Olympics preparations

The Home Team

In the New Yorker, Peter Hessler reports on the Olympics as viewed from the village of Sancha, 90 minutes outside Beijing, where he has rented a house for several years: For China, 2008 had been the most traumatic year since...

Were China’s Glittering Games All Gold?

Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace grades China on its hosting of the Olympics: By the time the Olympics ended, Beijing had clearly won the all-around gold. As a Chinese-born academic who was skeptical...

A Biblical Seven Years

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes: As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t...

China’s ‘Socialist Family’ Sacrifices

The Washington Post looks at where all those resources used in Beijing for the Olympics came from: Beijing’s gleaming new sports stadiums, efficient subway lines and legions of smiling volunteers are a testament to the...

Video: Beijing Olympics Uncensored

Reporter Jocelyn Ford has produced a series of videos about various little-seen aspects of life in Beijing during the Olympics. Read more about the series here. In the first segment: Wo Weihan was sentenced to death for...

Beijing Puts On a Happy Face, Without Wrinkles

The New York Times looks at how Beijing is behaving as host: The volunteers are part of a much larger script for what may be the most carefully stage-managed spectacle in Olympic history — a grand-scale version of the opening...

Vanishing Act

“Beijing’s rundown storefronts are concealed behind walls as China puts best face on for the Games,” Patricia Wen reports in the Boston Globe: This should be a golden season at the Kaiqin Wu’s...

Shandong Electricity Cuts to Power the Olympics

From the Danwei blog: Today’s Yantai Evening News, a local newspaper based in Yantai, Shandong Province, ran a top headline “electricity will be limited to factories during the Olympic Games” followed by a...

Jennifer Chou: China’s Missing Link

From the Weekly Standard blog: Last Thursday the free world plunged into an uproar as it learned that the 20,000 journalists covering the Olympics in Beijing were not getting the full Internet access that China and the...

China As Host Country

National Public Radio has a special series focusing on China’s role and preparations as Olympics host. Today’s report looks at differing opinions on whether or not China is an appropriate host of the Games: The...

Is Beijing Ready for the Olympics?

Li Zhiqi (李志起 ), a Beijing businessman and blogger writes on his blog, partially translated by CDT: On my way back to home the day before yesterday, I saw fireworks in the sky above the Olympics Village. It was the rehearsal for...

China’s Mines Lie Eerily Quiet For Olympics

From Sydney Morning Herald: The neat graffiti on mine workers’ cottages advertises “frozen coffin” services for those who die unexpectedly far from home. But lately business has been terrible. Routine parts of...

Jen Lin-Liu: Beijing Under Wraps

Jen Lin-Liu is the author of “Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China.” She writes this OP-ED piece in from the New York Times: Officials have proclaimed that protesters will be able to demonstrate at locations...

As the Olympics Draw Closer, I Drift Farther Away

Amid all the official media buzz about the excitement of the Olympics enthusiasts, there have been increasing complaints and criticisms about the Olympics preparations from Chinese netizens. The most telling indicator of such...

Protest-Zone Test Case Blocked in Beijing

The South China Morning Post (via Glimpse of the World) reports on a representative of property owners who applied to protest in one of the designated protest zones during the Olympics: Ge Yifei , a retired doctor representing...

How Will the Olympics Change China?

How exactly will the Olympics impact China? A lot of people are trying to figure it all out. From The Telegraph: The Games are nothing short of a sacred ritual for this atheist state, and it is hard to exaggerate the enthusiasm....

The Olympic Dream: A Sci-Fi Short Story

The following “Sci-Fi” short story has been (re)posted in many Chinese online forums and blogs, originally from SCI-FI Great Wall blog, translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan. July is the hottest month of the year in...

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