"One World. One Dream." Beijing Olympic Theme 2008

June 21, 2008 – Saturday

We didn’t have to be ready to go on our fieldtrip until 10:00 a.m., so at 8:00 a.m. Jessica and I went for a short jog. The first thing we noticed when we came outside was that it was sunny!!!! This is something we have not seen since we arrived here. There is so much smog. Sometimes it is down to the level of our seven story building. It almost always completely blocks the sun. Since today is a Saturday, most of the manufacturing places are not operating and of course not near as many of the cars are on the road creating the dirty smog. I would say maybe we ran two miles. It felt so good to be in the sunshine.

Our water heater, which is right inside our room, seems to be broken. Dang nab it. We are operating with really cold showers. I can’t complain though, as I have mentioned before the place where we are staying is more accommodating than the Dominican. I will forever love the dorms at ISA in the Dominican and would enjoy staying there again if ever given the chance.

We were to meet the guy who was going to take us to the Olympic baseball field at 10:00 a.m. There must have been some miscommunication, because our guide, Jeff, who was an American did not think he was going to be talking us to see and have a tour of a baseball field. The miscommunication turned out to be EXTREAMLY positive, because he took us all over the city and showed us most of the Olympic venues! We didn’t get to go inside any of them but we saw the outside of LOTS of them. We were gone from the university for two and a half hours while on the tour.

Let me give you the play by play. First, he told us some history about himself and how he got in this position. He is on the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad within the Beijing Olympic Media Center. He is the only native English speaking person in his office. He has been living in China for the past nine years and has been a sportscaster for several Olympiads. He is a writer and worked for two presidential campaigns right out of college. He explained that 7000 writers will be coming to cover the Olympics and he is in charge of them. His perception of everything that is happening here and knowledge of the Olympics was impeccable. We are SO lucky to have had him give us a tour. He was pretty rude to DongFong when she didn’t give good enough direction to the bus driver in appropriate times on the pretty busy roads and he was pretty arrogant about his credentials, but he knew so many interesting details about the Olympics.

He explained to us their process for controlling the pollution before the whole world converges on this city. The Olympics start on August 8 and he said that all of the construction must be done by July 20. He repeated several times that it will be completed by July 20. He said it will be finished or covered. Starting on July 20th and until the Olympics are over, half the cars will be removed from the roads as they can only be driven the days of the last digit of their license plate, either odd or even. Also, heavy trucks will not be allowed to be driven at night. Also, there will be an Olympic driving lane on the freeways and if you do not have a pass and drive in those lanes your car will be impounded. The pollution here is outrageous, and it has to be minimized a great deal before all of those people come. He said that 13 million people live here and the city is growing by 11% a year. With all those people, they are making a huge ecological foot print. He answered a question that I have had for quite some time, telling us that wherever there is a big crane in the middle of the road, that is a where is a subway is being built. He told us about how the city of Beijing has matured since they lost the Olympic Bid to Sydney, Australia by 2 votes in 2000. Somewhere in his very informative rambling, he told us that there is a subway that was built to go all they way to the mountains so that people could escape a nuclear bomb from the Russians. Now the city is so built up that the subway comes in to good use. Although he is an American, he is a strong advocate for China and Beijing. He said that Beijing will not stop becoming better after the Olympics. The Chinese believe that this is their century. He told us that they are having double-decker buses come in on freight cars to handle the multitudes of people that will be all over the city.

Jeff explained to us since most of the local Chinese people are too poor to pay for a ticket to an Olympic game, they are building “Cultural Corners.” These festival areas of sort will be areas filled with fun stuff for the local people to do and widescreen TVs showing the Olympics with Chinese subtitles. Ever since we saw the world of China outside of the airport, we have noticed tons of trees, supported by enormous teepee braces. I asked him about this and he said they have planted trees all over, including a forest the size of central park to make the place cleaner and greener.

