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.

BBC new - "China is determined the Olympic Games will pass off smoothly. White mice are to take part in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - their task to protect international athletes from food poisoning. The mice will be fed milk, alcohol, salad, rice, oil and seasonings, the city's health inspectors said. Mice show adverse reactions within 17 hours, while laboratory tests take much longer, they said. Poor hygiene in food handling and low standards in distribution have made food poisoning rife in China. The move is part of the huge effort the Chinese are making to ensure the showpiece event passes off smoothly. 24-hour guard All the food and ingredients to be prepared in Olympic kitchens will fed to the mice a day before they are served to athletes, state news agency Xinhua quoted Zhao Xinsheng of the Beijing Municipal Health Inspection Bureau as saying. Infected food can then be traced and destroyed in time. More than 10,000 competitors will be staying at the athletes' village during the Games. The kitchens will also have 24-hour guards, storage will be constantly monitored and transportation will have global positioning systems. Zhen Xiaozhen, of the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said the food served would be Western, complemented by Chinese dishes. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing says nothing is being allowed to stand in the way of the perfect Olympics. Stray cats and dogs will vanish from the streets, he says, and anti-aircraft guns, small planes and rockets will be used to disperse rain clouds, ensuring there will be blue skies over Beijing for the duration. "

"(BEIJING, Nov. 16) -- Beijing has already achieved its goal of using clean energy in the heating system for the year. Up to the end of October, a total of 1410 boilers with a combined capacity of 5,000 tons have been converted to clean energy, fulfilling the plan for the year two months ahead of schedule. Since 1998, the capital city has devoted attention to combating air pollution, with the use of clean energy instead of coal as a major priority. Over the past several years, more than 10,000 boilers with a capacity of less than 20 tons each and 44,000 tea boilers have taken in clean energy. As a result, the annual average of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere fell to 50 micrograms per cubic meter in Beijing in 2005, which means the national standard was met. In its 11th five-year plan for the national economic development (2006-2011) Beijing has pledged to continue upgrade the rest of 2800 boilers with a capacity of less than 20 tons each." This report is ambiguous. Anyone knows what is the clean substitute for coal that they use? What's tea boilers?

Done so! Thanks for the tip off. Nobody choose the 'egg-beater' yet.

True. How do I shift?

I've included all the past Olympic Torches in my blog! Please vote for your favourite one!

Apparently, the Beijing 2008 Committee is considering having wrist bands for volunteers during the Games. On 29th Oct, they gave out these sample rubber wristbands during an event to volunteers and spectators. These wristbands are called 'Smile Bands', in conjunction with the "courtesy campaign" for the Olympics! ;-) These rubber wristbands have the words “志愿者的微笑是北京最好的名片”engraved on the inner sides and a unique number tagged with it. The literal translation is "The smiles from the volunteers are the best namecards for Beijing!" The design's not final. In fact, they gave out 20000 surveys to ask for opinions on the wristbands including questions on what they feel the different colors should symbolise! They will unveil the final version of the wristbands on 1st Jan 2007!

No prob. I actually translated this news from sohu, a chinese news website. I should have done some proofreading though . It's the 11th 5-Year Development Plan!!!

8th Nov 2006 The Beijing municipality announced the development 11th 5-Years Plan for Natural Disaster management. The Plan highlighted that the city will build a Natural Disaster Prevention and Management Center. By the end of the 5 year period, the city center area will have the ability to withstand earthquakes of a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale. This means that buildings should suffer minimal serious structural damage in the event of a magnitude 6 earthquake and should not result in major casualties. At the same time the life support process and system will not be crippled for large areas. They will also strive to detect signs of impending earthquakes above magnitude 4 and make meaningful predictions to help minimize the impact of major earthquakes (5 and above). To ensure the safety of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the city will draft a professional pre-disaster prediction and report process, as well as emergency response procedure in accordance to the earth movements below the venues during the Games. This will facilitate in making sure that in the event of an earthquake, the life support system can function in the face of an adversity.

Well, I read a news article before about this Chinese gold weightlifting medalist who became a cleaner in one of the public bathhouse. IWeightlifters spend so much time training that they didn't have very high education (sometimes just primary level). Once they leave the national team, they are left on their own with no skills to guarantee them a decent job. Not only that, because she spends so much time training, her body is full of injuries and after effects of the drugs. I see commercialism better off for the atheletes actually.

Some photos of the Regatta in an actual event. and Feng Tai Baseball Stadium More in my blog! Sorry lazy to post everything