The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), has just issued new Olympic venue rules. From the Xinhua News Network: Banners, such as those saying “Go China,” will not be allowed in Olympic venues....
The New York Times published an editorial on the list of dos and don’ts (mostly don’ts) for Olympics visitors: On its Web site last week, the Chinese Olympic organizing committee listed a set of restrictions for the...
In this video clip, Chinese women are in training to become hostesses for the upcoming Beijing Olympic games, by Current.com: – Read related post Lessons in How to Smile for China’s Olympic Hostesses via CDT.
Some young Chinese women are preparing to become Olympic hostesses who present the medals. These photos show how they are trained in an etiquette school: – Read also Lessons in How to Smile for China’s Olympic...
From The Times: Organisers lifted the curtain briefly yesterday on one aspect of the summer Games, many of which still remain shrouded in secrecy. They showed off one of the schools where young women were training to become one of only about 380 to carry the medals. A group of 32 girls, mostly in their […]
In the International Herald Tribune, Howard French calls for an eradication of “Laowai” catcalls as part of the campaign to encourage a “civilized” populace in time for the Olympics: This is China’s coming out party, and, as countless others will note in due course, the equivalent of the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, when Japan announced […]
Author Ross Terrill discusses the government’s efforts to present a happy face (which speaks good English) for the Olympics and argues for depoliticization of the 2008 Games: The penalty for “Chinglish” is usually humiliation, not incarceration. Still, citizens are asked to snitch, Mao-era style, on people who shame China with their shaky English. An outfit […]
From The New York Times: For all the expectations and civic pride that Beijing has attached to being the host of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the event is a source of civic anxiety, too. What if traffic is terrible? What if the weather is bad? These are worries for any host city, but Beijing also […]
From Wall Street Journal (photo: a “Don’t Spit” campaign during SARS, via wsj.com): On the streets of the country’s capital, spitting — often complete with loud throat-clearing, gurgling and an arc of phlegm — is a frequent occurrence. The deeply ingrained habit is found among young and old and crosses class lines. Now Chinese officials […]
From Spiegel Online (link): Hosting the Olympics means doing a lot more than building a few stadiums, as Beijing is finding out. On Wednesday the Chinese authorities launched a campaign to clean up the way people in the city behave. One of the biggest challenges is to ban public spitting. In preparation for the 2008 […]
From USATODAY.com: Iconic Olympic venues are sprouting all over the Chinese capital. The national stadium is being woven in concrete and steel to resemble a bird’s nest. The “water cube” swimming center will soon be a giant box of blue bubbles. Communist planners are making China’s dowdy, gray capital beautiful for the 2008 Summer Games. […]
From the Los Angeles Times: Even Miss Manners might blanch at the task at hand: charm school for a billion people, a good number of them convinced that life means never having to say you’re sorry, excuse me or thank you. This is no tutorial on fish forks. In advance of the 2008 Olympics, the […]
From the IHT: China is planning to ban smoking at all venues for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, signaling an official determination to address a mounting public health crisis in a country of 360 million smokers.
Click on the image to download Firefly for circumvention
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