Beijing's "clean up" campaign went beyond physical pollution

Better late than never... Diana Fu, FACES '03, who had been living in Beijing during the summer leading up to the Olympics, had a great post on a New York Times blog on the many aspects of Beijing's "clean up" campaign.

Here's the start of the article:

"The environment is not the only thing that needs cleaning in Beijing. When I was here in February, state-sponsored billboards all over the city listed the “ten dos and don’ts” and the “eight honorable and eight shameful behaviors.” The first list included cautions such as “don’t spit, don’t pirate, and don’t climb over fences.” Top on the second list is, “patriotism is honorable; harming the country is shameful.” The point of this massive campaign was to “clean up” Chinese people’s behaviors and to encourage patriotism. The Chinese phrase for this is “tigao suzhi,” which literally means to “uplift quality.” This means adopting better manners and etiquette."

(Read full article.)

Photo Essay - Olympics in Beijing's back streets and alleys

Thanks to Qian WANG, FACES '03 for pointing out this awesome photo essay of ordinary Beijingers enjoying their own "Olympic sports" on the steps and streets outside their homes. More so than stunning photos of the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, these pictures give a taste of old Beijing.

Did we miss half the show?

CCTV’s camera angles may have been a bit odd last night, featuring only a partial view of Zhang Yimou’s vision unfolding at the Olympic Stadium. Chinese netizens have been blasting the incomplete coverage and posting photos that reveal many more elements of the spectacle.

If you were watching the CCTV broadcast of the Opening Ceremony, you’ll definitely want to check them out. For example, what was up with the scroll just sitting there the whole time?













Sure, it was supposed to represent an "open book," but at times it seemed more like a washed-out rug. (Photo capture from China Daily)














Not particularly inspiring. However, here's what happens when we take a look from another angle:



Wow, there was actually a lot of meaningful content -- it wasn’t just a big flat piece of paper with occasional weird coloration. These photos are from different segments of the show, but you get the idea.

Visit this site for other photos. There are at least four pages worth. Here are a few more teasers:




A lot of detail was invisible on the CCTV-broadcasts, and seeing the Ceremony from other views leaves much more of an impression. (A friend was also reporting that CNN did a pretty good job with its broadcast; look for it online soon).

-- Kevin

Just a reminder for everyone to be careful out there

Scary stuff

BEIJING (AP) -- Team officials and state media say a knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing.

One of the victims was killed and one was injured in the attack on the first day of the Olympics Saturday.

From the article, it wasn't clear what the motivation was, although it was implied that they were targeted because they were foreigners. So it seems that the games are attracting statement-makers from both outside and inside China.

For those who were watching the Festivities last night

A couple of hilarious minute-by-minute running commentaries on the Opening Ceremonies, by way of The Peking Duck:

One at http://bokane.org/ and another at Granite Studio.

Definitely a must-read if you were at the party last night.

Reviews of last night's Opening Ceremony?

Last night's, Opening Ceremony was a long time in the making. Zhang Yimou, China's most internationally renowned director, was named director over two years ago. With 14,000 performers and 29,000 fireworks, the production value was huge. And, the expectations of 91,000 live specators and an estimated TV audience of 1 billion were running high, perhaps impossibly high.

How did it turn out? And, did Chinese and international audiences have different reactions?

I thought the opening drum-lights sequence was incredible. It grabbed me and set me on the edge of my seat, eager for the eye-candy and creative surprises that I was sure Zhang Yimou would whip up. The fireworks chain reaction from the Bird's Nest Stadium to Tiananmen Square induced cheers from the small crowd around the TV in my friend's apartment. The scroll motif was also a cool effect. But I found the rest of the sequences to drag a bit. I was glad that Zhang Yimou grounded the entire show in traditional and modern Chinese artforms, but, still, I didn't think the small movements of the puppets (mu ou ju) lent themselves to a stadium show and I didn't get the Peking Opera sequence. The theme song (Wo He Ni) sung by Sarah Brightman and Liu Hua was too slow for my tastes, although it was a nice touch to have the international duo performing. And was it really necessary for Li Ning to take an agonizingly slow lap around the entire Bird's Nest rather than just fly directly up to the fuse to light the torch? That harness must have been chaffing; give the guy - and the audience - a break.

