Smile When Communicating with Foreigners

1) A Smile is Beijing’s Best Business Card — A Smile is the Whole World’s Propriety
2) Eight things not to ask Foreign Guests about:

- income or expenses
- age
- love life or marriage
- health
- someone’s home or address
- personal experience
- religious beliefs or political views
- what someone does

3) General Rules for Etiquette with Foreigners

- One’s manners and bearing, and image should be graceful
- Be neither humble nor haughty, but at ease and self possessed
- Seek commonalities while reserving differences, have reason and integrity
- Adapt to others’ customs, respect ethical code
- Abide by agreements, adhere to promises
- Be enthusiastic in moderation, foreigners are different from Chinese
- Be appropriately modest, be affirmed in yourself
- Do not ask private questions, respect others’ customs
- Ladies first, be gentlemanly
- Seat honored guests on the right, and get along harmoniously

Instructions for walking

When men and women are walking together, men should generally walk on the outside, and the person carrying things should normally walk on the right. Men should help women carry things, but must not help women carry their handbags. When three people are walking side-by-side, elderly should walk in the middle. Where there are many cars around, men should walk on the side of the sidewalk closer to the street. When four people are walking together, it is best to walk two-by-two.

Etiquette for Interacting with Handicapped Athletes

1) You should use polite and standard forms of address for handicapped athletes.
2) Try to keep as light as you can with handicapped overtones.
3) Pay attention to how you congratulate handicapped athletes.

Pay attention to avoiding taboo subjects, quit using bad platitudes, and do not use insulting or discriminatory contemptuous or derogatory terms to address the disabled. Say things such as, “You are amazing,” or “You are really great.” When chatting with the visually impaired, do not say things like “It’s up ahead,” or “It’s over there.” When chatting with athletes who are paraplegic in their upper body, do not say things like “It’s behind you.”

The posters appear to be created with the intent of warning Chinese not to be accidentally rude to the millions of international guests that will be arriving for the Olympics. Beijing has issued similar edicts before, warning Chinese not to spit in public, for example; these are more of the same. Those making the posters out to be instructions to avoid discussing “politically sensitive” topics are probably reading too much into them

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“Age can never hope to with you while your heart is young.” If you can figure out what the missing verb is, let me know

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Chinese officials responded immediately, providing The New York Times with copies of passports indicating that both athletes in question — He Kexin, a gold-medal favorite in the uneven parallel bars, and Jiang Yuyuan — are 16, the minimum age for Olympic eligibility since 1997.

Their allegations are backed up by stories in the Chinese news, like Uneven-bars queen the new star in town from China Daily May 23, 2008:

Olympic gymnastics title contenders suddenly have one more thing to worry about other than the eight gold medals China claimed at the Tianjin World Cup last week. Her name is He Kexin.

The 14-year-old newcomer to the national team, who was recruited last year, has raised a lot of eyebrows recently after she broke two world records on the uneven bars in as many months. She will be just one more weapon on an already star-studded Chinese Olympic squad.

The gymnast He Kexin is definitely young looking–as evidenced by the above photo–but what advantage does a gymnast gain from being younger? I can only imagine that a few years of age would give her greater skill, and make her more formidable, not the other way around. The New York Times should seriously consider reviewing their policy of demonizing China before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Update

According to Stryde Hax, He Kexin is listed on official Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau pages (one, two) as being just 14 years old:

618,”何可欣”,”女”,”1994.1.1″,”湖北”
1040,”何可欣 “,”女”,”1994-1-1″,,,”武汉市”,”六城会交流”

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NBC’s Official Olympics Site

Direct link to their 52m ‘Opening Ceremony’ recap

The video is excellent quality, far better than Youtube, sound quality good. Unfortunately, it requires an installation of Microsoft’s Silverlight flash competitor, and has brief 20-30s advertisements before clips. You also can’t make the video full screen. However, if you live in the US, and don’t mind just watching the Olympics, the NBC site has a good selection of live video feeds as well as packaged and cut primetime recaps.

Mininova Bittorrent Search

Olympic Games Opening Ceremony Beijing 2008 PROPER 720p HDTV x264-PiX [eztv]

Using torrents to download the parts of the Olympic games you’re interested in guarantees a permanent archive, full screen high quality video, but perhaps an inferior selection of topics. Its legal status and availability differ around the world. Still, it’s a powerful online option.

