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