I heart Beach Volleyball

go team USA!

Outside Chaoyang Volleyball Stadium

The Victory Ceremony

Friday morning my friend Sunny invited my to go to the Men's Gold Medal Beach Volleyball game at Chaoyang Park, on the eastside of Beijing. As opposed to Thursday's rain soaked woman's final, Friday morning was made for Beach Volleyball. The sun was shining, the beach girls were dancing, and the FUWA were jumping around - life is grand!

The venue held 12,000 people which means every seat has a decent view. The Brazilians, who I love and adore as a people, were out in full force as fun loving fans. Complete with body paint, wigs, singing, they shamed the American fans who had a few puny flags, and a USA flag - draped Evil Kenival - Elvis type guy walking around. The Brazilians also played in the 9 AM bronze medal match, and won. I have noticed Americans are quite sheepish when it comes to being patriotic at large international sporting events. We are the country everyone loves to hate, and when living overseas or traveling, don't usually broadcast our nationality in a big way. So when we show up to root on our country, Americans compared to other nations that go crazy for their national teams, are kind of muted and lame. Understandable, but I throw my "discreet American" identity out the window and cheer like crazy. The Brazilians all managed to sit together in a tight knit group of seats so they could sing and jump up and down, the Americans were scattered all around and yelled our "Let's Go" "Jia You Mei Guo" sporadically.

This was definitely the best event I attended for may reasons. First, it was a gold medal match and USA was playing. Second, my new awesome friend Sunny was a blast to go with to the event. Next, different from other events, there was music blasting, beach girls dancing, an emcee show-boating around, and such a fun-filled atmosphere. Between matches fans could come down and try to serve and "knock out" a giant FUWA, now that's fun!

Tomorrow marks the end of the games, and we are still in denial here in Beijing. Although the games have been a pain in the pass, and anti-climatic for all of the Beijingers who imagined all of the fun & liveliness of the games that never in fact happened. In fact, the atmosphere has been subdued as most people tried to keep their heads down in order to stay out of trouble with the ubiquitous authorities. We miss the usual fare that makes Beijing great, bustling public markets, good live music, films, art & the constant stream of great speakers and events that stream through China's capital. All non-athletic events are on hold and I for one, look forward to a bit more of a mixed bag of entertainment choices that will bring this city back to status quo life.

Beijing Olympics 2008 has been awesome, so now what?

National Anthem & Flag Raising

The workers got the grounds ready for the ceremony really fast!

Can you hit the giant FUWA?


Th media getting a nice show by the beach girls

Bye Bye Baseball

opening introductions

"overseas Chinese Taipei LET'S Go!

Attending baseball in China - who would have thunk it?

2008 is the last year for baseball in the Olympics and I commemorated the end by attending the USA vs. Chinese Taipei Baseball game at Wukesong Stadium on Tuesday Night. I invited my co-worker Ms. Zhang and her fiance to join the fun. Neither had any real idea how this game works, and I realized after a few innings how many rules there are to explain. About balls, strikes, fouls, outs, home-runs, double plays, my god -- its too complicated, especially for my limited Chinese vocabulary.

The crowd was definitely rooting for Chinese Taipei as China still considers Taiwan part of its sovereign territory and the mainlanders consider the Taiwan people their countrymates. Ever since the Sichuan earthquake there has been increasing friendship between the two governments in this often tense relationship over the sovereign status of Taiwan.

The USA Olympic Baseball team is made up of AAA players and college players and they were really disappointing to watch. They seemed nonchalant and uninspired as the game went on. I heard through the grapevine that many of the players had been living up the Beijing nightclub scene every night. This was reminiscent of the 2004 USA men's Basketball team who arrived in Greece very arrogant about their talent, and played their semi-final game hung-over and suffered an embarrassing loss to Spain to come in 3rd place.

The game ended with USA winning 4 - 2 and advancing to the medal round, being played tonight (Thursday).

Given that the US is one of a few countries that care less about the sport of baseball, it was disheartening to see our team play with such little spirit. We'll see who takes the last Gold in Olympics Baseball history - bye bye baseball!

Beijing to Tianjin for Women's Soccer!

The Super Fast Train Between Beijing & Tianjin

The Tianjin Olympic Stadium

me!

Half-Time Scoreboard

Norway's 83rd minute penalty kick

Friday night I had tickets to Women's Quarterfinal Football (aka soccer) in Tianjin, China. Tianjin is a port city about 80 kilometers east of Beijing, and as of 8/1, is connected to Beijing via a super high speed train that travels 328 km / hr and makes a one way trip in 30 minutes! My friend & I left Beijing south station on 5:20 PM, and were in Tianjin by 5:50, that gives us 10 minutes to make to the Tianjin Olympic Stadium for kick-off. So, yes, we arrived a bit late but the ride was smooth. Arriving to the brand new stadium to enjoy the game in the cool and fresh sea air of Tianjin was so cool. The stadium was sparsely filled with 24K out of 31K seats occupied. If I know anything about Chinese statistics, the officials undoubtedly counted all of the 1000s of volunteers & staff in the head count.

