While the official media is busy heralding the coming Olympics Games, some other voices offer a different perspective on the event. The following is from Kang Guoping’s blog, translated by CDT (Thanks to Japhet Weeks for the translation):

I knew as early as July 13, 2001, that this year’s Olympic Games were going to be the most wasteful and most extravagant ever. On July 13, 2001, I was lucky enough to be in Russia to witness the day our country was selected to host the Olympics. I was standing at an intersection in Moscow on a rainy day in summer – everyone else had gone home to escape the rain. Our country was excitedly making its Olympic bid. Apart from the tourists from those other countries that were also making bids, there were only a handful of people in the city who knew what was going on. Between Red Square and the International Olympic Committee office, there was no mention of the Games; and there were just a few scattered International Olympic Committee meeting flags.

After the committee made their decision, we drove over to the Chinese embassy. We assumed that on such a happy occasion, there would be a celebration. But we were barred from entering the embassy. The husband of one of my coworkers is a military attaché in residence at the embassy. Originally, I had planned to come and visit her that day, but I had forgotten to bring her telephone number with me. Her number was in my Sina.com email account, and not only are there very few Internet cafés in Moscow, but my user name is Chinese and I wouldn’t be able to sign on from a public computer. I didn’t have time to find my coworker; the only choice left was to force my way into the embassy. Then Zhang Yimou and Deng Yaping arrived in a large bus. We — the group of people barred from entering the embassy because we lacked invitations — asked Zhang Yimou and the others to ask someone inside to let us in so that we wouldn’t have to stand outside getting soaked. In the end, they let us through the big iron gate, but they still wouldn’t allow us into the celebration. We were only allowed to stand just outside the embassy. We were in the same boat as some Beijing journalists, loitering outside in the courtyard.

There really were too many people. Wave after wave of people jammed their way inside, wanting only to celebrate and be happy together. My wife and a friend made it in, but it might have been too noisy there, for after noticing that I had been barred from entering again, my wife didn’t stay long. She said it was too chaotic inside.

While a few of us stood at the entrance taking pictures, there was an older couple who wanted to go in and see, but they were forcefully prevented from doing so by a young man who pushed them out. We couldn’t stand it anymore and said that the embassy is Chinese territory and it was a festive occasion. How was it justifiable to treat an elderly couple so rudely? The young man came from Beijing and was a ruffian. He told us we hadn’t been invited so what made us think we could just come to an event like this casually? We were completely outraged. A middle-aged man with a much better attitude told us that if we wanted to go in, we could, no problem. I inquired about my coworker’s husband (the military attaché), but he said he didn’t know any such person. The young man continued to push back the old couple. A few of us young people tried to stop him and criticized his actions. Some people circled him and wanted to teach him a lesson. They pushed him and told him to pay more attention to his behavior. He got really angry and called a Russian soldier over who was carrying a gun. The soldier forcefully removed us from the embassy’s courtyard to the other side of the embassy’s iron gate.

It started raining; there were friends from all over China gathered there with us who had come to celebrate the successful Olympic bid. And just like us, they didn’t have invitations for the event. Through the iron fence, we watched the people inside celebrating. There was an Olympic cheering group from the city of Tieling, and another from somewhere in Shanxi, plus a few other stragglers like ourselves who were proud of our country’s successful Olympic bid. I suspect that from that day on those people who were barred from entering the embassy felt just like I did; that is to say they couldn’t be very happy because they witnessed the fact that only a few people were allowed to partake in the festivities.

We drove to a Chinese restaurant where we watched TV from Beijing. We could see on the television that people in China were madly celebrating. That night, for the first time, we drank wine.

Starting that day I realized that the Olympics didn’t have anything to do with all of the people, rather, just a select few. Moscow, rain, people didn’t care about who won the Olympic bid. Starting in July of 2001, the international community started paying attention to how China was preparing for the 2008 Games. We built a beautiful Olympic stadium but we spent too much money on it. As for the environment in China, it hasn’t improved in the past seven years. The message we’re publicizing has lost touch with the Olympic spirit; it has too much to do with promoting the cause of developing China.

In reality, the Olympics are just a one-time sporting competition; it’s comical to think that a whole nation of Chinese people has to transform itself. How will seriously overspending on Olympic construction help common Chinese people? By giving them a month-long celebration? Or by posting guards outside of the Olympic stadium after the competition is over and refusing people entrance to a building that is no longer being used?

The Beijing Olympic Village is simply too extravagant. I’ve visited the Olympic park in Atlanta and it’s nothing to write home about. It’s a withered down space no bigger than the manicured periphery of Ditan Park in Beijing. How poor it looks, the place where the ’96 Olympics took place. I’ve also seen the Olympic stadiums that were built in Los Angeles and Moscow and they’re not extravagant. You could hardly describe them as super top-of-the-line stadiums built especially for the Olympics.

When regular Chinese folks are celebrating the Olympics, I will remember the day I stood in the rain, and I will not be celebrating. I’d like to hope that China pulls off the Olympics, that Beijingers can make the Games a happy occasion and that after the Games are over the Olympic stadium will be open for all to visit. But that sort of illusory glory I fear is setting my sights too high.

I’ve heard that a ticket for the Games’ opening ceremony can sell for as much as 300,000 yuan. It makes me disconsolate. Perhaps, after people have spent that much money, they will feel the same way I did when I came back from Moscow. Depressed…