July 2008 Entries
Even before my flight took off I had a small glimmer of the passion and excitement of China’s Olympic fever. My plane was missing many of the usual suspects of business people, English teachers, or future adoptive parents. Instead, a sea of Olympic athletes, journalists, and Beijing locals had replaced them. Behind me a Chinese grandmother was teaching her American grandchildren the official cheer, so I was lulled to sleep by a chorus of “Zhongguo Jiayou!” &l
What do the Olympic venues really look like? Has Beijing cleaned up the city before the Olympics? It has according to this video, which features many beauty shots of Beijing.
What do you get when you put 50,000 fans in line for Olympic tickets? Pushing, shoving, and very few behaviors that you would want in a "harmonious society."
Athletes from a staggering 204 nations will compete at the Beijing Olympics, but this year Iraq will not be among them. Last month the International Olympic Committee suspended Iraq's Olympic Committee, due to government involvement.
No country is perfect, but no citizens are as happy with the direction of their country as China. According to a new survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a staggering eighty-six percent of Chinese are satisfied with the country direction, up from forty-eight percent just six years ago. Eighty-two percent say the economy is good, up thirty percent from 2002. Not surprisingly, these high numbers put China as the top-rated count
This morning Beijing's streets, which are usually packed with 3.3 million cars, probably felt a little less congested, since half of those vehicles won't be on the roads. Due to Olympic pollution concerns and overcrowding, Beijing has implemented an odd-even numbered license plate system, so cars will only be able to drive every other day, depending on their plate number.
Although Olympic officials have declared the water of the sailing competition to be algae-free, China's President Hu Jintao traveled to Qingdao to ensure that the Olympic sailing site is positively, undoubtedly Olympic-ready.
With 22 days to go before the opening ceremonies, here's a quick look at some of the biggest expectations and more realistic outcomes for these Olympics:
The baby Red Panda cub that had captured the attention of animal lovers worldwide met an untimely end yesterday. Last week we watched it nurse from its adopted mother, who was the a Dutch zookeeper's house cat, but today it's gone on to be reunited with its sibling who passed away June 30.
Experiencing new cultures, meeting new people, and sampling local cuisine are some of the most satisfying parts of traveling overseas. Sometimes we end up dining on lobster and caviar, other times the offerings are pig's feet and thousand-year-old eggs. But during August and September, one thing definitely won't be on Beijing's menus: dog.
Olympic sailing fans have great news- sailors won't have to try to make their way through a substance that looks like electric pea green soup! Officials have announced that the waters where the competition will take place is now algae-free, which is a huge improvement from the way the waters looked when they took this video just two weeks ago.
"What should I wear?" or "what should I bring" are two common questions I ask myself before taking trips, and I definitely want to be prepared for anything at the Olympics next month. Perhaps sensing that this could be a common dilemma, the Olympic organizers, who have prepared for just about everything, have published an extremely comprehensive guide to help me make my selections.
China's horticultural Olympic preparations haven't received the same levels of publicity as the security measures or even manners campaigns, but countries worldwide have sent some floral gifts to China.
After the May 12 Chengdu earthquake destroyed much of the Giant Panda habitat, pandas around the world have needed an extra dose of nurturing, but I honestly didn't expect that it would come from an unlikely source: a house cat.
With less than a month before the Olympic ceremonies, authorities are leaving nothing to chance. They've tightened visa restrictions and routine passport checks, and detained many of the usual suspects, involved in the so-called "three evil forces" by Chinese police: terrorism, separatism, and extremism.
While many fans from across the globe look forward to seeing athletes compete, they're probably not anticipating the elite group of China's official cheerleading squad.
Last week, the day before the long July 4th weekend, President George W. Bush finally announced that he would attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
From the vantage point of a country where two in three adults is either overweight or obese, it's no surprise that the rise in obesity isn't just confined to the U.S.; it's actually a global phenomenon. In recent years overweight people have outnumbered the starving, and many of the billion people who fall into the fatter category live in China.
Every year more than 1.3 million tourists climb the Great Wall of China, but an elite group of divers got a special tour; they viewed the wall through their scuba masks.
If anyone could have written a picture-perfect Cinderella sports story for China, they couldn’t have picked a more appropriate heroine than Zheng Jie. The 5’4” Chinese tennis player only ranked #133 in the world was playing in the semi-finals in Wimbledon.
It's often said that a picture is worth 1,000 words, which is definitely the case when it comes to the waters around Qingdao, the site of the Olympic sailing competition. There are few people who would want to take a dip in water affected by one of the worst algae blooms in history.
Last week I wrote about a new Frontline/World documentary called "Jesus in China," which you can now watch online. Evan Osnos, the Chicago Tribune Beijing Bureau Chief collaborated with PBS to produce an in-depth analysis of Protestant Christianity in China today.