So is this just a petulent American reaction? Am I just being unappreciative of Chinese artforms?

When the initial fireworks burst out, I thought out loud, "Ah, Zhang is so good." To which my Chinese friend jibed, "Zhang is good at pleasing foreingers." That was a simple reminder of an obvious fact: Americans and Chinese have different aesthetics and we find different things entertaining. At the same time, some performances have universal appeal. So what was last night? Universally appealing, universally disappointing, or mixed reactions cutting along national lines, or mixed reactions with no particular pattern?

-- Zach L, FACES '03, '04, '05

One Man's Terrorist is Another Man's Freedom Fighter?

Saw this interesting article in the New York Times today about how a Muslim separatist group in Xinjiang was issuing threats of violence during the Olympics:

BEIJING — A terrorist group seeking an independent Muslim state in western China has released a video threatening an attack on the Olympic Games here, according to an American organization that tracks terrorist Internet posts.

I find it somewhat interesting that the press generally follows the Chinese government position that these groups are terrorists organizations that are essentially illegitimate. On the other hand, with Tibetan groups, the US media generally follows the line of the Tibetan dissidents in describing the events in Tibet.

So is it that the Tibetans are better at working the media? Or is it that the Xinjiang dissidents fall into a preexisting media narrative about Muslims being terrorist organizations? I'm hardly an expert at this but I'm sure it's probably some of both...

-- Andrew MacDonald

Essential Reading Guide to the Beijing Olympics

If you are an American headed to the Beijing for the Olympics (like me), you’ve probably been reading all manner of news about the Olympics, while counting down to the Opening Ceremony. In that case, this primer will just be a refresher for you.

For those of you who’ve been head down with work or tanning on the beach all summer, you need to pay close attention, so that you can participate in the most likely conversation topics.

So, a la David Letterman, here are ten topics you’ll want to know about and some good sources you should read to be ready to touch down in Beijing and plunge intelligently into the magnificent celebration and commotion that the Beijing Olympics promises to be.

10) Modernization campaigns: Readying itself to welcome the world on August 8th, Beijing has launched campaigns - from toilet modernization to etiquette lessons - to "civilize" its city and people.

9) Learning English: Infamous for the ubiquitous and often hilarious "Chinglish" around the city, Beijing has commissioned native English speakers to edit signs, menus, and other English language documents. Taxi drivers are taking English classes.

8) International censure: Protests during the torch relay, American and European threats to boycott, and Spielberg's decision to quit as artistic director of the Games have plagued this year's politically fraught Olympics. These protests are in critique of China's human rights record (most prominently its handling of Tibet and relationship with Sudan, Myanmar, and North Korea). However, the debate continues on whether these are productive ways of addressing such issues.

7) China's medal hopefuls: Team China has a cast of characters and medal hopefuls that you should get to know. Liu Xiang, the 110-meter hurdler, is the most famous; according to a public survey, the Chinese's number one hope for the Olympics is that Liu win a gold medal. With Project 119, China is focusing on winning a larger share of gold medals in sports that it does not traditionally excel in, such as swimming, rowing, and track and field. Project 119 got its name from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where there were 119 gold medals in those sports and China won only 1. This year, the total is 122.

6) Broken promises: There’s been a raging debate over what Beijing promised the International Olympics Committee regarding Internet censorship and how it has or has not flagrantly broken those promises.

5) Why the Chinese are Olympics-obsessed: It’s their chance to show the world a New China and to reverse "100 years of humiliation."

4) Sparkling infrastructure: Beijing has undergone massive infrastructure improvements, like any other Olympics host city - and then some.