As you can imagine, the stadium and all facilities were brand new and beautiful. The quarterfinal was Brazil vs. Norway and it was a great game, especially for one of the Brazilian player's Marta, who was unstoppable. Despite Norway's penalty kick goal in the 83rd minute, Brazil dominated and won 2-1, winning them a place in the semi-finals, perhaps against USA. The crowd loved the under-dog Norway and they got a few rousing chants and waves going for Norway's blondies to get inspired (jia you Norway!).

After the game, we made the trip home despite the WORLD's worst bus-driver driving a packed bus of passengers to the train station, both slowly & badly.

2 Observations of note about the football match

First, the crowd was almost all Chinese nationals which is great for them, but it really made me think about how nice it would be if these Olympics, and all Olympics were made more accessible for the international common-human. This year's event in Beijing has the special circumstances of prohibitive visa policies making it difficult, and indeed not worth the trouble, to make the trip. However it seems people don't perceive the Olympics as being sporting events they can attend. Contrary to what one might expect of an international sporting event like World Cup or the Tennis Grand Slams, Beijing right now is an absolute ghost town despite 1000's of athletes, their families & coaches, journalists, and a bunch of corporates & BOCOG officials milling around. I have heard that Athens was also very poorly attended but I think the situation could be changed by making the events and cities more accessible for international people, espcially for neighbors in close proximity of the Games. Unless, like the Chinese believe, that the games should be under-attended and tightly controlled because what really matters are the television broadcasts, not actual attendance. Now that I have been to these Games, I can see that the experience of viewing on television does not at all represent what is happening on the ground.

Second, although the infrastructure for this games is unparalleled, something is missing in these games. There is no feeling of the athletics' spirit, no joviality, no frivolity on the streets outside any of the venues. The authoritarian nature of the games has outlawed public musicians, vendors, any sort of public demonstration of team spirit. Indeed athletics for this regime is not a fun-loving matter, it is about demonstrating the might of China. However one would expect at a football match of Brazil that some free-spirit would be allowed in the tradition of celebration & joy exhibited by this passionate and joy-loving culture, but NO. So we left the match so excited to witness these great teams in this great venue, but feeling strangely subdued and calm and sober for having attended such a great match.

I think if China were to host a second games, some fun might be let in. These games are like a couple caring for their first baby, too many precautions, paranoia, and antiseptics, so the over -attentive parents don't allow it to grow independently. Maybe next time China will have proved their competence and can loosen the reigns a bit and let us live a little!

Boring Beijing

This may sound really strange given all of the attention and excitement focussed on Beijing right now, but this city is really boring right now.

The Olympics are a lot of fun, but strangely the city is REALLY boring right now except for the Olympics. The streets are bare and kind of quiet & orderly (VERY strange for Beijing), I can't go to work because they closed campus for the Olympics, and almost everyone I know left town to avoid the chaos (which really isn't chaos). All of the fun bars, clubs, sidewalk cafes, are all closed (to maintain an orderly environment for the games). And to add to the boredom, the Chinese TV shows the most boring events, like weightlifting, badminton & ping pong, ALL DAY LONG!!!!!! I haven't seen one of Phelps swimming competitions yet (and NBC has locked down Youtube!).

I did gather at an American bar one night to watch USA pound the Chinese basketball team on satellite TV. I am sure I will be trekking it to the ex-pat bars more as more medal rounds come up. tomorrow I am taking my neighbors to baseball, then Friday I go to Tianjin for women's quarterfinal soccer. Pathetic as it may seem, I don't have anyone to go with yet. One of my friends is asking her boss for the day off, so by tomorrow I may have a mate!

Can we play sports now?

Guarding the street so the motorcades could pass, post ceremony
The PLA soldiers looking quite stern

八月八日0八年

A collective sigh of relief was breathed here in Beijing as the Opening Ceremonies went off with out a hitch. Spectacular - yes. Memorable - thankfully not especially, just as no other Opening Ceremonies have been save for those that encountered some disaster. Mostly significantly from my perspective, they are over and they were impressive for the domestic and international audiences. And finally the sporting events and athletes can take over the attention.

On 8月8日08年 8/8/08 I was feeling a bit ill from my ongoing flu I battle here in China and was undecided till the last moments about whether and where to witness the grand event. I got a call late in the day from my French - Chinese friend Annie who invited me to eat Peking Duck with her family at Da Dong, one of Beijing's top duck joints. As I took the subway downtown to Da Dong, Beijing was sooooo quiet. The government requested that people enjoy the ceremonies from home, and also step up stop points on the perimeter roads to restrict entrance into the city for residents only.

That evening, For the first time I remember in Beijing, the subway had lots of open seats, we didn't need a reservation at Da Dong, the streets were literally bare! We enjoyed our duck then walked next door to a bar where again, despite their big screen presentation of the ceremonies, the place was dead empty and the staff were very happy to see us!

