Chinese Olympics + 1.3 billion people = impressive!!

The Olympic park typical evening. Only people with Birds' nest or water cube tickets are allowed inside the park!
The stream of people exiting the Olympic park to one of the subway entrances. Looking carefully one would notice where there is no people walking that's because a volunteer human shield has blocked off the area. Squeezing through the subway entrance was even more exciting.....but unfortunately no pics of that (no physical space to take out a camera from backpack)

No seats in a Olympic park McDonalds!
The Beijing subway handling Olympic traffic. I had to commute on this subway daily for 1.5 hours.

The silk market of Beijing is a large multistory market selling everything one would find in the largest Chinatowns: apparels, garments, souvenirs, jewelry. No Chinese would buy anything from this market. The place is dedicated to ripping off Western tourists and during the Olympics, this phenomenon is especially acute. Employees forcefully compete for the slew of visitors, and the base ask price for most of the souvenirs are usually 10 to 100 times their intrinsic value. The most apt western buyers realize the need to bargain souvenirs' prices down to Chinatown levels. And the sellers still realize over 100% profits.

My hypothesis is that one reason why this market has been so successful in attracting western tourists is the impact of the English name: Silk market. The Chinese name literally translated to English is "pristine water"....no connotation of silk anywhere. Other similar markets in Beijing exist but none nearly as successful in building a base of loyal western customers.

More exotic birds nest and water cube night pics

The color of the cube periodically transitions from dark blue to magenta to purple
The reflection of the birds nest on the exterior of the water cube

Olympic athlete quotes and news

Women's 4*400 gold medal champions
1: The Olympic committee staff rewarded me with two VIP birds' nest athletics finals tickets. During all of the four previous games I watched the Chinese teams compete and heard the Chinese anthem.......This is the first time I've heard the USA national anthem and seen USA athletes on medal ceremony stands. Team USA smashed men's 4X400 relay, while for the women's relay....Russia was dominating the whole way until the final stretch of the fourth leg when USA surpassed Russia.....it was so exciting that the Chinese fans were all chanting U.S.A.
I feel bad for the Belgian high jump gold medalist since the medal ceremony was at the end when most fans (being Chinese where they could care less about a Belgian win) have left the birds' nest already. But for those who stuck around, they were able to literally get down right to the tracks to take pictures. The cheerleading squad and fuwa mascots were chiming in at the end trying to stop the hemorrhage of spectator exodus.
2: To capitalize on how bureaucratic the USOC is........they had unused closing ceremonies tickets. Some USOC VIPs didn't want to go to the ceremonies....and yet volunteers weren't allowed to use them because we "had to work" at the USA house during the closing ceremonies. So as always, the tickets were wasted....even the closing ceremony tickets.
3: Lang Ping with his daughter was hanging out at the USA house again today. Today both the men's and women's volleyball teams partied here.....and the water polo team. Two silver medal teams and one gold medal team.

Here are some real time quotes from famous team USA athletes after their games (from the USOC)

Serena Williams (Tennis/Lynwood, Calif.)
“I think it's awesome how Beijing has come through with the Olympic Games. I love, most of all, the Olympic Lane, so we never have traffic. It's really cool. It wasn't like that the other Olympics I went to. It looks like it was really well‑organized and well put together and well thought out. It's really amazing to see.”

Jennifer Kaido (Rowing/West Leyden, N.Y.)
“It’s exceeded my expectations. We were prepared for smog, pollution, demonstrations, but everything has gone very smoothly. Everyone in the village is great. The volunteers are friendly and so helpful. It’s been an amazing experience to be part of the Olympic Games rather than watching it on television.”

Kate Markgraf (Soccer/Bloomfield Hills, Mich.)
“This is my third Olympics and I think the Beijing Organizing Committee did a fantastic job of taking care of the needs of all the athletes to let them perform at their highest levels. As an athlete coming into the Games, you want nothing more than to be able to focus on your team and your games. We never wanted for anything and the environment that was created for us certainly met, and most of the time exceeded, our expectations. We had a fantastic time in China.”

