Visible moon (a rare thing) and Olympic lanterns on the road to/from the Qingdao Airport

I work at an airport. I’ve lived at an airport. I’m in the process of traveling from one airport to another. I’m not too sure how it will feel to land at Barajas Airport in Madrid tomorrow after news of the tragic Spanair accident that has killed more than 150.

I will be in Spain for the next two and a half weeks. More soon…

Don’t ask me what’s going on, because I don’t really know. All I know is that China is currently experiencing nuttiness, and it has nothing to do with peanuts or cashews. For quite a while now, we knew that our flight school would not be allowed to fly during the Olympics, since we are located in the same province as an Olympic city. Fine, okay. Then we learned we could not even go near the airport to work. Okay, whatever. I don’t really think of myself as a security risk, but whatever. Now, I’ve been told I can go to Shanghai with the other instructors who were scheduled to go there for an exam, instead of staying in Linyi to teach English classes. And when I return, I’ll have to pack up my stuff and leave Linyi until the Olympics (and Para-Olympics) are over. Because of the Olympics, because of security, we’ll be relocating to Qingdao, an Olympic city. Yeah, I just don’t get it either. Olympics-Shympics.

So, tomorrow I will leave for four days in Shanghai and for the weekend I will most likely be in Qingdao, until sometime in September. The good news is that Internet access is much better in both of those places. Good-bye Linyi.

I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed these before. Olympic spirit is everywhere, even on the bricks of milk.

After enduring an early morning visit from the police to our apartment to “check our papers” yesterday, we decided a celebration of our non-deportation was in order. Besides, the Olympic opening ceremonies would take place at exactly 8PM and we certainly did not want to miss an opportunity to engage in harmony & good will with our fellow friends. (Harmony being the key word that would be repeated throughout the ceremony, and also our cue to drink.)

TV room at Ruin’s Pub, where we watched the ceremony

The opening ceremony was scheduled for 8PM on the 8th day of the 8th month – 8 being a highly auspicious number in China. If the Olympics had been held in Beijing in 2004, well, that would have just been awful. Four is an unlucky number because it sounds similar to the word for death. And you know what, the ceremony really was spectacular. Back in America for the 4th of July, I’d heard that there was a shortage of fireworks from China. I’m pretty sure this is because they were saving them all up for the Olympics rather than exporting them. Fireworks seemed to fill the sky! I remember arriving to China in 2005 and seeing the countdown signs – there were over 1000 days to go. I can’t believe I am still here in China, almost 3 years later, to see the games actually happen.

Zhang Yimou, the famous (and once banned) film director, did an amazing job orchestrating dancers, acrobats, musicians, and artists, all representing China’s history and “opening up” to the world. My favorite features were the LED screen scroll on the floor of the stadium, the giant red lantern with acrobats flying around it and the opening sequence of drummers producing light with each drumbeat.

The two hours of world athletes marching into the stadium was a bit dull. Instead of entering in alphabetical order, they entered according to the number of strokes it takes to write the country’s name in Chinese, except Greece, which lead as the birthplace of the games and China, which brought up the rear as the host. (A brilliant idea!) We cheered for all the countries we’d visited, lived in or were born in. (We represented China, Spain, Australia, Great Britain, Germany and the USA.) We stifled giggles over the group from “Chinese Taipei” (the politically correct way the Mainlanders decided to refer to Taiwan, officially still a province of the Motherland.) We marveled at the size of Yao Ming. Mostly, we were just killing time waiting for the Olympic flame to be lit.

I’ve always liked the design of the Chinese torch – long, slim and tubular with stylized red and white clouds, a common motif in traditional Chinese art and architecture, and I was pleased to see the flame at the Bird’s Nest stadium continued this theme. It was lit by one of China’s great Olympic heros, Li Ning, who now runs a massive sportswear company that rivals Nike in popularity here.

Harmony!!

These games have been shrouded in so much controversy – to boycott or not to boycott, to mask or not to mask, etc. While I do not deny the myriad concerns the world has over the faults of the Chinese government, I couldn’t help but feel glad that it had all come off beautifully. The security and preparations for the games have affected us personally, and maybe someday I’ll write more about that, and I know that there are many Chinese in Beijing and throughout the country who are not satisfied with what hosting the games has meant for their lives. Although one could argue whether these games were for the common man or for the greater interests of the government & economy, the local people of Linyi were certainly excited and proud last night. And you can’t deny them that. My feelings over the games are conflicted, which is a pretty normal reaction to all aspects of life in China – it’s complicated!

