Accidentally attended the Shanghai Hash House Harriers meet today. The premise is not terrible, a group of runners follow pre-prepared signs (flour markings) along a 10-15k route around Shanghai’s streets and back alleys. Slightly irritating is that the the markings are sparse and often purposely misleading including dead ends and split routes with the intention of keeping forerunners back-tracking and the group loosely together.
More alarming is that the whole event seems an excuse for expats to ridicule each other. Post-run drinks include embarrassingly compered announcements (“drew is new and must down a beer from a potty”), event results (“Alex wore the tightest pants and must down a beer from a potty”) and club songs (“we like big tits we like big tits”) followed by spraying beer at everybody’s knees… and downing beer from a potty.
We made our excuses and left. It reminded me of a Paul Merton in China episode where he attended a simlar club meet. It was the Guangzhou branch of today's group – which it turns out is a pretty big deal for expats the world over. Shame.