Tom Paradiso (Rowing/Blue Bell, Pa.)
“The Chinese have gone above and beyond with their preparations and accommodation at these games. It’s going to be really hard for others to reach the standard they’ve set. Everywhere we go the people have been very helpful and friendly. This is my first Olympics, and the size and scope is incredible.”

NBC's today show and the great wall

It's second to the last day of the Olympics already. There is so much going on and events slip by every second. Not enough seconds in a day to blog especially with the lack of wireless connection.
Randomly interesting news from the Beijing Olympics front:
1: MSNBC with its 800 million procurement of the exclusive US right to broadcast from the Olympics, staged its Friday morning's today show right in front of the Olympic tower - in between the birds' nest and the water cube. I was standing there outside the blockade for an hour waiting for this couple minutes of segment on the Chinese cuisine shot right in front of me. All the anchors did was taste the lobster meat and interviewed the famous chef. The most hilarious part was an American schoolteaher next to me grabbed his McDonald burger from his bag and started enjoying it right when the Chinese cuisine segment was shot.

They showed off the Chinese beach volleyball cheerleaders....in the middle they had to take off their jackets, and they were changing right in front of my view since they were being filmed on the other end of the arena...so I have perfect pictures of these girls "derobing" to just swim suits......This type of cheerleader is a new phenomenon in China - this group was recently trained this group by American cheerleaders.

On a beautiful morning, I took some US Olympic committee staff to the great wall at Mutianyu. The place is supposedly much less crowded than the disneyland like picturesque Badaling. What we saw was beautiful wall, magnificient watch towers, rows of towers, and a sea of visitors involved in the Olympics. There were more UK athletes than Chinese tourists.

The first and former governor of Hong Kong SAR and his family was on the wall. He even personally greeted me for some odd reason...maybe because he thought I looked like I was from Hong Kong.
Coming down from the wall to the valley we had the option of the chairlift or the tobagan. The 5 minute tobagan was well worth the 40 min wait.

The blue army serving the Olympics

IIf anyone has visited Beijing during the last month, or has seen any of the games or Olympic news on TV or the internet....these blue 500RMB ADIDAS uniformed volunteers are everywhere within your view. They stake their presence in every corner of Beijing.....in every Olympic venue, every Olympic house, every press center, every hospitality center, every hotel, every school, every street corner, every street intersection, airport, train station, bus station, subway station, every car with a foreigner in it, every park and historic site in Beijing.

Besides the 200,000 blue army volunteers occupy every corner of the city as mentioned, there are 1 million "citizen volunteers" - people who keep every neighborhood, every community, every street safe. They literally sit in front of A large segment is composed of retired citizens. They wear plain civilian clothes....no 500 RMB adidas blue uniforms.

They are officially "volunteers". Unlike American volunteers, they are handpicked and literally ordered by the central communist party to serve the Olympics. This is a real army of volunteers....1.5 Million strong. If a foreigner who's visiting China for the first time and is confused by the supposed Chinese "communist regime" juxtaposed with the starbucks, mcdonalds, budweiser clubs, the price gouging of everything from Olympic tickets to a Chinese abacus, and the larger selection of everything in every department store than America....and is wondering where is a trace of the "communist regime"....then the blue army is a blatant reminder of why China is China and not the West.

As one sees on TV for a basketball game, whenever the game is called out by a coach, the blue army "fly" onto the field in a perfect formation....each soldier carrying a mop. The way they jog and carry their mops are all perfectly choreographed believe it or not..... so that they'll appear "pretty" on TV. And the thousands of volunteers standing solemnly facing the spectators with their back to the athletes on the field...and occasionally turning around for a split second peek of the game; the volunteers at the security checkpoints with loudspeakers speaking in monotone the perfunctorily rehearsed punchlines; the volunteers standing outside directing human and vehicle traffic in the baking weather;

Mostly amazingly are the volunteers who spontaneously and purposefully form human shields, human barriers, barricades to direct the Olympic human traffic.

