Countdown to the Olympics

. Immediately upon arriving in Beijing, I sensed the Olympic excitement. Everywhere I turned, Olympic advertising floated throughout the newly built airport that just opened 3 months ago. Within 20 minutes, I had departed the plane, passed immigration, picked up my luggage and withdrawn money. That was the fastest I have ever made it through an airport. Congrats to the Chinese for accomplishing so much in their road to the Olympics. In fact, they are still building. At 10pm last night, I noticed many Chinese planting flowers in all the pots in the streets. At this point, China doesn't lack man power, but they do lack time. Construction continues with repainting everything white and in setting up TV screens, and in making the city pretty. Meanwhile, half the city wears volunteer Olympic t-shirts. Every street corner hosts a volunteer waiting to be useful. If they spoke English, I would find the volunteers useful, but instead I find myself lost in translation. I'm sure they are useful to the millions of camera carrying Chinese tourists who flood the streets. If I had claustrophobia issues, I might have problems being in this city because I think all of China has showed up in force.




Like me, they take photos of everything and in each photo, they hold up the peace sign. In following their lead, I did the same. The Olympics really are meant to symbolize peace and I will be interested to see how the protests afflict the Chinese government and their version of peace. The theme this year is "one world, one dream". As I look around, I believe this is China's dream to show the world how far they have come and who they really are. I am surrounded by Chinese National pride from the flag bearing kids to the grown men wearing I Love China shirts written in English to every shop displaying the Chinese flag outside. I, sadly, forgot to bring any American paraphernalia and so I bought a Chinese and Olympic flag to wave. Blasphemy, I'm sure.


When I look around the city, I see mainly smog. The skies are covered in haze and so it is difficult to see very far. To combat pollution, the Chinese government mandated that only license plates ending in even numbers can drive on even days and odd numbers on odd days. One lane is devoted strictly to the Olympics and so the traffic remains the same with the loss of a lane in every major street and highway. The government promises to keep the subways open 24 hrs during the opening ceremony day, but I get the feeling the government does whatever is most convenient for them and I am just waiting for a major shutdown due to ｐｒｏｔｅｓｔs.

Communism runs steep and sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Big Brother situation. The government is monitoring internet traffic along with cameras everywhere as I am told, but have not seen. Interestingly, if foreign residents do not register within 24 hrs with the police, the police show up. I'm staying with my friend Thomas for the first couple of weeks. When he failed to register after returning from a trip, the neighbors ratted on him and the police dropped by. I just found out that I am suppose to do same since I am in a residential neighborhood, and will try tomorrow. I think I have gotten away with it so far since I look Chinese.

The police are everywhere and I feel safe at night because of this. Although, I find them cumbersome. Today, when I tried to head to my future hostel for a tour to the Great Wall, I couldn't easily make it. The police had shut down the subways and all roads near Thomas' apartment around Tiananmen Square for the torch relay. I tried reasoning with the police, then I tried rushing the barricade and almost got arrested, then I tried blending in with the millions of Chinese lining up for the relay, but was ratted out, and then I tried to cab it across, but all the cab drivers refused to drive me. I thought about getting Thomas' bike and biking across, but finally got into a cab and had my hostel tell the cab driver how to get me across the barricade and to their hotel Thankfully, an hour and a half later, I made it just in time for my tour. In Guatemala, I gained a tremendous amount of patience just waiting for buses and taking the attitude that it is all about la experiencia. China is testing my patience and I am working hard to be patient with the Chinese government and the crowds. I just hope not to be deported.

By the way, I am not volunteering in China as I had hoped. The organization I had planned on working with, hands on disaster response www.hodr.org, just could not get past the bureaucracy in China to set up camp in the earthquake zone. So, instead I will just focus on the Olympics since I had set up this trip 10 months ago and 8 months before I figured out my year off. This trip was my birthday present to myself.