The first venue we went to was the baseball diamond which was built right next to the basketball arena. This was the only venue we thought we were going to see. Boy, were we wrong. He said that it is just a temporary field and it as well as the softball diamond will be demolished and have an entertainment, shopping, and hotel complex built on it to support basketball. Next year, China will have it’s own NBA. Also, this is the last year the softball and baseball will be part of the Olympics as it has been voted out. We parked the bus and Jeff told us to just act like we knew what we were doing despite the fact that we did not have Olympic badges. I thought to myself, “This is what study abroad is all about.” We walked down a dirt road path through all kinds of construction to an open field area where they were driving bulldozers and construction equipment around without hard hats or safety glasses. From this area we could see the baseball and softball diamonds and the basketball arena in the background.

Jeff explained that the people working to build the fields and the surrounding areas were migrant workers who worked for a company hired by the Olympic Committee. He said there are 100,000 migrant workers working in preparation for the Olympics right now. We have seen them all over. They are planting flowers in the medians and cutting grass in the what little side ditches there are as well as building venues all over the city. The company provides temporary housing for these people and they get paid the equivalency of $20.00 per day. They have people working around the clock and as with everything else in this city, business does not stop on Saturday and Sunday. The people come from all over the country and when they are not preparing for the Olympics they are building dams and stuff like that. The baseball stadium will seat 12,000 people. The outside of basketball arena has been sprayed with a chemical to cool it form the outside in. He said it is also currently on lock down and no one will be allowed in until it is checked by dogs. That was when we were walking back down the path to the bus. He said, “We are here illegally because we look official.” Melissa, our advisor from Ohio State, corresponded with a man named Murray who I think is an alumni of our turf department to make this day happen. In fact, we thought that it was going to be Murray that was giving us this tour and were going to see only the baseball stadium that he worked on. We were definitely pleasantly surprised.

Not all of the Olympic venues are in Beijing although it is the major host city and everything says, “Beijing 2008” on it. There are many co-host cities for specific events. For example, a lot of the water events are in cities near to the water. I am not exactly sure of Jeff’s explanation, but he said that a Chinese person actually owns the Olympic buildings and they are only the property of the Olympics during the games. Afterward, they will be in the hands of the Chinese. Tiananmen Square is a major focal point of the city and country much like our Washington D.C. and there were originally thoughts of having the sand volleyball tournament in this area. The decided against it, but it would have made one heck of a location for TV viewers to admire. We looked at the “Water Cube” which is where many of the swimming and diving events will occur. It is a rectangular building that looks like a bunch of big bubbles. The bubbles are made of plastic and the cube has a moat around it so that no one can just walk up to it and bust the plastic. It is going to be made into an indoor water park at the completion of the trip. The glass (plastic) looks like a sky blue most of the time, but can be turned into any color and is a deep blue at night. He said that at night they can play movies on it. There is going to be a piece of the walls at certain locations throughout the city so people can walk up and touch it and see what it feels like.

Along our tour there were several shack type buildings that Jeff said was temporary housing for the migrant workers. He also showed us temples from the Tang Dynasty that will be remolded in time for Olympic visitors to tour. He pointed out to us the media building, the electronics for computers and various other electronics storage and repair, the new science and technology museum that is right nearby, and the Olympic green. Also, every Olympiad city has to produce a book about that year’s Olympics. He will be the editor of the book. He showed us some Olympic practice fields and a sponsor pavilion for companies like McDonalds to hang out. He pointed out some new and impressive street lights that look pretty neat.

One of the venues is in the shape of a bird’s nest and is call just that, “Bird’s Nest.” This stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, all of the track events, and the soccer finals. He pointed out to us some things sticking out from it that will suspend people during the opening ceremonies on August 8th, 2008. He also showed us the spot where the torch will emerge from. I guess it is a rule that the torch has to emerge from the north side of the stadium and it must be visible for 30 feet. The building is covered with two sections of plastic and the rain water that it catches is recycled. This is not your grandma’s Olympics. At the opening ceremonies they are going to shoot off fireworks. These will be a special kind of “cold fireworks” so that they do not come back down and burn the plastic venue. I cannot wait to watch. There is underground parking for 1000 cars at this location. There will be a red zone area during the game where there will be no driving. We were driving in that area at the time. The birds nest has read and white seats that change slowly in color from the inside out. They broke ground for this on Christmas 2003.

