The opening ceremony passed without incident. The day itself was a bit surreal. All government offices and state-owned enterprises were closed for the day (a Friday), and most private businesses, including restaurants and shops, closed as well. Very few cars were on the road and very few people rode the subway. The whole city seemed to be bracing something.
I met up with Andrew and some of his buddies at his coworker’s apartment to watch the opening ceremony. The ceremony itself was quite impressive. Although some of the fireworks were pre-recorded and digitally enhanced, and the cutest little girl anyone has ever seen on this planet turned out to be lip syncing, they did put on quite a show of synchronized performances, surpassing DPRK’s Mass Games in complexity and imagination, though not scale. And the torch bearer suddenly flying up to do a lap around the roof of the bird’s nest surprised me, and the torch itself looks really cool burning up there. The intervening two and a half hours of countries proceeding through the stadium were sheer tedium, though, helped only by the copious amounts of gin available at the apartment. And the amusing fact that Taiwan is officially known to the Olympic organizers as “Chinese Taipei.”
As the games ended around midnight, we decided to go to SanLiTun, per normal operating procedure for a Friday night. However, we were all the way by the new US Embassy near NuRenJie, and no taxis were anywhere to be found. So Andy and I had to walk nearly an hour, during which time we saw zero available taxis but several armored personnel carriers roaming the streets, which I had never seen in the city before.
The city atmosphere has since changed from one under siege to a restrained enthusiasm. The city is blanketed with Olympic media; busses and subway trains feature live or pre-recorded TV of events. All advertising in the entire city of 17 million is now controlled by the Beijing Olympic organizers, to prevent non-sponsors from free-riding. All outdoor advertisements are either for Olympic sponsors, or are placeholder posters proclaiming “One World, One Dream,” the Olympic motto for this year.
Yet the rules surrounding the Olympics prevent any sort of unapproved fun. Tickets are tightly controlled; tickets to one event only get you access to that immediate area. I was hoping to go to the Bird’s Nest for a picture with my Tennis tickets, but no such luck. I’ve since found out that you can talk your way to get outside a different venue in if you have valid tickets for that day, but you have to argue with the security staff. So maybe I’ll still get my picture.
A coworker generously gave me a pair of tickets to tennis, and I figured we could take the new Olympic subway line 8 to get there. Right? No. They built an entire subway line that doesn’t go to events. Instead I had to take a bus from the subway station all the way to the godforsaken fifth ring road to get to the tennis grounds. The games begin at 5pm, so of course I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner, but I assumed given that outside food was strictly forbidden that they would not pass up an opportunity to charge people and would have adequate food on hand for sale. No. All the concession stands had were terrible ho-ho-like dessert cakes. The menu tantalizingly offered hot dogs, but this was blacked out with electrical tape. You see, with seven years in planning and billions of dollars spent, they were not able to secure adequate hot dog supplies. Only dessert cakes and Yanjing beer. And no outside food allowed. Too much of a security risk.
Well anyway the games were pretty awesome, we saw a fantastic doubles match between Venus and Serena Williams and some Czech women. Some Czech athletes were present in the crowd and were very vocal, chanting between every point. Eventually the Americans in the crowd responded with a thundering “USA! USA! USA!” And of course the Williams sisters responded by coming back from one lost set to win the match.
One last thing amused me. The Chinese are still learning what it means to be first-world. It is normal practice for Chinese babies to wear pajamas with a hole cut at the bottom for them to defecate through in public at the nearest convenient bush. However when I saw this occur inside the Olympic venue, it was a matter of moments before an Olympic volunteer ran up to the family to inform them that a toilet was in fact only about 10 meters away, and that this was the preferred place for their child to relieve himself. The Chinese also are not the best audience for a tennis match. They have an inexplicable need to speak unbelievably loudly into their phones while having a conversation, and don’t understand that this may be distracting to someone who is about to serve while playing Olympic tennis. The poor volunteers worked very hard that evening keeping the crowd in line (from my observation, about 80% of spectators are Chinese). The referee even pleaded a few times through his microphone for the crowd to remain quiet.
Hopefully I will be able to borrow some tickets and get my picture at the Bird’s Nest before I leave. In my mind the Chinese have done an outstanding logistical job with the Olympics, but have really missed an opportunity to let people enjoy themselves and the fruits of all their labors.
