China Man

Umbrellas are probably unnecessary for spectators. They are sheltered by the steel frame of the stadium.

It currently costs 2 to 6 rmb to take the subway. That's less than a dollar.

Since some of you like hiccups, any thoughts on what can Beijing do if it rains during the Opening? After all, August is the month with the most rain in the city. The bird nest has no retracting roof! The steel columns are safe though.

From my blog! Beijing is building a new subway line to service the Olympic Park. There are altogether 4 stations with the 4 seasons as the theme for the line! The base color of the four stations will be red/back, yellow, blue and green respectively. The Olympic Subway Line is 4.398km long. Its theme is borrowed from the “rhythm of music”. Each station represents a fermata (rest) in a musical performance, while the tunnel between the stations represents a string of musical notes (the tunnel is decorated!). As the train moves through the four stations, the traveler will experience five different “music pieces” with each station being the end and the beginning of the next. The “Pan-Island Panda Station” (literal translation, not official) has red and black as the main hue represent the passionate Summer; The Olympic Center Station is yellow signifying a brilliant Autumn. The Olympic Park Station is blue representing the expansive Winter; and lastly the Forest Station is green as hopeful Spring. In addition, the walls of the stations will be gray representing the continuity of the culture of the Beijing people.

Looks like both NFL is planning to hold games in the Bird Nest Stadium in 2007! Even NBA is expressing interests in staging the pre and post-2007 NBA season games in the Wukesong Stadium!!! It's 2007! Not 2008!!! This marks the start of the Sino-ising of America and the Americanising of China!

How many Basic First Aid-ers are there in Beijing? The answer is around 225,000. This works out to be about 1.5 per 100 people in Beijing. The Beijing Multiplicity has been engaging the Red Cross to help build the first aid skills of Beijing citizens. They are aiming for 1 first aid trained person for every 50 people by 2008. The priority goes to the volunteers of the Beijing 2008 Games! These include drivers, police, parks, hotels and shops attendants! Is this a common practice?

Well a Tibetian and Falungong member may be a consenting interviewee. Will they allow that? Actually, the new president of China is an interestng man. He knows how to use capitalism more than any of the previous leaders. Wonder what he has up his sleeves to counter all these. Perhaps, money again

Actually I am surprised myself. Considering how commercialised China is becoming...

Yup, it's reported that it's completed already! Pardon me, but they are magnificent and really incredible that they completed the major infrastructure more than 1 year ahead. My blog has the news.

Yeah! In fact, students get to buy the tickets at less than US$1 for the preliminaries.

Yup you heard it right. The article was first published in The Straits Times, Singapore. It's titled Artistic Struggle... For the full article, you can go to my blog.

Most of them will become public areas such as parks. Others may be redeveloped as "proper" residential areas.

Exactly! And because they are often not original residents of the city, they don't really have much rights.

Beijing uses GPS to track down and demolish illegal construction (translated from 2008.sina.com.cn) In the beginning of 2006, Beijing city planned to demolish 4.5 million m2 of illegal houses and buildings. This operation is now completed. To date, 1.6 milion m2 of the cleared land has already been converted to public areas. A further 3 million m2 of illegal construction are planned for demolition in 2007. This is announced during an Urban Development Forum organized by the Beijing 2008 Environment Development Agency. According to the agency, the current development to transform the urban environmental landscape has been smooth. They have step up the frequency of satellite tracking from once a quarter to bi-monthly to prevent new illegal construction. In the last 3 tracking, they have identified 40 different spots covering an area 87,200 m2. The demolishment and relocation operation includes many of the “city villages”. The agency has planned for 80 “city villages” to be demolished and re-located to better quarters this year. 36 of these are already relocated while the rest should be completed by year end. Similar plans are in the work for the peripheral “villages” of the city. The remaining 22 “city villages” will be demolished and relocated next year and mark the completion of the urban relocation plans for all the “city villages” in Beijing. At the same time, relocation project of the villages in the Aviation corridor are also going on. 3 of the 9 villages are in the relocation phase while the rest are preparing for the shift. ----------------- I hope that they do compensate the people who lived in those "city villages".

I've update some photos of the venues again. Take a look here.