Beijing 2008 Olympics

Here’s how good it was: afterwards I was walking on the concourse checking out pictures on my camera when I went smack into a wall.

I can still hear the awful splat sound from my forehead and right knee banging into concrete. My teeth hurt a bit, too. There’s a welt on my head and a bruise on my leg.

But… it was worth it. I guess.

Someone went to me and asked to exchange tickets because he wanted to sit with his wife. I said my aunt would exchange, since she had an L section ticket. He gave her his B-category ticket for her D, and let’s just say the difference was stunning. The above photo is about the place my aunt watched the Closing Ceremony. Contrast that to my view.

With only a few days to go, as the last Olympic gymnastics judge wings her way back to the Braille Institute or the Lighthouse for the Blind or wherever she lives (and whoever came up with the idea of using Special Olympics judges in these games deserves the Affirmative Action Nobel) and the last gold medal is draped around the last weeping head, one thing is irrefutably clear.

They pulled it off. China knocked this Olympics clear out of the park.

All that Darfur stuff, the tempest in the Tibet teapot, the Internet censorship, late and refused visas, the lost souls of the People’s protest parks, were as nothing. Barely a pimple on the glowing face of these games. Even the smog went away.

Come on, people, give it up for them. Now that’s how a dictatorship should rule! The party of Mao made the games run on time.

It was no easy task, turning an overcrowded, polluted, gridlocked city into an Olympic nirvana in seven years; no democracy could have done it. Only a one-party state can muster the efficiency needed to bulldoze entire neighborhoods and displace thousands without getting hauled into court.

Seven years in a democracy is chump change. It’s been seven years since 9/11 and Ground Zero is still a hole in the ground. They’re still doing environmental reviews.

How long did it take to do the environmental review when they built the Bird’s Nest and the Watercube? As long as it takes to say “Yes, sir!” in Mandarin.

China is the smartest, best, most efficient and adaptable dictatorship in the world right now. When communism failed, the communist dictators of China threw it into the dustbin of history and embraced capitalism with the zeal of a convert. The Chinese Communist Party is about as communistic as a hedge fund. Chinese society is arguably less socialistic than ours.

And, most of all, China works. They have their problems, but don’t we all? But those problems don’t include famines killing 20 million Chinese every ten years, they don’t include being unable to transform China from a third world county into the next global economic powerhouse in less than a generation.

The dictators of China are seen by the vast bulk of the Chinese people as the good and great government of a good and great China. China is proud, reborn and strong. The Chinese government is beloved by most of its people.

Just like the Germans in 1933, just like the Russians in 1945.

I attended Olympic boxing Saturday night with Jiujiu and wrote a story for ESPN The Blog that was published today. I’ve reproduced excerpts of an unedited version below.

Let’s just say the bouts didn’t get good until the Chinese took on the French, in the fourth bout of our evening. Then hell broke loose in the arena.

“The Sweet Science.” It could mean many things yet nothing at all, and so it is that boxing is likewise hard to pinpoint. Is it a science for its technicality or art for the humanistic exhilaration of mano a mano battle? Is it sport or brutality? Is it competition or assault? Throw the phrase “boxing is called the sweet science because” into Google and you won’t come any closer to an answer (”Boxing is called the sweet science because thats what it really is when you watch the best fight” [sic]). The best you can hope for is to take a seat and soak it in.

That’s why we were at Workers’ Gymnasium Saturday night, taking in eight pre-quarters bouts in the light fly (48 kg) division. Amateur boxing may be under fire for its scoring system, which awards points for punches deemed successful (”They way it is now, you might as well do fencing if they are going to judge like that,” Britain’s Billy Joe Saunders said after he lost his welterweight fight last Thursday), but that doesn’t detract from the excitement of being in the venue. One bout in particular comes to mind.

…

Yanez was gracious in defeat, congratulating his opponent and going over to shake hands with the Mongolian trainers. He exited with dignity, even as an unpopular decision — yet another in a string of many — left fans shaking their heads. Science? Hardly. If but only for the saving grace of sweetness.

Li Du, gold medalist in the 10-meter air rifle four years ago, had a chance to win the country’s first gold medal of this Olympiad this morning. Instead, she placed fifth.

Tearful, she ducked the media and only addressed the media hours later, after, I’m sure, some agonizing self-reflection. Still visibly shaken — sobbing would be the accurate word here — she apologized, then expressed her sincere regret for her performance. It was heart wrenching.

