No-nonsense spokesman soothes fears with promise of straight talk

Veteran mainland sports reporters must have felt like they had been whisked back to the sultry, mind-frying Beijing summer of 2008 in a Groundhog Day-style time warp when they arrived at the Garden Hotel conference hall in Guangzhou a few weeks ago.

Quizzed over the Asian Games' plans to reproduce the infamous protest parks that caused embarrassment for the capital's Olympic Games organisers throughout the event, the Guangzhou Games' deputy director for security, Cai Guilan, froze on the podium.

Panic showed in her eyes before she composed hereself enough to trot off a bromide reply through a grin as wide as the nearby Pearl River.

'We are committed to delivering a 'Thrilling Games, Harmonious Asia'...' she said.

Reporters groaned audibly, fearing they were being slowly dragged into a replica of the 2008 Olympic vortex where Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games technocrats frustrated the world's media with trite sloganeering and conflicting statistics.

Concern over visa availability during Guangzhou's fortnight in the spotlight was also lost in the static of the translation service.

Several department officials fished into their on-message cache and mechanically pulled out robotic answers that bore no relation to the questions.