• Beijing National Stadium, a.k.a. the Bird's Nest
• Beijing-Tianjin express train
• World's largest airport
• Massive subway system expansion - Beijing's subway system more than doubled its capacity - from 4 lines and 64 stations to 7 lines and over 140 stations, including a direct link to the airport

3) Greening efforts: Air quality is a sensitive subject for both the athletes and the Chinese government. Beijing's air quality has improved every year since 2001, but the official PM10 has been 111 micrograms/m3 on average since July 20. It fluctuates everyday depending on weather conditions. PM10 of greater than 150 micrograms/m3 corresponds to API greater than 100, which the WHO deems unhealthy for sensitive groups. The quest for blue skies has the government seeding clouds, a short term solution. Members of the US cycling team apologized yesterday for showing up with black face masks.

2) Heightened security: The Chinese government has their hands full, with everything from air to water to food to protests over Tibet having the potential to disrupt the games. Most recently, a terrorist attack killed 16 Chinese policemen in western China. In response, the government has ordered the highest alert, restricted tourist visas, and has been shutting down bars and other potentially rowdy public places. These policies may put a logistical damper on Beijingers' enthusiasm and threaten Olympics tourism.

1) Beijing welcomes you: Chinese wordplay infuses the chosen date and time to launch the Olympics (August 8, 2008, at 8:08 pm) and the official mascots. Eight is a lucky number in China because the Chinese word for eight (ba) sounds like the word for "to prosper" (fa). Accordingly, the Chinese plans to open the Olympics on 8/8/2008 at 8:08 p.m. The official mascots of the Olympics are named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. Together their names spell out "Beijing welcomes you" in Chinese.

Hope to see you at the Games! Happy reading.

-- Zach Levine

Blue or Gray?

How effective have the last-ditch air pollution control measures been? Who wants to place bets on whether the sky remains smoggy tomorrow?

Or will the Weather Modification Bureau ride to the rescue by drumming up some rain? (24 hours left, guys...)

In any case, there's still the issue of long-term solutions versus short-term measures. Could some of the money thrown at this problem in the last few months been used more effectively (e.g. clean production methods, more efficiency, pollution controls) over the last several years?

My prediction: Since practically everybody is staying home tomorrow -- no work, woohoo! -- the traffic, and possibly the sky, will be a whole lot lighter. But it's still going to take some natural phenomena to make it truly blue.

Photos from August 2007. -- Kevin

[I guess I ought to clarify... the extraordinary measures taken in recent months and days have been costly, for instance completely shutting down certain factories and power plants, etc. leading to lost income and the need to import power. Perhaps the costs incurred now could have been avoided by focused action earlier.]

Will the Olympics Affect China's Economy?

Just a quick introduction, I'm Andrew MacDonald, now working on my PhD at Oxford in Politics (specializing in Chinese Political Economy of Development) and previously was involved in FACES in the 04 and 05 conference.

To get things rolling, I thought I'd address an issue I saw raised in Michael Pettis' great posts over at the Asia EconoMonitor. In essence, he implied in a side note to this post that the Chinese economy might have some trickle-down effects from the Olympics (whether good or bad, he didn't say):

Perhaps he really believes that, or perhaps he is just keeping in step with the request by regulators to stay upbeat before the Olympics. About a week after foreign newspapers reported that regulators had instructed domestic fund managers and market participants not to say or do anything in the next few weeks that might hurt the market

So I thought I'd look at the numbers.

Turns out that, according to the University of Michigan China Center Database (subscription req'd), China's 2007 GDP is about 251,481 (in 100m RMB), which compares to Beijing's (for the entire province) of 9006 (in 100m RMB). So Beijing accounts for about 3.5% of all of China's GDP.

Remember now too that the Olympics are going on for, at most, about a month of the year, so you have to divide the GDP of Beijing by 12. So one month of production in Beijing contributes about 0.29% of China's yearly GDP. So even if no work got done at all during the Olympics, China's GDP numbers would hardly notice the effect; it'd be at most statistical noise.

Of course, there are a number of events in other cities, the Olympics aren't really a month long, etc. etc., but from a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, there doesn't seem to be much that the Olympics themselves can do to influence China's economy.

Edit: Now I see this post here by Rachel Ziemba that suggests that there may be some Beijing-level effects, but that the effects may be a wash. So it largely confirms, I think, the point I was making.

-- Andrew MacDonald