For the Chinese people and the volunteers themselves, serving the Olympics is not only an obligation, but an honorable one, even though the state really forced them to give up this summer. That's why millions more of students applied for a volunteer position. But in the end, Beijing decided to fill most of the volunteer positions with students from Beijing. In fact, from every university in Beijing, creating a massive drafted army of Beijing college volunteers.

The more prestigious the school, the more prestigious the venue. For example, bird's nest is full of Peking University volunteers, while the water cube is full of Tsinghua volunteers. Peking and Tsinhua are analogous to Harvard and MIT, respectively (Peking and Tsinghua are also next to each other geographically). While volunteers like us (not for the beijing olympic committee) were hastily "trained" for two days, the Beijing volunteers were trained for an entire month. Basically they were working for the Olympics from the first till the last day of their summer vacation.

The perks they get in the end: 3 classic 500RMB blue uniforms and the bragging right of being involved in the most important, grandiose, symbolic state sponsored entertainment extravaganza

Randomly interesting Olympic news of the last few days

1: Michael Phelps passed by me at the Hilton hotel as he was leaving. But I didn't actually get the chance to take any picture at any moment in time. The other time I missed him barely when he was at ClubBud (Budweiser barhouse). I went into the budhouse to "party with him" . It's better to work for the press when you can actually get to see him at a press conference for more than a split second and take some pictures.
2: Speaking of the budhouse....the Budweiser house had a "water party" on Sunday night for all the athletes and special "VIP guests". I sneaked in as a USOC volunteer along with other USOC staff. Some 40 Olympic medalists where there, from the US, GB and Australia. Too many for me to name them or recognize them all. It was a total frathouse and kind of scary with all the athletes there.........rendering Princeton's eating club parties dry to the bones. Since they were all athletes, I was "even shorter" than normal, making my presence totally ignorable (which was a good thing since nobody noticed how far I sneaked through). I was escorting a bronze medal wrestler around since she said she wanted me to get her ride home. The Aussies were the coolest with kangaroo dolls all around.
Around 3AM as I left, some GB athletes got tired of drinking and wanted a quick ride to grab food at the closest McDonalds...yay I get to translate again ....Go figure

3: At boxing yesterday, there was a ginormous Mongolian fans contingent. Seemingly half of Mongolia's 2.5million residence was there....chanting Mongol Jiayou. And then when China was on, half of the Mongols left, and the other half was cheering for Ukraine.....thus publicly announcing their resentment towards the Han Chinese.
At the Soccer game on the other hand with USA vs Japan.....a large contingent Chinese yellow shirt professional fans entered. I asked them who they were gonna cheer for........and unequivocally for the USA. Go figure...why would a Chinese cheer for Japan?

Sheltering foreigners - Olympic imperialism in China

Thousands of Olympians are in Beijing to compete for their once in a life time opportunity to carry an entire nation's glory......and after winning a medal legitimately, party hard at one of those Olympic houses or bars. The tens of thousands of corporate/political leaders, Olympic committees members, donors, sponsors of the 200 something nations are also in Beijing.
China is determined to project a picture-perfect image for this group of visitors.

The thousands of VIPs enjoy personal shuttles for any transportation - thus avoiding the possibility of having these VIPS see the ugly side of China: unbearably crowded subways and buses where they would have to learn how to push onto other people and squeeze through doors; or having to ride in a taxi - thus avoiding the need to learn a single word of Chinese. Their shuttles zip through Beijing on "Olympic Lanes"....avoiding having to experience scary Chinese driving style and horrendous traffic. For a Chinese citizen, not only are they denied driving half of the time because of the odd/even plate rule, but with the additional restriction of unable to use all these Olympic lanes. Ordinary Chinese are also banned from specific entertainment venues either formally or de-factoly (because of astronomical price) at least on certain nights.