Was it enough? That may not be the right question, because people have stopped caring. China is competing in too many events with too many chances to win gold — in fact, weightlifter Chen Xiexia did win gold soon after Li Du’s event concluded — so right now Li’s an afterthought, if even that. Her name has been relegated to the nether of just about every Chinese website. These are the stakes for China’s minor athletes: hero or unknown. Separated by the thinnest of lines.

An excerpt for you of this news story:

“I was satisfied by scoring 399 in the qualification round but I was not fully prepared for the pressure of shooting in the final at home,” Li said.

[Winner Katerina] Emmons expressed sympathy for Li.

“As far as I can see, there was too much pressure on her,” the newly crowned champion said.

“You media just swarmed around her even in her training.

“I can not bear that if I am in that situation, so I can feel what Du must have felt.”

Few can.

Good luck, Liu Xiang.

Via CS Monitor, this story of Zhang Juanjuan got my attention:

Zhang came in ranked No. 27 in the world, less a machine than a mercenary. She might not always be the most consistent of performers (gasp!), but in knockout competitions – like the Olympics – she is deadly.

Just ask the Koreans. They had not lost this event since 1984.

Joo Hyun-Jung entered the competition ranked No. 3 in the world. Zhang dispatched her tidily in the quarterfinal.

Yun Ok-Hee entered the competition ranked No. 2 in the world. She also held the record for firing the best recorded round of archery of any woman in the history of the sport. In May of this year, she fired 12 arrows at a target at an event in Turkey. Eleven hit the bulls-eye – 119 of 120 possible points. Zhang dispatched her, too, tying the Olympic record of 115 in the process.

Park Sung-Hyun entered the competition ranked No. 1 in the world. She was the defending Olympic champion and had set the Olympic record of 115 earlier in the day.

…With [Zhang's] nation watching, she was slowly turning the screw – no question of age or piling up medals in weak events. Just her nerve against the best in the world.

When her final arrow hit the target – a 9 – she had won by a single point.

The magnitude of this upset cannot be understated. Last month, the New York Times did an article on the South Korean archery dynasty, quoting one of the competitors as saying, “Our sensitive fingertips, descended from our ancestors, and our spiritual strength and willingness to fight until the very end — they are the secrets.” In other words, the success of South Korean archers is written in their DNA. How do you beat that?

Zhang, in taking the crown, took out South Korea — and the world’s — No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1 archers, in succession. Don’t know your opinions, but to me that’s mind-boggling.

Here’s another article about this. I’m still in shock.

I mentioned Chinese shooter Du Li in my ESPN The Blog article this week, saying how she could barely express herself through her tears after placing fifth in the 10-meter air rifle, an event she was expected to win. Well, she was in tears again Thursday after the 50-meter three-position rifle event, but under different circumstances: as a winner. She defeated Katerina Emmons, who won gold in the 10-meter event.

“The five days between my loss and this event were harder and longer than the four years between the Olympics,” Du said something to that effect in her post-event TV interview. “I didn’t want to leave the house. Everyone was so supportive, every time I heard their words I wanted to cry.”

She was in tears again. That was expression enough.

MORE LINKS

• Beach volleyball: cheerleaders! [Olympics or Bust]
• Opening Ceremonies images and links [TBJ]
• Liu Yan, injured opening ceremony dancer [Danwei]
• A poorly conceived Spanish ad [NY Times] … and the follow-up
• An article that makes me happy because the comments section lambastes the French [NY Times]
• Olympic medal designs since 1896 [Shanghaiist]

Brazil vs. Nigeria in the final game of group play at Workers’ Stadium in Beijing, there was a spectacular goal that I just happened to get on my camera. Check it out:

UPDATE: Something about copyright infringement.

Maybe it’s the crowd — ours was announced at 51,112 — or maybe it’s because we happened to catch two good games with seven goals scored between them, but the experience of soccer at a live venue really is different from watching it on TV. I enjoyed the heck out of it, for tickets that cost 150 kuai each (not expensive at all). (Actually, Zhang Wei bought them for myself and Mingyu, so they were free.)

There were fans, excitement, marchers and Fuwas… what else could one want?

