I watched three hours of Badminton this afternoon, bringing my lifetime badminton-watching-time-total up to 4 hours. It was great, adrenaline inciting sport. The crowd was enthusiastic, especially for the match between an Kaveh Mehrabi, from Iran, and Yu-shieng Hsieh, from Taiwan. I lived in Taiwan for three years, but here it’s called “Chinese Taipei” for political reasons. And for those reasons I wondered how the Chinese crowd would react; they were waaaaay behind Yu-shieng; the whole stadium was chanting “ja yo!”, which means “add oil” and is how the Chinese encourage you to try do your best.
And while some may call Iran evil, in the Olympics Kaveh Mehrabi is just a guy who’s very, very good at badminton. I’m personally a believer in keeping politics out of the Olympics. Completely. This, once-every-four-years moment is our planet’s chance to relax, encourage each other, and celebrate human achievement. It’s the only moment I know where the whole world comes together in peace.
Here’s Kaveh’s Wikipedia”>Wikipedia Article. Yes, I can access wikipedia in China.
Air Quality in Beijing
Conditions are fine. I’ve just come from the North Shore of Lake Superior where the air is as clean as air gets. I’m breathing just as easily now as I was two days ago. Sure, I’m not running a marathon, but then, marathoners compete in New York City every year – right past my apartment – and they don’t complains about that. So are media reports of Beijing’s smog proof of an anti-Chinese bias in the media? I’ll say it’s just the news media trying to stoke outrage. Outrage, if you haven’t noticed, makes you tune in. Did your Governor use a call-girl service? Outraged at the hypocrisy? Feel like buying a newspaper? That bias towards making me angry is why I find myself less interested in news. In fact, a long time ago, I considered a career in journalism, but after watching a working journalist develop a story, I changed my mind.But getting back to air quality. In the summer months a haze descends on Beijing; on camera it would be easy to paint this as pollution, but I think it’s just a byproduct of geography.
Ticket Scalping
At badminton, the seats were, at best, 75% occupied. And on TV right now, I’m watching the preliminary heats of swimming; the stadium looks 70% empty. Meanwhile, scalpers are selling those tickets for hundreds of dollars (US). Something is not right. VERY not right. Everyone you talk to here wants to get in, can’t get in, can’t afford the prices people are asking (are they getting them?). This is the first Olympics to completely “sell out”. I’m not fond of using quotes to convey skepticism, but they are called for. Hopefully someone with some authority will do something to alleviate this. The no-ticket situation is a big frustration for many people.But otherwise, the city’s in a celebratory mood; I was here last spring (when I first got the notion of coming to the Olympics) and the difference is palpable. It’s put me in a good mood.