I met up with Andrew and some of his buddies at his coworker’s apartment to watch the opening ceremony. The ceremony itself was quite impressive. Although some of the fireworks were pre-recorded and digitally enhanced, and the cutest little girl anyone has ever seen on this planet turned out to be lip syncing, they did put on quite a show of synchronized performances, surpassing DPRK’s Mass Games in complexity and imagination, though not scale. And the torch bearer suddenly flying up to do a lap around the roof of the bird’s nest surprised me, and the torch itself looks really cool burning up there. The intervening two and a half hours of countries proceeding through the stadium were sheer tedium, though, helped only by the copious amounts of gin available at the apartment. And the amusing fact that Taiwan is officially known to the Olympic organizers as “Chinese Taipei.”
As the games ended around midnight, we decided to go to SanLiTun, per normal operating procedure for a Friday night. However, we were all the way by the new US Embassy near NuRenJie, and no taxis were anywhere to be found. So Andy and I had to walk nearly an hour, during which time we saw zero available taxis but several armored personnel carriers roaming the streets, which I had never seen in the city before.
The city atmosphere has since changed from one under siege to a restrained enthusiasm. The city is blanketed with Olympic media; busses and subway trains feature live or pre-recorded TV of events. All advertising in the entire city of 17 million is now controlled by the Beijing Olympic organizers, to prevent non-sponsors from free-riding. All outdoor advertisements are either for Olympic sponsors, or are placeholder posters proclaiming “One World, One Dream,” the Olympic motto for this year.
Yet the rules surrounding the Olympics prevent any sort of unapproved fun. Tickets are tightly controlled; tickets to one event only get you access to that immediate area. I was hoping to go to the Bird’s Nest for a picture with my Tennis tickets, but no such luck. I’ve since found out that you can talk your way to get outside a different venue in if you have valid tickets for that day, but you have to argue with the security staff. So maybe I’ll still get my picture.
A coworker generously gave me a pair of tickets to tennis, and I figured we could take the new Olympic subway line 8 to get there. Right? No. They built an entire subway line that doesn’t go to events. Instead I had to take a bus from the subway station all the way to the godforsaken fifth ring road to get to the tennis grounds. The games begin at 5pm, so of course I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner, but I assumed given that outside food was strictly forbidden that they would not pass up an opportunity to charge people and would have adequate food on hand for sale. No. All the concession stands had were terrible ho-ho-like dessert cakes. The menu tantalizingly offered hot dogs, but this was blacked out with electrical tape. You see, with seven years in planning and billions of dollars spent, they were not able to secure adequate hot dog supplies. Only dessert cakes and Yanjing beer. And no outside food allowed. Too much of a security risk.
Well anyway the games were pretty awesome, we saw a fantastic doubles match between Venus and Serena Williams and some Czech women. Some Czech athletes were present in the crowd and were very vocal, chanting between every point. Eventually the Americans in the crowd responded with a thundering “USA! USA! USA!” And of course the Williams sisters responded by coming back from one lost set to win the match.
One last thing amused me. The Chinese are still learning what it means to be first-world. It is normal practice for Chinese babies to wear pajamas with a hole cut at the bottom for them to defecate through in public at the nearest convenient bush. However when I saw this occur inside the Olympic venue, it was a matter of moments before an Olympic volunteer ran up to the family to inform them that a toilet was in fact only about 10 meters away, and that this was the preferred place for their child to relieve himself. The Chinese also are not the best audience for a tennis match. They have an inexplicable need to speak unbelievably loudly into their phones while having a conversation, and don’t understand that this may be distracting to someone who is about to serve while playing Olympic tennis. The poor volunteers worked very hard that evening keeping the crowd in line (from my observation, about 80% of spectators are Chinese). The referee even pleaded a few times through his microphone for the crowd to remain quiet.
Hopefully I will be able to borrow some tickets and get my picture at the Bird’s Nest before I leave. In my mind the Chinese have done an outstanding logistical job with the Olympics, but have really missed an opportunity to let people enjoy themselves and the fruits of all their labors.
have you been able to capture a baby pooing publicly on camera yet? my pre-adolescent urination pic is pathetic.
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