Later on the concourse I saw a poor, defenseless white girl holding a Visa sign get swarmed by hordes of picture seekers, most of them Chinese. The first person who did it probably truly wanted a picture of a foreigner, and this was an easy target. The second one was thinking the same thing. Thirty minutes later, well… let’s just say people were doing it to amuse themselves. The expression on her face said “Help me.”

I started taking video because this was much too hilarious to go undocumented:

The late game saw Sweden beat Canada 2-1. There’s not much to report — a couple really nice goals — except the pre-game offered something… different.

Because we all like cheerleaders, here’s the Beijing cheerleading squad dancing to Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and a tune from High School Musical, “We’re All in This Together.” Time (surprisingly) has a better video for you here.

A fun night all-around.

What was probably and hopefully a random act of violence by a troubled individual, put a damper overnight around the world but especially in the US and China for the victims and their families. Doubtless the family and friends of the attacker are aghast with regret for his actions.

This reminds me that mankind continues to have limits short of perfection, by any name, for reasons that will probably remain a mystery to me, but there is no mystery or question that conflict is part of our flawed character. The best efforts of an unopposed, authoritarian government in China which gave up communism for capitalism in order to try to improve the lives of their billion plus population, was unable to prevent this individual assault nor prevent the world from knowing about it now that they have begun their withdrawal from feudalism.

The Chinese government is not shackled by the kind of over ballyhooed “constitutional rights guaranteed” in our history by our constitution, in the words of hypocritical or at least misleading if not dissembling players on the public and private stage in the US. Don’t accuse me of anything, pay attention. I am proud of the US for it’s short role, in years, in human endeavors, all the while recognizing it’s many many imperfections and failures to live up to it’s ideals expressed in the constitution and in our rhetoric so much of the time. Proud, not prideful.

I am also proud, or better, thankful for recent Chinese governments for their conversion to capitalism and their best efforts to date, and understand that every Chinese citizen has every right to be proud of their country despite all that can rightly and severely criticized now and for much of their long 5,000 year history. All governments are made up of human beings inflicted with our varied human nature.

The US has been an active world wide player, for good and evil, mostly for good, at least from our perspective, for most of our short history. Various Chinese governments have spent most of their time horsing around the many smaller, feudal “countries” inside of their diverse territory, making most of their enemies inside of their own changing borders, while the US has many enemies outside of it’s borders. And given the human condition at the heart of this article, like the US, China will also become worthy of envy and the target of hatred, accumulating plenty of unavoidable enemies, not necessarily earned.

Let’s all hope that China succeeds in developing a society that always chooses to compete internationally in the Olympics and on the battlefields of capitalism. A version of democracy which we would favor in the US may or may not emerge in China or elsewhere soon, including in those energy enabled countries, those sitting on and exploiting gas and oil resources for export, so let’s hope capitalism becomes a permanent olympic sport everywhere.

It may be the only common interest that maintains any control on any form of hate driven terrorism that has become a popular export in some parts of the world and which seems now to have a permanent spot on the world stage.

Seahorse kebab, deep-fried scorpion, animal penises and donkey steaks are all available.

Beijing, is known for its culinary diversity with 40,000 restaurants offering seahorse kebab, deep-fried scorpion, or maybe duck liver pate’ shaped as a table tennis bat? Olympic visitors are urged to be adventurous and not put off by the unusual. Even though dog meat has officially been taken off the menu for the Olympic Games so as not to offend foreign visitors, tourists can still find a wide range of unusual delicacies.

The Guolizhuang restaurant specialises in animal penises while there are several donkey restaurants.

Stalls along Snack Street in the Wangfujing shopping district sell a range of delicacies on sticks such as seahorses and cicadas The Chinese traditionally believe certain animals or their organs have medicinal properties.

“The seahorses are good for men’s kidneys and their virility. Those (crustacea) are for the girls to improve their skin and looks, and these (lizards) are for both the boys and the girls, they boost your virility,” claims food vendors.

China’s tourism officials say the menu diversity is driven by “periods of severe famine as recently as the late 1960s when tens of millions died of starvation in the Great Leap Forward. Back then you would have been glad for what is on today’s menu,” said China’s Tourism agency in a statement.

Beijing, is known for its culinary diversity with 40,000 restaurants offering seahorse kebab, deep-fried scorpion, or maybe duck liver pate’ shaped as a table tennis bat? Olympic visitors are urged to be adventurous and not put off by the unusual. Even though dog meat has officially been taken off the menu for the Olympic Games so as not to offend foreign visitors, tourists can still find a wide range of unusual delicacies.

