Less than a month until the Olympics...

and security is TIGHT.

Having lived in Beijing for the past 10 months (and for 4 months back in 2005 while I was studying abroad), I've been tracking the changes this city has been undergoing in preparation for the Olympics.

Back when I was studying abroad, I heard these rumors that the government was going to put a ban on all construction starting a year prior to the Olympics in order to decrease pollution in the air. Slowly that deadline became 6 months. Then 1 month. And now with less than 30 days until the Opening Ceremonies, construction is still going at full force. If anything, contractors are in a furious and mad dash to finish up their projects before the start of the Olympics. (The new rumored deadline is July 20, a mere 3 weeks until the Games begin).

Along with the postponement of this supposed "construction ban," us Beijing residents have simultaneously been teased with the opening dates of the new city subway lines. June 1. June 30. July 20. I've already been convinced that these dates are purely arbitrary. In terms of being up to par with other major metropolitan cities, the Beijing subway system has quite a ways to go. There are only 5 subways lines open right now, and Beijing is very similar to L.A. in that the city is all sprawl. The city is huge, and expansive, and traffic is horrible all the time. It takes literally 2 hours to get from one end of the city to the other via subway. Though 3 additional subway lines are in the works (including an airport expressway), who knows when those will actually be finished since it was also rumored that these subway lines would be open by the Olympics. But again, no dice.

What I really want to talk about is security.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed increased security in lots of areas. Most notably the airport, which is understandable. Standards of security here at the new Terminal 3 (the largest in the world, btw) are so ridiculous, that I would almost compare it to levels experienced in the States (And unfortunately, even in China, it's the brown folk who get "randomly" chosen for searches most frequently here as well).

New additions in the past few weeks are the bag scanners at every subway terminal, and the dozens of uniformed guards waiting to stop and search you. Signs are posted here saying we can't take firearms, explosives, knives, or (my favorite) firecrackers on the subway. And even on my way back to campus one night, I got stopped at the gate by a guard and was asked to show my student i.d. card (which I of course don't have, considering I'm not a student).

I've heard stories of other foreigners being stopped by officials. And police officers doing random searches of apartment buildings and taxi cabs, trying to catch people who are overstaying their visas, or working on a tourist visa, etc.

Among other ridiculous stories I've heard about increased security measures for the Olympics, my boss told me the other day that the Chinese government was preventing people (and suspicious cargo) from entering Beijing via car by increasing the number of guards at the Beijing border. Now that doesn't sound so ridiculous right? Well the absurd part is that the guards have been instructed to "keep people happy." So instead of just outrightly denying cars entry, the guards have been instructed to simply give the cars the wrong directions, so that they end up driving loops around Beijing, without actually entering, until they get so tired of driving that they decide to go home. Yes, my boss actually told me this.

My boss (and others) also told me that there are missiles at the Olympic bird's nest stadium. Missiles. So that if somebody decides to attack the stadium during the Games, China can quickly retaliate and "protect" itself. It all seems counterproductive to me, but leave it to China to use missiles to solve the problem. (But, in defense of China, Athens also had "safety" missiles in place for their 2004 Olympics as well (FMI, google: Beijing Olympics missiles)).

Madness. This country is pure madness.

In case you needed more doses of madness, in the past few weeks the government also used rocket launchers to shoot iodide into the clouds to make it rain, you know, to clear the skies up. (Beijing is a dry city, it doesn't typically rain in the early summer). And now they're having drills to see if they can prevent possible future rain (since it does rain in Beijing in the late summer, read: during the Olympic games). So the current plan is to shoot iodide into the rain clouds before they move above Beijing, so that no rain will actually reach Beijing.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like weather is one of those things that you don't want to mess with.