The 2008 Beijing Olympics

  Beijing, China
Monday, August 25, 2008

So the time finally came to participate in China's long awaited event - The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. A few days after I got back from central Asia, the first foreign volunteer training session was held at a hotel near Nanlishilu. Training started off with Chinese class; the majority of foreign volunteers went to the advanced Chinese session. Later that day I found out that many of these volunteers are foreign students studying for their undergraduate or graduate degree at Chinese universities. As for our beginner Chinese class, it was an absolute waste of time to say the least. I was expecting to learn some Chinese phrases for Olympic venues, transportation and general niceties. Instead, we spent the better part of the 2 hours to repeat over and over again the pages long Olympic song "Beijing huanying ni" (Beijing welcomes you). What I did learn from the training is that 936 foreigners were selected to work for the Olympics. Of the approximately 1.2 mill Chinese applicants, 500,000 were bestowed the honor of volunteering for the Games. By this time, I started to get the feeling that this format of ineffective and meaningless volunteer training would continue over the next couple of days.

Olympic Green Street

And continue it did, with an all-Chinese lecture from 9-5 the next day. To make a long story short, none of the volunteer training we received adequately prepared us for the questions we received from visitors at our information booth. As a volunteer assigned to work at the Olympic Green Domain (the area that features the Bird Nest, Water Cube, NIS and Fencing Hall) we expected to receive an introductionary tour of the area before the opening of the Games. A tour not only would have provided us with a view of the Olympic venues and facilities but most importantly it would have given us an understanding of the entire Olympic Green area enabling us to give accurate information to the visitors. Well, the tour didn't happen. We were pretty much left to our own device in figuring out the area.

Our Volunteer Team

Not knowing what to do with the foreign volunteers, we were assigned to work the information booth across the Bird Nest. Our shifts were from 3-11 or 12 depending on the events. We realized that our Chinese counterparts were better trained than the foreigners; they knew all the important transportation/ticket/exit-entry/parking information. None of this information had been relayed to us in the volunteer training. But, there are two sides to every story. The bright side of being stuck in a volunteer booth with 6-7 other volunteers was that we, Nicole and I, had plenty of time to explore the Olympic Green and hanging out at the NBC pavilion (where the NBC Morning Show was recorded), drinking beer with Olympic Games visitors and otherwise being the subject of attention for many Chinese visitors who wanted a photo with us. It would be interesting to know how many photos of us are gracing Chinese photo albums.

Another disappointing fact was that none of the huge LCD screens on the Olympic Green or the Pan Gu hotel showed the opening/closing ceremony or any Olympic event. I wasn't just disappointed, rather, I was pissed that the Olympic organizers excluded the crowd and the volunteers on the Olympic Green from the Olympic action. I would love to hear the reason for not televising the games shown on CCTV 1 or on other Chinese channels on the LCD screens. So much for the Olympic spirit! It was interesting and enlightening to talk to foreign visitors who have been to or volunteered for other Olympic Games. Listening to their account of the Games, Beijing definitely has some catching up to do.

Well, this was the first time for China to hold such a large scale international event, so lets not be too rough with the organizers but lets just say that there is lots of room for improvement until the next games. No Olympic Games have been perfect - some just came closer to perfection than others. In the meantime, I am preparing for London 2012.