First Aid in Beijing

How many Basic First Aid-ers are there in Beijing? The answer is around 225,000. This works out to be about 1.5 per 100 people in Beijing.

The Beijing Multiplicity has been engaging the Red Cross to help build the first aid skills of Beijing citizens. They are aiming for 1 first aid trained person for every 50 people by 2008.

The priority goes to the volunteers of the Beijing 2008 Games! These include drivers, police, parks, hotels and shops attendants! Do other countries do this as well?

The Anti-Terrorism System

The following pictures include the anti-terrorism vehicles. Some of the vehicles are really perculiar. Anyone knows what exactly they are for???

Beijing Chooses Flowers for the 2008 Olympics

Chinese botanists are gathering in Beijing this weekend to select the flowers that will be used to decorate parts of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

"Experts will select 100 types of flowers from more than 300, which will be able to cope with Beijing's climate," said an official from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry.

Chrysanthemums and China roses are already confirmed on the list thanks to their status as "flowers of the city", titles bestowed on them by Beijing residents in 1986. Also on the list include peony and calla.

In recent years, a debate has arisen over the suitability of the Chrysanthemum as one of Beijing's signature flowers due to its widespread use as a funeral flower in the West.

Supporters of the flower argue that it received high praise in ancient Chinese literature and if you gave someone a single Chrysanthemum, it meant you viewed the person as honest. Even so, Chinese diplomatic officials now no longer consider a gift of a Chrysanthemum appropriate for visiting foreign guests.

Plants grown in the Beijing summer can usually sustain the oppressive heat and humidity, but the current amount of flowers is not sufficient to meet the capital's demand for street and stadium decoration in 2008.

Landscape engineers are going to introduce more flower types from other parts of the country through crossbreeding to produce flowers that can blossom in the heat of August , experts said.

[Source - Xinhua News Agency]

Mice star as Olympic food tasters (from BBC news)

"China is determined the Olympic Games will pass off smoothly
White mice are to take part in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - their task to protect international athletes from food poisoning.
The mice will be fed milk, alcohol, salad, rice, oil and seasonings, the city's health inspectors said.

Mice show adverse reactions within 17 hours, while laboratory tests take much longer, they said.

Poor hygiene in food handling and low standards in distribution have made food poisoning rife in China.

The move is part of the huge effort the Chinese are making to ensure the showpiece event passes off smoothly.

24-hour guard

All the food and ingredients to be prepared in Olympic kitchens will fed to the mice a day before they are served to athletes, state news agency Xinhua quoted Zhao Xinsheng of the Beijing Municipal Health Inspection Bureau as saying.

Infected food can then be traced and destroyed in time.

More than 10,000 competitors will be staying at the athletes' village during the Games.

The kitchens will also have 24-hour guards, storage will be constantly monitored and transportation will have global positioning systems.

Zhen Xiaozhen, of the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said the food served would be Western, complemented by Chinese dishes.

The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing says nothing is being allowed to stand in the way of the perfect Olympics.

Stray cats and dogs will vanish from the streets, he says, and anti-aircraft guns, small planes and rockets will be used to disperse rain clouds, ensuring there will be blue skies over Beijing for the duration. "

Wow! I wonder how Stuart Little will feel when he knows about the "great contribution" that his fellow mice will make to the Beijing Olympics! Mice are really the foundation of the modern world. Our progress in terms of medical and biological sciences are largely due to their sacrifice...

Read More

Do not Fear Earthquakes in Beijing 2008!

(edited and translated from 2008.sohu.com)

8th Nov 2006

The Beijing municipality announced the 11th 5-Years Development Plan for Natural Disaster management. The Plan highlighted that the city will build a Natural Disaster Prevention and Management Center. By the end of the 5 year period, the city center area will have the ability to withstand earthquakes of a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.

This means that buildings should suffer minimal serious structural damage in the event of a magnitude 6 earthquake and should not result in major casualties. At the same time the life support process and system will not be crippled for large areas.