Of course the VIPs get any Olympic tickets they want. They are automatically granted with tickets to all events of their choice, and even some events they didnt' choose. And then they slowly trickle down to the NOC/IOC/USOC staff through bureaucratic levels, and then the least desirable tickets (non-USA, non-China, non-Swimming) trickle down to finally the volunteers. But even then once they've been trickled down the bureaucratic chain, all the rest are wasted, not including the specific tickets already reserved VIPS but they don't use them. And this is just the National Olympic Committees.....not including all of the corporate sponsors of the games guaranteed thousands of tickets with 50% wasted. A delegation like the US (with tons of sponsors, donors of the games) hordes incredible amounts of tickets for each and every game (Sponsors like McDonalds and Coke each has a few thousand opening ceremonies tickets). And of course they can't use all of them on their expats working in Beijing. Billions of ordinary Chinese citizens can only see the games on TV and then becoming infuriated to see half of the seats of even most popular games empty. I mean this is really sickening...who wouldn't agree with that....altho topic for a later discussion post.

All of this would remind an ordinary Chinese citizen 100 years ago during the imperialistic era when certain parts of Chinese cities were cordoned off from "Chinese people", and ordinary Chinese citizens were denied western styled entertainments and other luxuries...with the slogan only "foreigners" allowed.

The foreign VIPS stay in specifically designated hotels closed off to Chinese citizens. For a place like the Hilton where the US, Australia and the UK delegation entirely occupy, entry requires specific badge and then metal detection security check. VIPs enjoy spending 650RMB per dinner at the Hilton (where one burger entree costs 250RMB, even fried noodle costs 100RMB), whereas even decent restaurants downstairs cost 20RMB maximum for any Chinese dish.

While any "foreigner" visiting China at anytime for studying or touring around would get preferential treatment during the Olympics, this obsessiveness with image perfect China is unparalleled. So these days even for the thousands of "foreigners" who have lived in China and speak Chinese, the Chinese people just all assume they are all Olympic VIPS.

If you go into one of these Olympic houses, you won't realize you are in China. The USA house is full of American staff and American volunteers (the only Chinese employees are security guards and the blatantly underappreciated janitors), including American chefs and waiters. And the only people you ever see are other American VIPs, VIPS from other countries visiting the USA house, American staff, and friends/family of these VIPs. The only thing remotely indicating China are the Chinese style massage parlor and the "Go China" red basketball jerseys (those worn by Team China including Yao Ming) in the TEAM USA apparel store, which is ironic in its own way.

If the Chinese thought that all of these special accommodation would catalyze the "foreigners'" interest in learning about China, then that seems like a wild dream not come true. But I believe the Chinese realize this point, and a picture perfect China image takes precedent over wanting foreigners to learn about China. In fact lots of these foreigner VIPs never came to China to learn about China....the Olympics and China are two separate trips. Some may never had an interest to learn about the Chinese culture in the first place...just so happened that this Olympics is hosted by Beijing. While this is sad, it is the reality that explains why the American USOC board don't even want to try out decent Chinese food costing 1/10 of Hilton's food, or why VIPS don't want to learn some basic Chinese words so they can at least communicate to taxi drivers.

In the end, the Chinese are okay with foreigners spending big bucks in China, whether or not they even care about Chinese culture. Obviously VIPS don't have a problem enjoying the head of state treatments in China. So while the athletes train and compete, ......apparently both the Chinese and the "foreigners" prefer this invisible barrier. Genuine cultural immersion/exchange is at the bottom of the priority list.

