Doused boss feels sharp end of stick

This lighting manufacturer was hoping to make a big splash with their environmental campaign to adopt three pandas and make them mascots of climate-change awareness. But it was the park staff at the press conference in the Wolong Reserve that really poured it on - by accidentally dumping gallons of pooled rainwater all over the company's CEO during a recent press conference.

Despite the rainfall that has been sheeting down upon Sichuan Province over the past few weeks, the media-savvy PR firm decided to hold the conference under a canopy pitched in front of the living habitat of the to-be-adopted pandas. This ensured the press could get an eye-full of the cuddly critters as they frolicked and chewed bamboo, while government and park officials inked the adoption agreement with the CEO.

However, the canopy roof was fashioned from a tarp stretched across a flat roof frame, so that the downpour - rather than running off the roof's sides - pooled in the pockets between the grid of crossbeams.

Suddenly, all eyes were cast towards the roof, which was now a checkerboard of concave squares, in each of which the weight of the accumulated water was causing the canopy to droop.

One park staffer decided to take action and took up a long bamboo fishnet, which was pointed on the end not used to scoop aquatic creatures from deep waters.

But rather than pushing the water up and out over the edge with the netted end, he punctured the canopy - to the English-language protests of the CEO, who yelled: "No! No! Use the other end!"

Audience members snatched up their electronic gizmos and bags and scuttled away from him in the nick of time, effectively evading the cascade.

With all participants still high and dry, things returned to normalcy, and predictable and scripted speeches proceeded as reporters furiously scribbled in their notebooks.

Then, with a sudden popping sound, the sharpened tip of the bamboo shaft ruptured downwards through another sagging square of roof from above, and unsuspecting audience members again fled to keep from getting soaked.

Apparently, a park staffer had crawled on the roof to take a stab at removing the excess water. A faint shadow could be seen from below as he stalked too and fro atop the structure, until the ambiguous dark spot came to pause over the square directly above the stage where the VIPs sat at a dressed-up table. The CEO had just enough time - a millisecond, it seemed - to look up and realize he was about to be hosed.

Another popping rip announced the puncture of the tarp, and gravity took its course. A small but torrential cascade splooshed down atop his head, and calamity erupted among the onlookers.

Astonishment faded into laughter, and there stood the soaked CEO. But he was determined not to let the incident dampen his spirits, and after a few guffaws, he burst into a hearty round of Singing in the Rain.

I'm willing to bet that when this company decided to stage this event to expound their concern for climate problems, this wasn't one they had in mind.

(China Daily 07/31/2007 page20)