They will also strive to detect signs of impending earthquakes above magnitude 4 and make meaningful predictions to help minimize the impact of major earthquakes (5 and above).

To ensure the safety of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the city will draft a professional pre-disaster prediction and report process, as well as emergency response procedure in accordance to the earth movements below the venues during the Games. This will facilitate in making sure that in the event of an earthquake, the life support system can function in the face of an adversity.

---------------

Remember the super dogs video? They are trained for this purpose too!

Car Free Day

"BEIJING : Hundreds of thousands of drivers have heeded official calls to stay off Beijing's busy streets for a high-profile summit in what is seen as a rehearsal of 2008 Olympic traffic-control efforts.

Traffic was lighter than normal in this city of 15 million notorious for its traffic jams on Wednesday, as a six-day ban on most government vehicles taking to the road got underway.

At least 490,000 vehicles from the government's fleet stayed in the garage, according to the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau.

At least 250,000 private drivers also heeded the call, aimed at preventing delegates here for a China-Africa Cooperation Forum summit from getting ensnared in traffic, state media said.

Members of hundreds of motor clubs in the Beijing area pledged to stay off the road or minimise their driving during the summit, the Beijing Daily reported.

Fast-modernising Beijing has nearly three million registered motor vehicles, including nearly two million private cars, and the number is increasing by more than 1,100 a day, state media reported last month.

The official Xinhua news agency described traffic in Beijing as at "crisis point".

China, which has been on a recent drive to increase its influence in Africa and its access to the continent's energy resources, is pulling out all the stops to impress delegations from 48 African nations for this weekend's summit.

Huge banners and billboards emphasising Sino-African friendship have been put up around the city for what the Chinese media have hailed as the highest-profile international gathering in China since 1949.

But the Beijing Daily also said this week's traffic measures were a "high-level rehearsal for the Olympic Games".

The measures also include a ban on taxis using the expressway linking the city with its airport.

Chinese authorities have said previously they intend to take short-term measures during the Olympics to ensure the roads are not congested while the Olympic spotlight shines on the city.

Beijing has hinted it may ban some cars from the streets and ration petrol.

A senior official with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee told reporters last week the city was considering establishing special Olympic traffic lanes and encouraging people to use public transport.

- AFP/ms"

Let's do the maths. It's 645 days to the Olympics. Assuming the number of cars increase at a constant pace, then we will have: 3 million + (1100 * 645) = 3.709 million cars. That's a 24% increase.

How are they going to keep to a Green Olympics?

The Olympic Rehearsal

"2008.sina.com.cn
By Li Ai

On 19th Apr 2008, The International Athletes Federation’s Walkathon Competition will be held at the National Stadium aka Bird Nest. This will be the FIRST international event ever to use the stadium. Yesterday, the Beijing Olympic Committee announced at its website the schedule for the series of competitions collectively known as “Good Luck Beijing 2008”. This is the series of events that will test all the Olympic venues in areas of infrastructure, service system process and competition organization process.

“Good Luck Beijing 2008” is the rehearsal and practice for the stadiums ahead of the Olympics. It begins on 1st Aug 2007 and will progress through all the stadiums. As the main venue for the games, the National Stadium (Bird Nest) is estimated to be completed by end of 2007. It will be revealed before the World on 19th April 2008 as the Walkathon begins. The National Aquatic Center will also be put into use for the first time in Feb 2008.

According to the Beijing Olympics Committee correspondent, starting from the second half of 2007, all venues will be hosting events to verify and validate their infrastructure and competition management process as part of the rehearsal for the Beijing Olympics. "

To think that 4 years ago in Greece, they were still doing the landscaping when the games started.

Top of the World, Anyone?