The Guolizhuang restaurant specialises in animal penises while there are several donkey restaurants.

Stalls along Snack Street in the Wangfujing shopping district sell a range of delicacies on sticks such as seahorses and cicadas The Chinese traditionally believe certain animals or their organs have medicinal properties.

“The seahorses are good for men’s kidneys and their virility. Those (crustacea) are for the girls to improve their skin and looks, and these (lizards) are for both the boys and the girls, they boost your virility,” claims food vendors.

China’s tourism officials say the menu diversity is driven by “periods of severe famine as recently as the late 1960s when tens of millions died of starvation in the Great Leap Forward. Back then you would have been glad for what is on today’s menu,” said China’s Tourism agency in a statement.

Leave it to a publication that knows the country to give us an informed view. Austin Ramzy:

What I was hopping to convey was that it’s a bit silly (and yes, I’ve been guilty of it, too) to look out the window with a month to go before the Games, see the Beijing haze and declare that the Games are in peril. The short-term measures that are being put in place, like taking close to half the cars off Beijing streets nearly three weeks before the events start, will have a significant effect on air quality.

This seems like the right opportunity to reproduce part of a pitch I sent Slate on June 24, asking them to let me write about the overblown concerns over Beijing’s air. I outlined for them six reasons for optimism:

1. Cars pulled off the road, gas prices raised: ozone reduction. The main cause of air pollution is vehicle emissions, and according to a paper published by Harvard researchers (who should be accessible), 70 percent of the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere come from car emissions, which react with particles in the air and petroleum to form ozone (O3). During the Sino-Africa summit in November 2006, Beijing experimented with their odd-even license plate plan that effectively eliminates half the city’s cars from the roads, and the Harvard researchers found that over a three-day span there was a 40% reduction in NOx. I’d love to find out more, ask about implications, etc.

2. Construction moratorium and factory shutdown: particles reduction. Beijing’s treated these last few months like an 11th hour cram session to finish up projects like subway lines and condos. We’re about to go from that extreme to the other of no construction at all. The large dust particles that construction projects throw into the atmosphere will disappear, helping clear the air.

3. Geography and seasonal winds. Hills to the north and northwest block the southern winds that blow through during the summer, which means Beijing needs to shut down the big plants just south of the city lest they want the smog to settle over the metropolis. They know about this, and they will. Winds blow from the north during the spring, bringing down lots of dust from Mongolian sandstorms. This contributes to the pollution we see these days, but they won’t be a factor come August.

4. Because national Olympic Committees aren’t worried, and aren’t they the ones that should be? Darryl Seibel, USOC spokesperson: “Given the fact that the appropriate bodies are aware of this, are making it a priority and have a plan to do something about it, we’re comfortable.”

[Need to talk to the Australian Olympic Committee... I suspect one of their official's "concerns" over air pollution got twisted horribly out of context, as somehow this story transformed into this, which uses loaded words like "ban" and "boycott." Interview with Canadian Olympic Committee, UK Sport and IOC spokesperson TK.]

5. A quote from David Streets, senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, who I interviewed for the ESPN piece: “They also may of course do more things — they have the ability to reduce emissions more if it looks like things are really bad; they may say, Okay, all factories shut down and stop driving your car unless you absolutely have to the next few days. It’s the advantage of centrally controlled countries: they can do this and hope for the best.”

6. A little bit of luck. Mention of how six is a lucky number. As is eight, as in the Opening Ceremonies date, 8-8-08. Talk about how the best thing that could happen for Beijing is rain and wind in the week before the Opening Ceremony to clear up the air (this would have a tremendous effect, and I may be able to find a meteorologist to talk about it). Talk to the Italian forecast team that was recently selected to be the official weather team for these Games.

FOLLOW-UP EMAIL:

I’d take a much more aggressive approach in defending China’s anti-pollution initiatives. There’s been so much pessimism about Beijing’s air that I’d like to pull the discussion back towards the middle. It may seem bad now, but there are short-term solutions that really can (because they’ve proven to) work.

Long-term sustainability is a different beast, but when you’re talking about whether the air will be clear during the weeks of the Olympic and Paralymic Games, then I must reiterate my initial feeling that things will be just fine. Take a deep breath, people.

My Slate pitch was politely declined.

ESPN The Blog, the link-heavy story.