Randomly interesting Olympic news of the last few days

Beautiful blue sky day in Beijing today (Aug 15).
1: One of our female US Olympic Committee staff got formally asked out by a Chinese security guard! He didn't even speak English and had to ask a translator to relay the dinner invitation....too bad she didn't go for it.
2: I was forced to manage the USOC transportation at headquarters for a little bit because the transportation staff obtained a last minute swimming ticket in the water cube....So he sneaked out for a couple hours.
3: At the beach volleyball tournament, the Chinese crowds were singing all of these communist songs from the 50s.....even the English commentator was chiming in.
4: The Holland prince arrived at the Hilton while I was giving directions to a driver....and I was stuck with half of my body in the van and half outside since we weren't allowed to "move" until the important guy has stepped out of his motorcade and walked into the Hilton. This has happened previously when George Bush 41st arrived at the house and the Mongolian president arrived at the Hilton.
4: At the tennis tournament (USA v Russia), American crowds were chanting "USA Jiayou!"....or add petrol for the USA.....wow the Americans are really learning from the Chinese now...even adopting the Chinese chants.
5: The US-China women's volleyball game is dubbed the "peace tournament" since the US coach Lang Ping is a Chinese celebrity (her nickname is the iron hammer). Chinese lost to team USA by such an excruciatingly few points....the Chinese are disappointed , since they were after all gold medalist in 2004.

(Aug 14)
(Aug 14)
1: Lopez Lomong (the flag bearer of the team USA during the opening ceremonies) was at the house yesterday. Look at this picture of him next to his picture carrying the flag!!

(Aug 13)
The US volleyball team had their reception at the USA house. You don't realize how big these players are until you are standing right next to them. The celebrity Lang Ping coach was right there! Apparently she came in through a side door so that she won't be swamped by Chinese fans. Michael Phelps was apparently at the house in the afternoon.

Drunken coaches on opening ceremonies night

The night of the opening ceremonies at the USA house is a huge partyhouse. USOC staff, workers, volunteers, and some coaches were all watching the show on dozens of TV screens throughout the house. After the end of the ceremonies, our transportation dudes went to pick up the most important VIPS (donors, sponsors, board members) from the bird's nest....however nobody realized that cabs was nowhere to be found after the ceremonies since they were all bottled up near the bird's nest. To make matters worse, literally half of the roads in northern half of Beijing was blocked off due to the massive Olympic traffic.

From a combination of inebriation and lack of cultural understanding, the coaches were putting their lives in danger....standing, swaggering, loitering in the middle of the boulevard trying to stop cabs. Their ignorance of their dire situation was too much for me to bear. Across the street a bar was open and there was a car........the next step was convincing/forcing/subduing the driver and his boss to take us for a ride to the coaches' residence - Beijing Normal University.
After facing many roadblocks because of the Olympic traffic diversion, the driver almost dared to kick us out in the middle of a highway....an act that deserved my utmost censure. After cursing at the driver for a few minutes, he gave up trying to kick us out and obediently drove us till the end. All this time the coaches were asleep from the intoxication. After they arrived at BNU safely, I thought it is time for me to sleep on the streets since there was no cab to be found, and it was 1:45AM. Luckily there was a cab with a passenger kind enough to take me to a more favorable place and I was able to find a cab to get home. I haven't seen these coaches since that night and I don't think they would've remembered this episode the next morning.

Princeton in the service of Beijing Olympics = wasting money on cocktail

Princeton's habit of prodigiously spending and wasting money and expects its alums and students to be have lots of money carries it to the extreme in China. It's amazing how they charge 200RMB per person for an event that is all about celebration, congratulating our athletes, and meeting other alums. Both Lily and I and I am sure other people did not want and need all the cocktail/martinee...... 200RMB maybe only 30 dollars, but to a Chinese that's incredible. Even though I am a Chinese American, when I am in China I am Chinese and would like to live like an ordinary Chinese.
Cocktail/martinee is not a requirement for Princetonians to talk to other Princetonian friends, celebrating the Olympics, and networking with alums. Is it somehow unacceptable for Princetonians to gather together in a park that is not decorated in orange and black? are we really so snobbish that we need to rent out hotel space and spend hundreds of dollars per person on cocktail service everytime we want to see each other in one place?
Also after finding out Dartmouth paid for all of their volunteers to stay together in BNU, I became disappointed with Princeton's decision that Princeton did not considering providing similar BNU housing even though PIB is right in BNU. In the end, Princeton doesn't even have a list of people involved in the Olympics and none of us know for sure everybody working/volunteering for the Olympics.

