In search of the Olympic Spirit (Beijing, China)

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(Day 142 on the road)So I am back in Beijing, this time in order to enjoy the Olympic Games. The first night I stayed with the mother of my friend Li, which was really nice. We didn't share the same language but nevertheless communicated quite well! I was to meet Li and her husband a few times over the next days, ending it with a very nice dinner at a Japanese restaurant - the perfect tuning in to Japan, where I will be heading next. In Beijing, I also met again with Jen and Eric, an American couple teaching English in Xi'an and whom I had climbed Hua Shan with two months previously. It was cool to see them again, and we went to watch the Softball Gold medal match together between the US and Japan (and which Japan won actually). Eric and Jen also reunited me with a hat I had left at their apartment in Xi'an two months ago, not bad, thank you guys.

Overall, the Olympics were great but not quite the spectacle I had hoped for. I was expecting a huge Olympic party and lots of people from all over the world out and about. Instead, it was a rather sterile affair somehow: There were no public viewing areas, no outdoor parties, no one around the stadiums selling any kind of foods or drinks, no music on the streets, just a perfectly organised event. So unless you had tickets to one of the events, there was not much Olympic spirit to be found. If I compare it to the Football World Cup in 2006, that was a big party back then where everyone celebrated on the streets for the duration of the games and the atmosphere was just fantastic. I was somehow missing that in Beijing.

Also, for all the events I went to (Softball, Kayaking, Boxing and Hockey), the stadiums were at least half empty! I don't know what happened to all the tickets or the people that had purchased them (as all events were officially sold out, but I don't quite believe this, not when half of all the stadiums were empty!), and it was sad to see so many empty seats when outside the stadiums there were always a lot of people trying to get tickets. At a hockey game between China and South Africa, I was also astonished to see the Chinese spectators booing whenever the South African team was in possession of the ball. Cheering your own team is great of course, but booing the other team is not very sportsmanlike I think (this also happened at quite a few other events, for instance at a volleyball match I was watching on TV between China and Germany).

Sad also was the working of the black market: There was one spot right outside the subway station Beitucheng that was the (un)official centre of the black market, so everyone wanting to sell or buy a ticket essentially came here. The sellers were mainly Chinese touts and the buyers were mostly foreign visitors who wanted to experience the Games. There were big signs saying that the selling or buying of tickets "should be punished" (nice wording, ha), but there were lots of officials and police around, and no one did anything to stop the sale. Anyway, so what happened was that basically two markets developed: A market solely between foreigners, which was a mere exchange of tickets at the the nominal value of people who could not make it to one of their event or who were looking to exchange tickets. The other market was between the Chinese touts and the foreigners, where the Chinese were trying to sell their tickets at ridiculous prices (original price on the ticket 50 yuan, asking price 1500 yuan). The foreigners were getting extremely angry at the Chinese for trying to ripping them off so blatantly, so unless one was desperate, no one was buying from the Chinese. Also, the touts tried to buy the spare tickets the Westerners were selling at face value, only to sell them at a much higher price later on. The Olympic Spirit was not very alive at this place.

A nice experience on the other hand was a round of "street football" (the one you play with a very small ball and where you are supposed to keep the ball in the air for as long as possible) I was playing with some Chinese around the Olympic Green. It was the first time I had played this and was initially very bad. More often than not I missed the ball altogether, but the Chinese (who were all experts at the game) were extremely patient with me. I got the hang of it after a while, and we had lots of fun together.

On one of the last days, I bumped into an old friend from my times at university in Hong Kong, Frances. I am not sure what the chances are of meeting someone you haven't seen for five almost six years in Beijing, but here we were. As it turned out, Frances was also going to Japan the week after, so we made plans to go for dinner in Tokyo. Awesome!

After four days in the city, my first Olympic Games were coming to an end. My ferry to Japan was leaving two days later, and I had to get going.

Next stop: Tianjin (China).



To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).

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Comments

[Samira]

good work! ;-)
hey Ben, echt super interessanter Bericht - Dank Dir dafür!!