Five Ring Fever and the Aftermath...
Ok. I'm gonna blame the Olympics.
Yeah, that's why I haven’t posted in so long…
No, really, I have been bad and deserve a fussin'… I shoulda kept everyone updated on Five Ring Fever and I didn’t. And now its over. Which is so supremely weird… I mean, this city has been preparing for the Olympics for seven years and now its all done.
Nonetheless, it went off well. Better than many expected, both here and abroad. And despite the fervent wishes of some haters that China would fail at their debut here. (Hint- letting China become more open to the world is a *GOOD* thing… having them fail and become isolated and insular would have been a *BAD* thing)
The anti-pollution measures worked wonders… we had blue skies…BLUE… like…y'know… that color that skies are supposed to be…. And STARS at night…
There is a semi-serious push to retain the odd-even plate car thing after the Paralympics are over. (the program- implemented for the Olympics- which required cars with odd and even last number plates to drive on alternating days) Don’t know if that will happen or not, but we can hope…
Things I liked:
- Watching the excitement of the people here as they truly got to show off their city to the rest of the world for the first time. We expats don’t count. We are too few in number and no one else really listens to us anyway cuz we're viewed as kinda odd for living here in the first place. But this was the locals' chance to show off and they had a lot of fun doing so. And maybe - hopefully- started getting the rest of the world realizing that China of the 21st century is not China of the 1980s (because, seriously, I'm so tired of being reminded how "repressive" and "backward" and - omg "Communist" it is here by people whose opinions come from documentaries made before I was born)
- the clean air. Seriously. They gotta keep that up.
- the Olympic games. Not that you could really avoid watching them, but they were really cool to watch anyway. It was fun to watch them in bars and at home and even just a few minutes you happened to catch while waiting for a student to finish getting their stuff together for their lesson. It was exciting to see the US do well, and it was exciting to see China do well, and it was exciting to see friends' countries and little countries that could only send a few people and countries that you had to figure out where exactly they are… all do well. And fun to hear my German roomie and British roomie compare medal totals for their countries… while me and the Chinese girl in the room giggled at them. And as a bonus…some of those athletes were gorgeous! Just, y'know…sayin'…
- watching an Olympics event in person. I got to go see the Tae Kwon Do lightweight event, which was a lot of fun. The Thai fans were a blast. They were all dressed up and passed out Thai flags to everyone so when their competitor came up everyone in the audience would cheer her on. And I was happy I got to go see something- cuz I was worried there for a while that I was gonna be here in Beijing and not be able to get tickets to anything.
- seeing a tiny bit of the fireworks from my 17th-floor apartment- we could just see the very tip of them during the closing ceremonies… kida cool to be watching it on tv and see the fireworks from the window.
Things I didn’t like:
- the absence of the illegal street vendors. And yeah… I *know* they're technchally illegal, but the cops normally just look the other way. And I think that- and they- are cool. And I missed them. Cuz where else are you gonna get roasted meat on a stick at 3AM? (The good news is that they are slowly returning. I haven’t seen the chuar guys out yet, but the people selling clothes on the street are back! Yay!)
-the white barricades in the street. Because I should be able to cross in the middle of the road, dammit! I don’t like this having to walk to the corner thing. Streets are LONG here- the corner is far!!!
- the people who tried to make trouble. Seriously. Get an idea of the culture before trying to shove your own views on it. Trying to unfurl protest banners makes you look like an idiot in the minds of the Chinese. In general, people here are inquisitive and interested in what the rest of the world thinks. But they're not going to listen to someone who is behaving like a moron.
Things I hope will happen:
- China continues to modernize and become more interactive with the rest of the world.
- Beijing continues to become more international but still retains its uniqueness.
So, that is about all I have to say about the Olympics for now.
I still need to update on Hong Kong… and kitten-sitting… and the last-minute getting of a new apartment… but I'll save those for later…
B
Yeah, that's why I haven’t posted in so long…
No, really, I have been bad and deserve a fussin'… I shoulda kept everyone updated on Five Ring Fever and I didn’t. And now its over. Which is so supremely weird… I mean, this city has been preparing for the Olympics for seven years and now its all done.
Nonetheless, it went off well. Better than many expected, both here and abroad. And despite the fervent wishes of some haters that China would fail at their debut here. (Hint- letting China become more open to the world is a *GOOD* thing… having them fail and become isolated and insular would have been a *BAD* thing)
The anti-pollution measures worked wonders… we had blue skies…BLUE… like…y'know… that color that skies are supposed to be…. And STARS at night…
There is a semi-serious push to retain the odd-even plate car thing after the Paralympics are over. (the program- implemented for the Olympics- which required cars with odd and even last number plates to drive on alternating days) Don’t know if that will happen or not, but we can hope…
Things I liked:
- Watching the excitement of the people here as they truly got to show off their city to the rest of the world for the first time. We expats don’t count. We are too few in number and no one else really listens to us anyway cuz we're viewed as kinda odd for living here in the first place. But this was the locals' chance to show off and they had a lot of fun doing so. And maybe - hopefully- started getting the rest of the world realizing that China of the 21st century is not China of the 1980s (because, seriously, I'm so tired of being reminded how "repressive" and "backward" and - omg "Communist" it is here by people whose opinions come from documentaries made before I was born)
- the clean air. Seriously. They gotta keep that up.
- the Olympic games. Not that you could really avoid watching them, but they were really cool to watch anyway. It was fun to watch them in bars and at home and even just a few minutes you happened to catch while waiting for a student to finish getting their stuff together for their lesson. It was exciting to see the US do well, and it was exciting to see China do well, and it was exciting to see friends' countries and little countries that could only send a few people and countries that you had to figure out where exactly they are… all do well. And fun to hear my German roomie and British roomie compare medal totals for their countries… while me and the Chinese girl in the room giggled at them. And as a bonus…some of those athletes were gorgeous! Just, y'know…sayin'…
- watching an Olympics event in person. I got to go see the Tae Kwon Do lightweight event, which was a lot of fun. The Thai fans were a blast. They were all dressed up and passed out Thai flags to everyone so when their competitor came up everyone in the audience would cheer her on. And I was happy I got to go see something- cuz I was worried there for a while that I was gonna be here in Beijing and not be able to get tickets to anything.
- seeing a tiny bit of the fireworks from my 17th-floor apartment- we could just see the very tip of them during the closing ceremonies… kida cool to be watching it on tv and see the fireworks from the window.
Things I didn’t like:
- the absence of the illegal street vendors. And yeah… I *know* they're technchally illegal, but the cops normally just look the other way. And I think that- and they- are cool. And I missed them. Cuz where else are you gonna get roasted meat on a stick at 3AM? (The good news is that they are slowly returning. I haven’t seen the chuar guys out yet, but the people selling clothes on the street are back! Yay!)
-the white barricades in the street. Because I should be able to cross in the middle of the road, dammit! I don’t like this having to walk to the corner thing. Streets are LONG here- the corner is far!!!
- the people who tried to make trouble. Seriously. Get an idea of the culture before trying to shove your own views on it. Trying to unfurl protest banners makes you look like an idiot in the minds of the Chinese. In general, people here are inquisitive and interested in what the rest of the world thinks. But they're not going to listen to someone who is behaving like a moron.
Things I hope will happen:
- China continues to modernize and become more interactive with the rest of the world.
- Beijing continues to become more international but still retains its uniqueness.
So, that is about all I have to say about the Olympics for now.
I still need to update on Hong Kong… and kitten-sitting… and the last-minute getting of a new apartment… but I'll save those for later…
B