BEIJING — On Jianguomenwai Street near Beijing's embassy district, a man dressed in a black jacket and dark pants steps out from behind a hedge. "DVDs? DVDs?" he asks, opening a black shoulder bag filled with several hundred pirated movies.
"We may have some Schwarzenegger films here somewhere," says the 32-year-old, declining to be identified other than by his last name, Peng. "But they're rather old now."
Schwarzenegger's movies may be ancient by the lightning standards of DVD pirating, but the California governor remains a potent curiosity in China. With more at stake than just his own movie grosses, Schwarzenegger arrived here Monday for a trade mission and found a far more enthusiastic audience than he had last week in California during the special election.
In his first substantive address, the governor spoke today about the need to confront the world energy crisis.
Only hours after landing, Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, were mobbed by photographers and fans as they tried to cross a street in downtown Beijing and enter a banquet hall. As a dozen Chinese security guards vainly tried to maintain order, the crowd shoved down the street, setting off car alarms along the way, pushed through a revolving door and then up an escalator.
Schwarzenegger's top aide, Pat Clarey, was abruptly blocked from entering the banquet room before someone yelled: "That's the governor's chief of staff!" The conference center security staff shoved people back through the door and closed it behind her.
"Just another day traveling with the governor in a foreign country," Clarey said.
By this morning, Schwarzenegger had launched his economic message, telling a U.S.-China economic forum that energy will be the defining issue of our time. He spoke of a world in which solar cells are designed in the Silicon Valley and manufactured in China and cars run on hydrogen.
"I know one thing for sure, the answer can no longer be oil," Schwarzenegger said at the forum, where he was introduced by former President George H. W. Bush, who is also visiting the country.
Schwarzenegger was also scheduled to speak at two other business conferences, one of which was to include a banquet in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. Shriver visited a women's center in Beijing, part of a separate itinerary that included a luncheon with prominent women and a trip to an orphanage in Shanghai.
