[RABBIT CHEWING]
[BIG CAT ROARS]
[HORSE WHINNIES]
[CAT HOWLS]
THOMAS MORTON: So we are now following the pigeon truck out
to the launching site, which is seven hours from here.
Mr. Liu generously gave us a box of Baijiu, an extremely
strong liquor, to keep us warm tonight.
And pig's feet to help soak up the liquor.
Oh!
Oh, I thought we were just going to eat it separately.
I didn't think you were going to break the foot in half.
All right.
How's yours?
Good?
BILLY STARMAN: Yeah.
THOMAS MORTON: I'm in an abandoned parking lot, 500
kilometers away from Beijing.
The sun has just come up, and in a couple minutes, a million
dollars' worth of racing pigeons are going to shoot out
of this van and wing their way back home.
My understanding was we were going to be in the middle of a
meadow somewhere.
He said, oh, we're going to take them out to a field,
which in my mind was some sort of Mao scene, with mountains
and the sun coming up.
Not like a derelict industrial ground.
[WINGS FLAPPING]
THOMAS MORTON: Oh, somebody's bird is right there.
That one got nailed on the way out and landed.
They just pulled the birds out.
That's a little rough.
It's kind of a "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" moment.
All right.
Let's get back in our car and see if we can't beat these
pigeons home.
Once their pigeons have been released, the race is
completely out of the owners' hands.
And it isn't just losing they have to worry about.
Any number of fates can befall their birds on the way home.
They can get attacked by hawks.
They can be eaten by dogs.
They can just get lost.
Scientists aren't even sure how their homing mechanism
works, whether it's by smell or sight or the detection of
seismic waves.
So there's no safeguarding against it
simply crapping out.
Or they can be captured by pigeon pirates.
Which we thought was an inside joke, until we met this guy.
He is a pigeon pirate.
PIGEON PIRATE: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
THOMAS MORTON: The only thing pigeon racers hate worse than
pirates is the weather.
And sure enough, as we made our way back to Beijing, an
unexpected blizzard overtook the race course.
Liu Yung's racers are trained to land at his brother's
rustic mountain hideaway on the outskirts of town.
But by the time we got there, none of his birds had made it
back, and sundown was fast approaching.
Hey guys.
Hi.
THOMAS MORTON: Ni hao.
Ni hao.
How's it going?
Little chilly today.
And where do the pigeons land when they
come in from the race?
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
THOMAS MORTON: Upstairs?
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
BILLY STARMAN: We have 13 minutes.
THOMAS MORTON: Until sundown?
BILLY STARMAN: Yeah.
THOMAS MORTON: Uh oh.
What happens at sundown?
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
BILLY STARMAN: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG'S BROTHER: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG'S BROTHER: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
THOMAS MORTON: So he's heard from Mr. Bokun that his
champion bird got home fastest.
So he gets the million dollars and is now the first triple
crown winner in pigeon racing.
MR. BOKUN: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
THOMAS MORTON: That's a great-looking bird.
BILLY STARMAN: Yeah.
THOMAS MORTON: Much better than the ones in New York.
Back in the hills, the news wasn't all bad.
So apparently, 14 of his birds came in early this morning.
It's good for him.
Fortunately, none of those birds are number 150, which is
bad for me.
LIU YUNG'S BROTHER: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
[LAUGHTER]
THOMAS MORTON: Sorry.
BILLY STARMAN: Sorry, Thomas.
THOMAS MORTON: Did it just land?
BILLY STARMAN: No.
THOMAS MORTON: All right.
Which one was that?
LIU YUNG'S BROTHER: No.
THOMAS MORTON: Wait, there isn't one--
LIU YUNG'S BROTHER: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
LIU YUNG: [SPEAKING CHINESE]
THOMAS MORTON: So pigeon racing's sort of the ideal
sport for China's new bootleg economy.
It's a complete shell game.
Nobody knows, when you release the pigeons, whose pigeon is
going to come in.
Nobody really knows how much the pigeons themselves are
worth, or even how pigeons work.
It's all just based on what people are telling you.
It's like when you take a bootleg item, you slap a logo
on it, and it becomes a luxury good overnight.
That's exactly what's happened in the Chinese
pigeon racing circuit.
You take a $2,000 pigeon, and you sell it to a rich guy for
$20,000, and it becomes a $20,000 pigeon.
In a country where information is limited, where face is
everything, where appearance is way more important than
reality most of the times, no one's going to
call you out on it.
It's great.
The bootleg system works.
And you can get Pasolini's "Salo" for a dollar.
[MUSIC PLAYING]