"MONACO, Oct 17, 2006 (AFP) - The Olympic flame could pass by Mt Everest, the world's highest mountain, en route to Beijing, organisers of the 2008 Summer Games announced on Tuesday. ``We're planning to take the Olympic flame to Mount Everest, it's a project we're studying,'' spokesman Yang Binyuan said here. The move could be seen as a highly contentious one given that most of the Himalayan mountain range lies within Tibet, a region ruled by China since it sent in the military to ``liberate'' the Himalayan region in 1950. Mt Everest, standing 8,848 metres (29,028 feet) high, lies on Nepal's border with Tibet, which international rights groups accuse the Chinese of ruling through repression and military intimidation. Yang confirmed that construction of the 37 sporting infrastructures, including 31 in Beijing, being built for the Games would be finished by the end of 2007. Once the sites are finished, the organisers plan to host around 40 test events, including the Paralympic Games. Two have already taken place at the Beijing softball centre and sailing in Qingdao. AFP"

Whoa! For your information, in Chinese, Mt Everest is called 朱穆拉马烽 (Zhu Mu La Ma Feng). I believe it's derived from the Tibetian name for the mountain which means "Mother of the Universe".

Yum yum!

"Chinese cuisines recommended for Beijing Olympic menu
www.chinaview.cn 2006-10-18 16:49:45

XI'AN, Shaanxi Province, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 100 cuisines from all over China were recommended to be listed in the Beijing Olympics menu and made their appearance in an Expo here on Wednesday.

Yak steak, Malan Noodle, Mushroom soup are among the cuisines from all parts of China and many of the 30,000 visitors of the Chinese Catering Industry Expo showed interest in them which only account part of the recommended menu for the 2008 Games.

Organizers said the China Cuisine Association have been busy with choosing suitable food for athletes, officials, journalists as well as spectators during the Games two years away.

Asked by the Beijing Olympics organizers at the beginning of this year to help with the Olympic menu, the association will make recommendations to the BOCOG and Olympic service providers, Expo organizers said. "

Personally, I like Peking Duck, Xiao LongBao (soup dumplings) and various dim sum. I believe that they will be serving these as well! :)

Beijing to invest 59.5 bln USD in Olympics infrastructure

"China's capital will invest an estimated 470 billion yuan (59.5 billion U.S. dollars) in infrastructure in the 2006-2010 period. The money will be spent on 2,400 construction and upgrading projects, according to a master plan unveiled on Sunday by the city's development and reform commission.


Projects to ease city traffic, improve energy and water supply and better the city environment will be completed before 2008 when Beijing hosts the Olympics, said Chai Xiaozhong, deputy head of the commission.


By 2008, Beijing will have a hyper-modern international air service hub. Upgrading of the current international airport will be completed and work will have begun on the city's second international airport. The Capital Airport hub will be able to process 60 million passengers a year, according to the plan.


In the next five years, Beijing will upgrade subway lines 1 and 2, and build lines 5 and 10, as well as a special subway leading to the Olympic village and gymnasiums. A light-rail track will also be laid to the airport. Intervals between subway train services will be shortened to 150 seconds. The total length of the city's subway and light rail network will reach 270 kilometers, and high-grade highways in the city center will stretch 280 kilometers. It will take 50 minutes at most to commute to areas within the city's fifth ring road.


Beijing will also expand parking lots to ensure a parking place for each motor vehicle in the five-year period. Official statistics show that Beijing now has approximately 2.8 million motor vehicles but only 1.4-1.5 million parking places.


By 2008, the Taiyanggong gas-firing thermal power plant will have been built and heating pipes laid for the Olympic gymnasiums and surrounding areas. Electricity transmission projects for the areas will be completed, and construction will be revved up on the Beijing section of the south-to-north water diversion program. At the end of 2007, the section will be ready for water supply.


Beijing will clean up its rivers and lakes and improve water quality. Two water recycling plants will also be built. In 2010, annual consumption of natural gas in the capital will reach seven billion cubic meters.

Source:Xinhuanet"

Hmm.... just for comparison, Singapore has a US$125 billion GDP this year. The figures are really scary.

I wonder if this will affect the already polluted environment in Beijing. However, it's still very exciting to see an ancient capital revitalised!