The Olympics start tomorrow, but the weirdness associated with them has been building for quite a while. First there was the news that our flight school couldn’t fly during the Olympics, all because our school is located within the province of Shandong, about three hours from where the sailing events will be held. Then we noticed a huge police presence in Linyi – even though we’re 12 hours by train from Beijing and 3 hours from Qingdao. Of course, the fiasco of the torch also contributed to the weirdness. Now, we have been informed that, as foreigners, we present a security risk and we are not even allowed to go to work – because work is located at the airport. It’s just weird. Plus, the skies have been suspiciously clear for quite a while now, and I’m starting to wonder if all the local factories have been shut down…

Police barricade on bridge in Linyi, a practice run for the Olympic Torch’s arrival

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I am sick. I’ve got a cold and a stomach thing. Digestive disturbances are par for the course after spending two months outside China. I need to reinoculate myself to the local fauna. Colds, however, are unusual for me. I usually experience one summer cold and one winter cold. Maybe I’ll just blame this one on the Olympics, too. A lot of weirdness is happening here, all being attributed to the “Olympics.” (Whether that is true or not, who knows.) I can’t wait for them to just be over. (And I hope they go well. Really, I don’t want anything bad to happen. God only knows what that might mean for us foreigners in the country. But don’t worry. I don’t mean to say that we are not safe. We are. It could just mean more weirdness and not a return to the happy, carefree days pre-Olympics.)

Hunger got the better of us yesterday, as we sat cooped up in our apartment. Surely there would be a way into the city and to one of our favorite restaurants. And if not, well, there is always a neighborhood joint to eat in.

To our surprise, there were people meandering through the streets, but a noticeable lack of traffic was evident. As expected, most of the direct routes across the river that separates the downtown (and the torch route) from our hood, Hedong, were blocked. People lined the banks of the river, straining to see through the pollution and humidity that hung in heavy clouds over the city. The torch run was happening across the water, yet all who hoped to see it were thwarted not only by government policy, but also mother nature. We caught a taxi and drove down river hoping to find a bridge that was not closed. Eventually we did, only to find at the end of the bridge that the road was closed, too. We didn’t have to wait long, however, before the whole fiasco came to an end at 7:30pm and we could cross over into the downtown. Some red-cooked pork belly at Mao Jia Restaurant really hit the spot!

Later, the torch ceremony was re-broadcast on local TV. From the camera’s viewpoint, there didn’t seem to be many people there, not like one expects to see at a torch run. Still, the incident-free run raised Linyi’s stature by about a million points. The over the top military presence and road blockades were a success!

I was sad to see that it was not an incident free day in Kunming, however, one of my favorite Chinese cities. Two people died there when two separate bombs were detonated on city buses.

The PRC isn’t exactly what it used to be, or what it promised to be. The Olympics are right around the corner, and so are paramilitary police, increased scrutiny and an overall sense that things have definitely gotten weird. I’m back in Linyi (more to come on that) and the Olympic spirit/nationalist fervor is as strong as ever. It seems the Olympic torch will be passing through Linyi sometime today.

I’m not going to go see it. Actually, it has been (air-quotes) suggested (air-quotes) that everyone just stay at home. It’s kind of been assumed we’ll have no choice, what with the practice run last week producing city wide barricades. (or so I hear.) Most of Linyi will stay home anyway. We’re all on lock-down. Most have not been chosen to line the streets and cheer the torch on. That’s right. Chosen. You have to be privileged to see the torch in person here. Something tells me the city’s few foreigners are not among them.

Despite the snub, local Linyi people are buying up miniature Chinese flags and Olympics souvenirs by the hundreds, to wear and wave in front of their TVs, I guess. Have these kinds of things always happened on torch runs in other Olympic countries?

AP Photo

Algae Woes Hit China’s Olympic Sailing Host City
Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
30 June 2008

To host the Olympic sailing events, the Chinese port city of Qingdao moved a massive boat yard, relocated industries and spent about $850 million on transport links, parks, pollution controls and coastal green belts.

But with little more than a month to go until the Games, a different challenge is cropping up: A forest of blue-green algae is choking the coastal waters, suffocating beaches and lying in thick layers along sailing routes.

My sister-in-law related this news story to me yesterday evening. She was reading news on her laptop and casually mentioned it to me. I replied, “I bet they’ll just deploy a few thousand local workers to pluck the algae from the water by hand.” She laughed, not really believing me. Then she read the rest of the story:

City officials say they’ll need at least two weeks to clear coastal waters, mobilizing 10,000 workers aboard 1,000 boats. It wasn’t clear how they planned to block other algae from drifting in.

That’s just the way things get done in China. Need a mountain moved to make way for an industrial park? No problem, we’ll get a few thousand migrant workers out there with shovels. Manpower is never an issue.

I live in Shandong Province, where Qingdao is located. We’re about three hours south. Qingdao is actually a very nice city. I have never seen algal blooms there before. While I’m not crazy about the idea of entering any body of water in China, Qingdao does have nice beaches for strolling and people-watching. The seaside is lined with big, colonial style houses, some of which have been converted into hotels and cafes. Qingdao is home to Tsing Tao beer – one of China’s best exports and our local favorite. The Germans occupied the city and left an indelible mark – both on the beer and the architecture. I had thought that the sailing events in Qingdao, with its relatively clean air and water, would have been a highlight of the games. Hmmm. Not so sure now. I do hope, however, that the problem can be resolved.