You go along to the Bird’s Nest on a Friday night thinking the highlight will be a photo with an Olympic mascot. And, then a ginger-haired giant in green and yellow takes a good, hard look at himself and throws his chiseled pecs over a very high bar with some Russian know-how. If only HG and Roy had been there….
The flame is here and there is just a day to go until the beginning of the end of a seven-year project to turn Beijing into an Olympic city. The banners are up, the roads have been repaved, taxi drivers are wearing uniform yellow shirts (some with blue ties), every shop from Haidian to Chaoyang has a new business sign, cafes have substituted metal cutlery with plastic knives and forks, bus advertising has been limited to Olympic sponsors, volunteer information booths have maps, cabs have a new multilingual translation service, retirees from the neighbourhood watch committee are stationed outside on stools wearing t-shirts supplied by Yanjing Beer, the gym is closing for the opening ceremony, welcome to Beijing billboards surround every building site, there is an Olympic lane on the third ringroad, the Fuwa mascots are posing for pictures on the Olympic Green, McDonald’s has brought Carl Lewis to town, Nine West has a 08.08.08 handbag for sale, and adidas has opened its biggest store in Sanlitun. Still a bit overcast though and still no dinner invitations from Rupert and Wendi.
As ever, additions are welcome.
More to come.
As British explorer Benedict Allen made his way across the Gobi Desert he said something like: “You can communicate all essential needs in less than 100 words”. His essential 100 probably had a lot to do with the welfare of his camels but in a nod to his spirit of adventure here is one possible Beijing 100. Please feel free to add your own suggestions or come up with different city or country lists. As Mr Allen says, it’s not so easy.
NUMBERS 1-10, 100
mei you – don’t have
wo – me
ni – you
ta – him/her
ni hao – hi
zai jian – see you
xie xie – thanks
fu lu – side road
qu – go
you – right
zou – left
yi zhi zou – go straight ahead
nar – where
bei/nan/xi/dong – north/south/ west/east
hao/bu hao – good/no good
zhei ge/ nei ge – this one/ that one
bing kuai – ice
jian yi kele – diet coke
xi lan hua – broccoli
ji/ zhu/ niu – chicken/ pork/ beef
rou – meat
fapiao – receipt
IP ka – telephone IP card
shouji – mobile phone
kafei – coffee
pengyou – friend
I am indebted to The Pocket Interpreter for the following conversational gambits:
Ni dui meiguo de wai jiao zhengce zenme kan?
(What do you think of American foreign policy?)
Mei shi ge nianqing ren zhong, you ji ge sh dang yuan?
(Out of every ten young people, how many are Party members?)
With all the knocks on the door and talk of security, it is worth turning back the clock to a kinder, gentler time. On April 3, 2001, the International Olympic Committee finalised its assessment of the 2008 candidate cities and concluded that “there appeared to be no terrorist threat in Beijing”. In summary, “there are no significant security risks anticipated”. More words were spent on the weather and the coin programme.
For the past few months, Beijing has been determined to host a fun-free Olympics, or, as some chatty diplomats have called it, a no-fun Olympics. The Ministry of Public Security has put a stop to major outdoor events, visa requirements have been tightened and landlords have been asked to state yet again for the record that their tenants are not terrorists bent on the destruction of the state. It’s even got to the point where a shopper thinks twice about going to Carrefour for a roast chicken and a moderately priced baguette. All this because of a fear about car bombs? But the city has proved itself in the past to be more than equal to a good time. In 2002, Beijing didn’t host the World Cup but it felt like it could have. Restaurants hooked up TV screens in makeshift beer gardens, middle-aged men wore singlets rolled up to expose their midriff and young children stayed up way past their bedtime to watch the Argentines beat the English. What was not to like?
Speaking of Olympic-inspired car stickers, here’s something prepared earlier. It’s a driver awareness campaign with the people at Beijing TV and seems to have been going for about a year now. The stickers are everywhere.
The Legal Evening News has been trying to pep up the people in Beijing lately by encouraging them to put these stickers on their vehicles. It’s a bit of a reaction to the backlash against the Olympics. The characters say “Add oil, Beijing” which basically means “Go, Beijing”. KFC is supposed to be handing them out too but confirming that would mean going into the chicken nugget zone. The organisers of the sticker campaign wouldn’t say how many they printed.
