A Chinese Olympic!

I read off a chinese new website (2008.sohu.net) that there will be more than 7 million tickets to be sold in the games. Among these, 80% will be sold in the country and the remaining to the rest of the world.

Which means that you will probably see a sea of black hair and red shirts in all Games venues. It's an open secret that China aims to be top of the medal table in Beijing 2008. It does help when you have a home crowd cheering you on! Actually, the Games is one of the great ways to instill national fervour and pride!

At the same time, to assist the local people to be able to afford the tickets, the Olympic committee asserted that the ticket price will be the cheapest of the last few Olympics. Most locals reflect that they like the tickets to be less than 100rmb (US$12.67). Many don't mind paying 500rmb for the Opening Ceremony too. Still, this is even lower than the Los Angeles Games in 1984 (US$32 then) and cheaper than going to a movie in the States!

In fact, the committee is thinking of giving concession tickets (which are dirt cheap) to students too. Can they really make money to cover the extremely high expenses in building 11 new stadiums, upgrading of the other stadiums and other infrastruture?

But one thing's for sure, there will be lots of enterprising students selling the tickets for a profit!

The Water Cube

Look carefully at the workers at the bottom of the pictures. Yes, it's that big.

Good night, Beijing!

"Beijing 2008 – All track and field finals to be held in evening sessions
Thursday 26 October 2006
At the end of a three day meeting of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Coordination Commission in Beijing, China, earlier today the competition schedule of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, Beijing 2008 (8 August to 24 August 2008) was agreed.

The Commission was joined by IOC President, Jacques Rogge, who was in the Chinese capital to view progress for himself ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, and to meet Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on a range of Games related matters.

IOC Coordination Commission Chairman Hein Verbruggen confirmed that the finals of all track and field stadium events will take place in the evening competition sessions, and that this will commence at 1900hrs local time each day (GMT + 8hrs).

However, the men’s and women’s marathons will start at 0700hrs local time.

The morning sessions in which the most of the qualification rounds of the track and field schedule will take place will commence at 0900hrs local time each day.

The full timetable of the athletics events of Beijing 2008 will now go for approval by the IAAF Council whose next sitting takes place on 13 and 14 November 2006 in Monaco."

This is an interesting arrangement. I wonder why... Is it because of USA or because of the weather?

Qin Huang Dao Olympic Stadium

Qin Huang Dao is another city in Hebei, China, 300km east of Beijing. Honestly, I've never heard of this city until the Olympics.

Anyway, this is the first stadium to be completed for the Olympics! It has a capacity of 33000 and will be used for soccer preliminaries.

Beijing Olympic: Green Convention Center

Another megastructure that the Chinese has built for the Olympics.

It'll be used for fencing, the Shooting and Fencing disciplines of the Modern Pentathlon, as well as the International Broadcast Centre and the Main Press Centre.

The Olympic Sailing Centre

This is the venue of the Olympic Sailing Centre. For your information, it's at Qing Dao, a major port city in Shandong, Northeastern China.

Wukesong Basketball Stadium as of 18th October

This seems to be the site of the Giant TV. The construction progress pales in comparison to the Bird Nest and Water Cube. I watched a documentary detailing the stadium before. Apparently, the technology to build the giant TV wasn't there when it won the bid.

Maybe that's why it's still at this stage of construction.

Yao Ming: Chinese must be more polite

"2006/10/21
By Grant Clark SINGAPORE, Bloomberg

Yao Ming, China's most popular athlete and a three-time NBA All-Star, said his countrymen must stop jumping queues, speak more quietly in restaurants and generally improve manners ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
"I suggest we work on our public courtesy," Yao told the official Beijing 2008 magazine. "Such courtesies are no small matter. They are the sign of an internationalized host nation with a great cultural tradition."

Beijing Olympic and government officials have started an etiquette campaign targeting habits such as queue-jumping and spitting in the buildup to the 17-day sports event starting Aug. 8, 2008. The Chinese Olympic Committee president this year said good manners should be "at the top of our agenda."

The 7-foot-5 Yao, whose comments will be published in the next edition of Beijing 2008, urged China to move into line with international standards of behavior.

"For example, Westerners lower their voices in restaurants so as not to bother other people," Yao said. "Jumping ahead in queues is a definite no-no. Motorists should follow traffic rules, respect pedestrians and stop to let them pass first."

Chinese authorities last month listed mainland tourists' bad habits in a move to encourage better manners before the Olympics, state news agency Xinhua reported. Those included "taking off socks and shoes in public" and "bad temper and cursing."

The 26-year-old Yao, who plays for the Houston Rockets, said China's service industries should be "more internationally minded" during the Olympics and follow the example of the past two Summer Games.

"In Sydney and Athens the service people were very nice," he said. "They smiled and said 'Hello' to you but they also gave the athletes lots of personal space, they did not bother them. I hope the Olympic staff in Beijing will learn from such foreign practices."

I agree fully with Yao Ming. These days it's all about creating an experience. You may have the most beautiful buildings in the world, with the most vile behaviour, it would still leave a very bad impression. I wonder why is it that some Chinese can be so uncivilised when China always pride herself as a civilised nation.