Throughout our whole trip we have noticed tons of workers working all the time. They were planting flowers on the side of the road on a Sunday morning at 1:00 and any other time of the day or night. There are thousands of them preparing for this event in full force. Jeff told us that they will be done by July 20. No exceptions. He reminded us that every major head of state will be there and the Chinese will watch to see if “Young Bush” will greet the leader of China.

He showed us the main press center and the Olympic Village which is 68 hectares (170 acres) of 42 buildings complete with a jogging track, pools, and hot water made by solar heat for the coaches and athletes. The condos are already sold for after the games. It has an international center with 33,000 different types of food available (it will seat 5000) and a courtyard where locals will be leading Tia Chi (a famous Chinese exercise system) in the mornings and inviting participants and their families to participate. There will be all sorts of security for this including dressed and plain clothed officials. He reminded us that the security cannot be compromised and referred to Eric Rudolf who planted a bomb that injured 100 and killed 1 at Atlanta. There will be a temples and churches for athletes to practice their religions. This area will also have a general store selling things like shampoo and DVD’s. They built and Olympic forest park of 600 hectares as a legacy by the Olympic Committee for China.

As you can tell, the details coming out of this man were endless. Hold tight, just a little more. He showed us a permanent bowl-shaped building that holds 10,000 people for tennis. He pointed out lots and lots of brand new landscaping and told us that there will be English and Chinese drivers from various bus stops in the area. There will be approximate 500,000 foreigners and 2-3 million Chinese people converging on the city and they are ready. After the Olympics, there will be a Paralympics in the same locations for people with disabilities. They will call that event “Dream World.” The Olympic theme is “One World. One Dream.” He told us that July 13, 2001 at 11:00 p.m. is when the Chinese knew that they would be having the 2008 Olympics.

When we returned from our amazing Olympic tour, we were hungry so we went to the Sichuan (Sichuan is the Chinese providence where the earthquake occurred) restaurant which is right on campus. The food from Sichuan is known to be spicy, but we found some things that were pretty tasty. We almost always eat white rice. We also had sweet and sour pork, a beef and tomato soup that is somewhat like chili and they serve in a pot with a lighted candle type thing underneath, soybean type things, soup, and French fry type food. Most of the dishes have peppers in them, but we worked around them.

Eventually, we decided to go to an electronics market that we had seen from the bus. On our walk we saw many things including Chinese women using umbrellas to shield themselves from the weekend sun. The sun shines more on the weekend because of less smog. We live on an agricultural campus that is in the middle of a big city so we saw the very few test plot fields that our school has. People were working in the fields which consisted of mostly wheat and soybeans with a little corn. There was a man out flying a kite in this area since it is the only local area with a big open space. We walked about a mile or so to a big warehouse type building full of electronic supplies. It seemed like the products were divided by type and then by company. The rows went on and on. They had everything there from big screen tvs to washing machines to digital voice recorders. Mark was in the market for a camera since he unfortunately dropped his and Ashe wanted to buy a hair dyer. Despite the communication gap, they were both able to buy these items for similar prices to the United States. After the electronics market we walked farther down the road to another big mall-type store. It consisted of several floors of small 8’ x 8’ shop selling all sorts of stuff. One guy had Ethernet chords on display as well as the connectors and jacks. We wanted to got a splitter so that we could have two computers on the internet at once in our rooms so we had him make us two chords and bought a splitter. He did the whole deal-used the wire cutters to cut the chords and connected there wires where they need to be. We should have known then that it was a little sketchy cause when we got home and plugged it in, it didn’t work and made my computer go crazy.