day!"

The author, an Emmy Award-winning TV news correspondent, is a copy editor with the Global Times. barrycunningham@ globaltimes.com.cn