The day we've all been waiting for...

08.08.08

Tonight at 8:08pm is the start of the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics. This past year has been a crazy one, living in Beijing and watching this city prepare for, what many consider, the biggest and most important event for modern China.

Yesterday, I went to the Olympic torch relay near Ditan Park in Beijing. My friends and I arrived at the park early in the morning, only to be told that the torch wouldn't get to the park until 5 or 6 pm (since its route that morning included parts of the Great Wall and other suburbs of Beijing). I returned alone at 2:30pm to wait.

And let me tell you, it was a MESS. First it started out fine, with a sparse crowd sitting on curbs. Eventually they put out the police tape, made us stand, and then came the stupidest idea ever. The police announced that we'd all have to move across the street, so of course people started RUNNING across the street and I was nearly stepped all over. But once we got across the street, no one directed us, so the giant mob moved back ACROSS the street. After lots of pushing and manhandling from the police, the crowd moved onto the steps across the street. Later, I learned that we wouldn't even see the torch, since the relay would take place solely inside the park (that no one had access to), and that we were all waiting to see the caravan of Olympic vehicles. This meant that whenever any "nice looking cars" (read Hummers, Audi's, tour buses, and camouflaged military-looking vehicles) passed, the crowd would stir and push past the chain of security guards holding us back.



It was definitely a China moment. It's every person for themselves as people are nudging and elbowing you in the back, trying to get past you to see something that's probably not very interesting in the first place. Contributing to the China moment was the fact that most people couldn't see anything past the back of the person's head in front of us (since most of us ranged in the 5 foot to 5 foot 6 inches tall range). Just another reason I love China.

China is just an all around ridiculous country. Full of contradictions and hypocritical reasoning. Last Sunday (Aug. 3), a friend and I visited Jingshan Park, which is a park with a peak overlooking the Forbidden City. I think we chose the best day in the year to go because the sky was soo clear, we could see as far out as the 4th and 5th Rings of Beijing, as well as the mountains surrounding Beijing on 3 sides (Let me just tell you, that up until that day the pollution was so awful that, I hadn't realized Beijing was near ANY mountains).



I have to say that the mentality of the Chinese government (which is then fed to the overall Chinese population via its state controlled media) is often one of a proclaimed victim. When you talk about people choosing to boycott the Olympic games, rather than address the issues people have objections with (Tibet, Darfur, human rights, censorship, etc), people essentially respond with, "Why are people picking on China? We have never done anything to your country, why can't you just leave us alone? We are a calm and peaceful people. How can you be so cruel as to criticize us during a year when thousands of our people died in a terrible earthquake?"

When you accuse China of having pollution problems, rather than come straight out and say, "Yes we have problems and we're trying our best to solve them," the media has a roundabout way of talking about the minute improvements that have been made, and make excuses. The other day I read an article about how the air quality has been improving overall and that recently it just looks like there's worse pollution because of a haze caused by an unusual amount of rain in Beijing in the past weeks, with no wind to blow it away. An unusual amount of rain you say? Hmmmm.... maybe this has a little something to do with those silver iodide pellets the government's been releasing in the air to INDUCE rain to wash the pollution out of the air.

I mean, I'm not saying this is a completely ineffectual idea. Actually, I've seen blue skies as a result of government created rainstorms. (This photo has not been digitally altered at all).



Sometimes when I write on this blog, I feel like I need to put up a disclaimer. This disclaimer being that since moving to Beijing, I have become extremely biased, in favor of the Chinese government. I try my hardest to remain critical, but when it comes down to it, I love China.

In the past two weeks, I've seen the introduction of the odd-even license plate driving restrictions (which has created even larger crowds on the subways, and only made a dent in reducing gridlock traffic), mandatory bag checks in subway terminals and some buses, I.D. checks for every Chinese-looking person entering school campuses (I find it ironic that anyone with a white face can stroll right into my campus without having identification, but I get stopped without fail, every time). I've seen hordes of Olympic volunteers in their blue and yellow t-shirts sweltering in their Olympic volunteer booths in the summer heat (Some of the booths have a scale you can use to weight yourself. Why? I still haven't figured out), and taxi drivers in their new bright yellow collared shirt uniforms.

Also, a new addition to Beijing, are enormous pro-Beijing Olympic posters/billboards. You can find them all over the city. At first I liked them, so colorful, and shiny and new, and festive, to get you in the mood for the games. Then I read this article about the government putting up these walls in front of people's homes and businesses which they consider to be an "eyesore" to the city. Read the article, it will break your heart. And it's stories like this, that make me want to slap the CCP in the back of the head, because my love for China stems from a love for the people. And when I read about the Chinese government displacing people from their homes without providing an alternative, passive-aggressively building walls in front of family owned businesses (which are more than likely also the business owners' home), it angers me that the CCP has no respect for its people.

China is a complicated issue. I'm sure some of you have wondered whether I would be boycotting the Olympic games. The answer is No, I won't be. But not because I don't see the connection between China, the Olympics, and human rights issues, not because I think the Olympics is/should be an apolitical event (in fact, having had experience organizing boycott campaigns, I think using the Olympics is actually great leverage). But the reason I am not boycotting the Olympics is because boycotting the games would call into question my entire existence here in China (the work that I'm doing and my newfound Chinese nationalism), and that's not something I'm ready for right now. I know that's not really an answer, but it's all I have right now.

So get ready for future posts with pictures of me smiling in front of the Bird's Nest cuz I'm going to the Olympic Games!

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.