68.8% Opening ceremony viewership in China - 21.5% US

According to peopledaily quoting the IOC.......the viewership of the opening ceremonies in China is 68.8%, climbing to 90% when Li Ning lit the Olympic torch (68.8% is around 840 million viewers). This is amazing considering the largest viewership of any Olympic opening ceremony from American viewers is an abysmal 27%. Actually Beijing's opening ceremony comes second at 21.5%, more than any other Olympic opening ceremony not held in the US. This 21.5% apparently does not include the 70 million viewers of the online live feed on MSNBC.
15% of the world watched the opening ceremonies according to Reuters.
While practically every major media outlet is praising the stunning opening ceremonies shows....some saying how it was the best ever, most Chinese people hardly find it surprising. Basically the expectation has been building so high for the Chinese that this spectacular show for Western audience is not really anything shocking to the Chinese....they know and they want the most spectacular, grandeur show ever. In fact, some would say that it could've/should've been even better...especially when the Chinese athletes entered and the crowds were cheering very loudly but not deafening.

America is "big", but Beijing is bigger and growing faster

East Third-ring road. Beijing is today a grandiose city in every sense of the word: the buildings, roads, parks, forbidden city, great wall, the Olympic banners you see here .... Although Beijing is not representative of a typical Chinese city yet, an American from New York visiting Beijing or Shanghai today maybe analogous to an European from London visiting New York around 1900....where by that time even tho UK was still the superpower, New York's modernity was quickly making London an "ancient" European city stuck in the past. The American athletes/Olympic staff were partially shocked by Beijing's modernity. They had the impression that China was like Russia, where . Granted rural China and even lots of buildings in Bejing housing rural migrants are considered shanty towns in America, the enormous growth and construction of futuristic Chinese cities is only the beginning and an unstoppable trend. The Olympics exactly feeds into the nowaday ubiquitous Chinese mentality of creating "visual excessiveness" to show off to the world the rise of the China.

One world one dream

The 2008 Beijing Olympic logo one world one dream contains behind its simple translation, layers after layers of meaning, just like the Fuwa mascots. China is preaching the world its rise will be peaceful. This slogan is in line with the domestic propaganda of president Hu's plan of developing a "harmonious society". The rhetoric of the one world one dream and the harmonious society are played on the loudspeakers everywhere you go. For most of the educated Chinese I talked to, the peaceful rise of China is too obvious: young westernized Chinese firmly believes China will not interfere with any other country's internal affairs, China will never be an aggressive nation, and China will never attack or occupy any land of a "sovereign nation". You saw all the themes of the peace doves during the opening ceremonies. So the one dream of the one world is "peace"....whatever that may mean to the Chinese people.

Beijing blue sky day

The second day in Beijing was absolutely beautiful. Look at this amazing blue sky.......could be shot in San Francisco or Vancouver. At first it may appear that the spartan pollution reduction measures may be working (including eliminating half of the vehicles off the roads by implementing even/odd license plates travel on alternate days and shutting down virtually all factories across Bejing and nearby provinces). However this type of blue sky day did not last as the next day turned sultry and hazy and stayed hazy and smoggy for the next week.

People's Liberation Army next to Tianmen Square

100,000 security forces (PLA+Paramilitary) patrol the city plus 1 million civilian "security watchers" patrolling the neighborhoods. The presence of the PLA to most Chinese today means security and peace. They are the protectors of Chinese sovereignty: preventing Taiwan Xinjiang and Tibet from seceding....and of course protect America from attacking China. They bring the mandate of "peace", and legitimacy to the Chinese govt.....so much for the theme of "one world, one dream", the one dream is world peace. The PLA presence and Olympic theme of peace is not paradoxical from a Chinese point of view. An interesting story from MSNBC about how the IOC is now urging the Chinese government to tell the PLA to "smile more"....because their stern faces are scaring western tourists away. How laughable.....cultural disparity to the extreme.