OLYMPICS

...Beijing? I hope that the Olympics will drive China to demonstrate greater respect for human rights (http://hrw.org/campaigns/china/beijing08/)

I think it is hard for the people of the western world to understand the Chinese mentality. It is a world of juxta-positions where obvious wealth is set next to absolute poverty, which just heightens absurdity of the ambitions of this powerful nation. The ritual and persecution of Chinese ancestry ...
...in or before the Beijing Olympics as this represents the pinnacle of sporting endeavour and these athletes are the role-models for a generation of young people.

The Team GB rowers have achieved gold medals for many successive Olympics, with a tradition in the men's coxless four, with Redgrave, Pinsent et al and the new version who are currently undefeated (and still improving).


Summary

I hardly ... more

I was lucky enough to have business in Beijing in the summer
of 2006 and witnessed the build up to what will be the most amazing world-wide spectacle (sporting or otherwise) of the decade and quite possibly the century.

China and the Chinese

China is well known as an ancient country with a civilization several thousand years old, with evidence of sport going back over 4,000 years. However, China's Olympic history has been brief, after having only started to participate in 1984 at the Los Angeles games (Taiwan competed as China prior to this) and in Athens 2004 won 35 Gold medals (17 silver, 14 bronze) coming only second to the USA. China has stated that it will do everything within its power to top the medal table at its home Olympics, after putting the successful bid for the 2008 Olympic games.

China has previous put in bids to hold the games, however they have been unsuccessful, after the IOC stated human rights violations being the major reason for China unsuccessful bid. Even now human right groups are concerned by China's pervasive censorship of media/internet in the face of masses of international journalists in Beijing? I hope that the Olympics will drive China to demonstrate greater respect for human rights (http://hrw.org/campaigns/china/beijing08/)

I think it is hard for the people of the western world to understand the Chinese mentality. It is a world of juxta-positions where obvious wealth is set next to absolute poverty, which just heightens absurdity of the ambitions of this powerful nation. The ritual and persecution of Chinese ancestry appears to ingrain a national pride that verges on the insane. The world super power that China has become (both militarily and in regards to their tiger economy), has identified their home Olympic games as exhibition of their superiority and are throwing every resource (people and money) towards this end. Almost 1 in 4 people living in this world are Chinese, having 1.6 billion residence. China is made up of many provinces, which vary in size with the five largest provinces over 50 million people (there are 35 million people in canada), each having sporting institutes which would rival the national setups of many competitive countries (believe me I have seen the athletics tracks in southern china). Chinese athletes consider there 4-yearly held National Championships to be second only to teh Olympics, with athletes from many sport shunning World Championship to prepare for their internal competition (chinese rowers were absent from World chammpionship in Gifu 2005). It has been reported that the current Chinese athletes competing on the world stage are not necessarily the best in the country, more likely the best of one of the larger provinces; bearing in mind many are being successful, I honestly hope this is just a rumour. It is not just the major sports, or traditional Asian sports (table tennis) that China is suddenly becoming competitive in, sprint hurdling, snooker, canoe, biathlon and all sorts of other ones that I'm sure I don't know about.

Beijing

Entering the city from the airport is a sight itself, coming through the 6 lane motor-way toll point, a wooden temple like structure decorated ornately with dragons and serpents in red and gold. The city of Beijing is massive, a vast sprawling city of all types of housing but I was surprised to see quite so many 70's style tower blocks. Central Beijing does seem to be based around their roads, which make the M25 look like a quiet traffic free county lane- 6 lanes of very stationary, noisy traffic for at least 4 hours a day. I took 3 taxi's in my brief stay and all of their horns had been worn-out.

Even the ancient traditions of Tiananmen square, the lost city appear to be built around the traffic system. The above mention tourist attractions don't really interest me, I went to see them (a very big decorated square and a cellar with an interesting model soldier, unfortunately there are a few thousand very similar) but I prefer to go to the markets and sample the nightlife. The market I visited was located in a massive building in which all sorts of very high quality goods were being sold for very little money, from authentic Northface jackets (£30) to tailer-made suits which are ready in 24 hours (£50) and the biggest pearl market I have ever seen. Of course there are some dodgy products with the fake market for Rolex, Louis Vuitton being very prevalent, but even the fakes are pretty decent quality (I still get mixed up between my fake and real Rolex).

The great wall of China is something I would highly recommend visiting, especially if you want to air your head after a night of experiencing the local tendency to buy bottles of spirits (for about £5 in a club) rather than just measures. It takes a hour plus to get to the best tourist sites, despite the wall running very close to Beijing, as previous tourist have tended to take bits of the wall home with them and it is not-so-slowly disappearing. After running the gauntlet of the very pushy sales women with their tack (some of their wares is interesting but don't get caught looking or they'll corner you for hours until you buy something just to escape) you get to the bottom of a cable car which takes you up to one of the towers (there is an option to hike for 30 minutes). When you are on the towers you can see for miles around you, trace the (very windy) route of the wall on the visible part of the 800 mile length, heard it was more like 1200 miles but I could believe that if it was measured with all the wiggles. Walking along the wall is hard work, but its worth it for 45 minutes before the monotony gets excessive, with the only variety being the differences in the layout of the towers. Its when its time to go back down the fun really begins, as the return is by means of a very fast slide. I'm talking seriously fast and not particularly safe, of course you have a break on your (effectively) skeleton (as in the sledge type winter sport), but if you use the break you must be a wimp… right? Wrong! I'm pretty brave and had the brake on probably ¼ of the time and my friend refuse to use the break for the first half and flew out of the tube and into the forest (its not far off the ground thankfully). It seems there are not significant health and safety issues in China, which we shouldn't be surprised by (its a pseudo-communist not a litigous culture), so if you are told to be carful its probably a good idea to do as they say!

All building work in Beijing has now been halted, after monopolizing over ½ of the worlds (!) steel resources to feed the building frenzy, to allow dust particles to settle and hence improve the notoriously bad air quality before the athletes arrive. Amazingly in addition to this, all industry is going to be halted 4 months before the games in the city of Beijing to further improve the air quality! The power of the state is absolute! I also visited the 'Birds Nest' that is the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, which is a gigantic mass of entangled steel beams apparently imitating the abode of a little birdy. The construction was nowhere near complete when I visited, so there was not much to be seen, but this stadium is going to be the piaste de resistance of China's Olympic games so you can safely bet it will be awe inspiring.

My favourite sports

The sports that I am looking forward to especially are athletics (which Team GB aren't good at) and rowing, in which the two top boats (men's coxless four and women's quad) have both won the world championships in 2005 and 2006. The women's quad has only recently been awarded the Gold medal, after cross the line 2nd behind Russia, who were stripped of the medal due to the presence of performance enhancing drugs in their athletes. This is a sad state of affairs that rowing, as well as cycling, weight lifting, sprinting have all had their athletes banned from competition. It is important that drug cheats are caught in or before the Beijing Olympics as this represents the pinnacle of sporting endeavour and these athletes are the role-models for a generation of young people.

The Team GB rowers have achieved gold medals for many successive Olympics, with a tradition in the men's coxless four, with Redgrave, Pinsent et al and the new version who are currently undefeated (and still improving).

Summary

I hardly feel I have started writing all I want to regarding the Beijing Olympics (hence it is slightly rambling), so you can expect subsequent reviews, but I believe this Olympics will be the first real awe inspiring insight into what is the new China.
 

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