Google’s Youtube Beijing 2008 Channel

Beijing 2008 Channel

If you don’t live in the US YouTube might an option for you. Google is going to syndicate at least three hours of Olympics a day on their special channel. But, the quality is crappy, and if you live in the US, you’ll just see “This channel is not available in your country.”

I also recommend you check out the Boston Globe’s 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony Big Picture Photos and Wired’s Watch the Olympics Online Wiki for more 2008 Beijing Olympics Online!

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A Sky story Olympic Fireworks Faked For TV indicates that the CG fireworks were only shown to TV viewers for a limited 25-30s segment, and only internationally. The NBC footage, shot live, shows the actual fireworks that were simultaneously occurring:

The global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium - except they were watching a computer animation. Even the giant television screens within the stadium itself broadcast the fake images.

The dupe was revealed by China’s Beijing Times. Speaking to the paper, the man responsible for the animation said he was pleased with the result. “Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” Gao Xiaolong told the newspaper. “But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished.”

Next, we read how the Beijing Olympics committee used a 9 year old body double (Lin Miaoke) to lipsync Ode to the Motherland, which was actually sung by 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who wasn’t cute enough for the ceremony itself:

“The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen,” Chen said. “Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi’s voice was the most outstanding.”

During a live rehearsal soon before the ceremony, the Politburo member said Miaoke’s voice “must change,” Chen said in the radio interview. He didn’t name the official. So Peiyi’s voice was matched with Miaoke’s face. “We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi,” Chen told Beijing Radio. “We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance.”

Poor Yang Peiyi, she must feel quite let down to not actually get to perform the song she sung for the opening ceremony. Besides the fireworks, song, there’s also a nice BSOD (yay Windows) that must have embarassed Bill Gates (who attended the games), and empty stadiums, in spite of officially having sold out all the events.

Still, the games appear to be an ongoing success. I can attest, watching the olympics opening myself, in spite of whatever technical tweaks Beijing pulled to get it to work smoothly, it felt natural, genuine, and honest. I personally enjoyed it–like good magic, you really don’t want to know what nuts and bolts made the trick. Just sit back and continue to let the Beijing 2008 experience take you away!

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Athletics: 47
Swimming: 34
Rowing: 14
Sailing: 11
Canoe / Kayak - Flatwater: 12
Canoe / Kayak - Slalom: 4
Total: 122

In Sydney 2000, China won only one medal from the list of 119; in Athens 2004, they won four. For Beijing 2008, the medal possibilities have increased to 122, and China has invested millions of dollars into their athletes and facilities preparing for this year’s games. The First Post has an article China’s Olympic plan to topple America worth taking a look at:

For the past seven years, China’s communist authorities have been running an intensive training programme reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s methods - and goal of global domination - during the Cold War era. Unprecedented military discipline, huge sporting budgets, state-of-the-art foreign technology and proven international coaches have all been incorporated into what the Chinese call ‘Project 119′.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers has projected that the Chinese team of 639 Olympic athletes (more than double the 311 it sent to Sydney in 2000, and topping the US tally of 596 athletes this year) will pip the US in Beijing by a total of 88 medals to 87. American bookies currently have China as favourite to win both the overall and gold-medal counts.

With 61 medals (to the US’s 65) and an amazing 35 gold (to the US’s 19), Project 119 is clearly off to a good start. Go China!

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So... some very nice days in Freiburg!!
And now, after four weeks of cruising around, today I arrived back home in Ravensburg... All is quiet here, my flatmate still gone, but I hope some of my fellow teachers are already here, so there is not only work waiting for me in the next two weeks untill school begins once again

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Music video by Rihanna performing Hate That I Love You
with StarGate [Producer], Ne-Yo [Producer], Anthony Mandler, Gina Leonard, Jeff Selis
(C) 2007 The Island Def Jam Music Group

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Maroon 5 featuring Rihanna - If I Never See Your Face Again

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Music video by Rihanna performing Don't Stop The Music
with StarGate [Producer], Rihanna, Gina Leonard
(C) 2007 The Island Def Jam Music Group

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