The hardest part of the night was crossing the street to get home as I live near a main boulevard that connects the Birds Nest to Tiananmen district where China's central leaders and dignitaries stay. The photos of the street blocking are above. Excitement was certainly in the air that night, however a stronger feeling was that of restraint as foreigners and Beijingers alike minded the law and basically tried to stay out of the way so the ceremonies could proceed smoothly.

Mens Volleyball China vs. Bulgaria

And now we can actually watch an amazingly talented and well trained group of athletes do their thing! Sunday night (8/10) I attended men's volleyball Beijing's Capital Gymnasium. The venue was great and the crowd of about 90% Chinese and 10 % foreigners showed up to see Bulgaria punish the Chinese men's team in 4 sets. Although security was supposed to limit political expression in the athletic events. I guess yellow sloganed t-shirts announcing "we support and cheer for the workers of Beijing" did not count as political, poor Marx would be disappointed to hear of that!

The match was good and it actually just felt good to be putting attention to the game, to the athletes, and not all of the other crap that surrounded the lead up to the games. It was surreal to just be in an Olympic event. For this event I invited my professor from CAS, and she sent along her mother and brother to attended the event with me. It was good fun, although I really felt I had to hold my applause for Bulgaria amidst my Chinese boss & in the Chinese dominated crowd! I have seen what fervent nationalism can lead to in athletic events!

Let the Games Begin

China's New National Stadium, called "the Birds Nest"

It is very exciting here, people are super excited for the Olympics, but everyone seems very nervous that the opening ceremonies go off without a hitch. My taxi driver and I were chatting last night and he just kept saying "no problem, no problem" referring to Friday's opening event, in that sort of way you say it as if you are wishing it on something or someone. Policing and authority here is delegated to neighborhood-level watch groups and paranoia is increasing as the Opening Ceremonies get closer (T - 1!), so every micro-level of jurisdiction is over - reacting to everything lest something go wrong on their little patch of Beijing, and tarnish the "Glory of China".

But the city is squeaky clean, and geared up, even the taxi drivers are shiny looking. The taxi drivers are all decked out in matching outfits. The government bought them all new clothes to wear for these 2 weeks. Matching button downs & trousers, and with a tie! they each received 2 yellow dress shirts, 2 pair of navy trousers, and a striped tie. they are so proud to be representing the nation in their new clothes. its very cute!

I am attending 2 baseball games, one mens volleyball, and the men's quarterfinal soccer. can't wait to see some events. Still trying to decide where to spend the insanity of the opening ceremonies. its a national holiday here tomorrow, every choice is sure to be hectic but amazing. Feels reminiscent of New Years Eve planning.

Catching the Olympic Spirit

Today is my last day at the CAS offices for a while as they are sending all students on vacation during the Olympics. We are literally across the street from the broadcast center, and adjacent to the Olympics Village, about 1/2 km from the Birds Nest, so it is getting harder and harder to actually reach work.

For example, today the Torch came down the big avenue by my house. I could hear a lot of "jia you" and some other chanting from my apartment, and I thought it was a parade. The I remembered, THE TORCH! It was very celebratory and fun but only a glimpse of the crowds and craziness of trying to navigate the city streets, and actually get around during the Games. By the time I reached my bus stop and got to work, the trip was 1 hour 20, usually a 45 minute ride.

Last night I took a walk near the Drum Tower and was feeling so impressed by how clean and beautiful the city looks. Beijingers are SO excited and merry. Despite my recent grumpiness over what a pain in the ass all the OLY-craziness has been, I really felt the depth of pride and energy while walking around yesterday.

I can't decide whether to watch the Opening ceremonies with my foreign friends near Sanlitun (foreign bar street), or to head to Ditan park and watch on the JUMBO screen with the locals. I really do want to hear how / if the western journalists restrain their tongue-lashings of the government which requires satellite cable.

Can't We Just Have Some Fun?

This sign says roughly, "We and the World in Harmony.
Through the Beijing Olympics, the World will love China"

having fun with some of the "Olympics Volunteer Security"

And the Rules just keep on coming....The Olympics officials continue to announce new rules everyday to attempt to keep all of its expected visitors in line. What will be the outcome of this particular strategy to impose authoritarian order on the world's crazy sports fans?

the government is trying to treat all of the Olympics tourists like 18 years olds in their freshman dormitory. No yelling, no pornography, no drunkenness, no falling asleep on the sidewalk, no Mongolian Hookers -- NO FUN! Of cource, I never had the experience of living in a freshman dormitory, but one can imagine such oppressive measures to ensure order will be met with the most coy attempts by fun-loving foreigners to break free of the control. What the government sees as uncultured, many regard as mild and harmless entertainment. But people's reaction to this form of rule-enforcement is something I have disagreed with my Chinese friends about for a long time. They see rules as a good way of imposing order & harmony, I see them as obstacles through which I must navigate to break free.

Following the recent bus bombings in the West, the bus matrons have been paying a lot more attention to me and my big lap top bag. I try to accede to their inspections, but it is annoying.