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.
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