From my Tingzijian

After four days in Beijing at the Olympics, I can now answer all those questions that you can’t find answers to from the sports coverage.  Here goes.

How was Beijing’s air quality?

What a difference a day makes.  Here’s the view from our apartment when we arrived.

That’s right, the usual smog (or fog, as the Chinese insist). Then we had an afternoon of pouring rain – unfortunately, the very afternoon when we had tickets to men’s and women’s tennis quarterfinals.  This is all we saw of center court.

After waiting three hours for our once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Federer, Nadal, Venus Williams and others play, we left to see the U.S. men’s basketball team play Greece.  (Ok, not a bad consolation prize.)
The next day, the skies were sparkling and stayed that way.  People who have lived in Beijing for several years said that they have never seen the Fragrant Hills from the city before. Here’s the view of them from the same balcony.

What was security like?

Omnipresent, who knows how effective.  Here are the SAMs protecting the Olympic Green, and the guards protecting the SAMs.

At every venue, there were long security lines with smiling volunteers enforcing the rules in a completely random fashion. At one venue, I had to apply some of my sunscreen to my own skin before they would let it pass. At another checkpoint, my husband’s chewing gum was taken! On the day of the downpour, non-folding umbrellas were taken away – although free ponchos were handed out.

Did you eat any weird food?

Absoutely!  The strangest of all was when we joined massive crowds at McDonald’s – the Olympics’ “official restaurant,” and the only restaurant in the Olympic Green — to chow down on burgers.  I watched the elderly Chinese couple next to me lift their chicken nuggets out of the box, inspect them carefully, and then place them back in.  I bet they were wishing for a familiar noodle stand.  Is this China?

What a relief to find that breakfast at our way-out subway stop was the same as always – buns, dumplings, egg pancakes with chives made on the spot.

So how were the bathrooms?

Clean, lines a little long, sometimes lacking soap.

I overheard one European woman who was upset because when she squatted to use a toilet (there were both kinds, clearly marked), her camera fell out of her pocket and in.  I didn’t stick around to find out the outcome, if any.

What was happening at Tiananmen Square?

Nothing at all.  Admittedly, we were there late at night.  Mao beamed down as always and the square itself was closed off. Though I didn’t go myself, I hear that even the locations where protests were allowed were empty – possibly because those who applied for permits (as required) were arrested.

So what were those little remote control cars doing running around the field inside the Bird’s Nest?

It took us a while to figure that one out – every time the discus was hurled, an official would pick it up and send it back by way of a car.

Are there, in fact, birds in the Bird’s Nest?

You bet!  Swallows, diving and swooping as if they were thrilled to be there, too.  Sometimes they even got near the PA system and called out a bit.  Too fast for a photo.

How do you say Phelps in Chinese?

Simple.  Four syllables/characters.  Fay-ar-pu-suh. The Chinese love him, but maybe not as much as his friends from home.

So what were the fans like?

Enthusiastic and well-behaved since they had lots of guidance.

but often confused about how you do the Wave.  And how about those Italians – chanting in Chitalian Italia gia you!  The Brits in front of us at the velodrome didn’t laugh in a race between American and British cyclists when my son yelled out 1776! and Remember Yorktown! Their team won anyhow.

My overall impressions?

The show Beijing is putting on is living up to its expectations.  It was absolutely spectacular in so many respects, from the constant greetings by friendly volunteers in blue-and-white shirts to the fabulous architecture of the venues to the clear skies. It’s hard to imagine how any Chinese who saw those extraordinary buildings, the opening ceremony, and the whole turned-out city might feel anything but proud and, for that matter, pleased with the government that provided it all.   As for us, given that in our apartment the wireless internet failed on the second day, a toilet clogged irretrievably on the third, and there was no electricity at all on the day we left, we knew it was time to go home to Shanghai.

For those who aren’t too tired to continue on, I leave you with some of my phavorite shots of the phantastic Chinese phans.

Go ahead, sound it out.  Got it?  O-lym-pic! That’s what we see on many signs giving directions to Olympics venues.

My husband and I left Canada and arrived here in Beijing on Tuesday evening, where we met son Christopher.  Yesterday, Wednesday, we attended our first events, men’s and women’s rowing semi-finals.

We are staying in an apartment we found offered on a website before we left Shanghai a couple of weeks ago.  Back in the fall, when we tried to find a hotel, they were all requiring minimum stays of a couple of weeks at ridiculously inflated prices, so we decided that this was definitely a trip to forego luxury – after all, we aren’t going to spend much time in the room.  Still….

As everybody probably knows, for the last several years, Beijing has been on a destroy-and-build tear (much like Shanghai), demolishing the old lanes and courtyard housing and moving the residents to modern high-rise housing in far-out suburbs.  We now have first-hand knowledge of what an apartment in such a building is like.  Dingy, peeling paint, mildewed ceilings, wheezing room air conditioners, crawling smelly elevators.  Still, the residents are incredibly friendly and seem pleased to have Olympics visitors in their building.  One elderly gentleman jumped up to drag my suitcase up the steps to the door.  A neighbor spent half an hour helping to get the solar heater working so we could have hot water, and then returned with towels from his home when he realized we didn’t have any.  In the morning, another neighbor knocked on the door to offer us a pot to boil water for tea.

Not surprisingly, all Beijing seems equally welcoming and turned out.  We took public transportation (a bus and two subway rides) in the morning down to the Olympic Green, where we caught a bus out (about 30 kilometers or so) to the rowing site.  Everywhere there are blue and white suited volunteers eagerly falling over us reciting “May I help you?” and wanting to show us how to insert our subway tickets (free, as are bus rides, for holders of tickets to the Olympics events) or direct us.  Even when there are lines for buses, they are orderly, with organizers barking out a swift “pai dui” (line up) to late arrivals who are inclined to follow the common practice of just pushing ahead and seem startled to realize that there is a line.  Red lanterns and freshly planted flowers are everywhere – including many poinsettias that seem out of place – and the whole city is draped in banners well-wishing One World, One Dream.  As we passed one demolished area of rubble, we noted that netting had been draped over it as if to prettify it and Olympics posters had been plastered up on the remaining walls, nearly covering the “demolish” characters that earlier marked the site.

The crowd at the races was polite and largely quiet, except when the Chinese woman rower Zhang Xiu Yun pulled ahead of the American woman Michelle Guerette; then everybody jumped up and screamed “Jia you, jia you! (literally “add fuel,” i.e., pour it on!) while we waved our American flag in vain.  People everywhere are eagerly watching the events – including in city buses, which carry live coverage on a screen behind the driver.  The best spot in town, if you don’t have a ticket, turns out to be the Walmart Supercenter bank of TVs.  (We had stopped there for toilet paper and other basics in short supply in the apartment.)

Today, after I post this and get going, we will see the American men’s basketball team play Greece and men’s and women’s tennis quarterfinals.  We are hoping that includes Federer or Nadal and/or the Williams sisters.  I’ll leave the sports analysis to others, but will write what’s it like in the Green.  I hope everybody is having a great time watching!

our high-rise building near the 5th Ring Road

entrance to our apartment building — the men are playing Chinese checkers

on the street near our apartment building

watching in Walmart

May I help you?  Please, may I help you?

sign at bus stop — so far, everybody is behaving

volunteers are all purpose, including when the bus dies

Add fuel, Xiu Yun!