8.8.08

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• Entry from Beijing

  Beijing, China
Saturday, August 9, 2008

Thursday morning, the manager of my school announced that Friday would be a holiday, enforced by a government decree. Three-day weekend! Alright! Friday was sort of an eerie day actually because only a few cars, buses and taxis were supposed to be driving, so there was a calm before the storm effect.

Around 5pm, Adam and I made up our minds about where we should go watch the Opening Ceremonies. We had heard that fireworks were being set off from Tiananmen Square and there would be jumbo trons televising the ceremonies, too. After meeting up with friends, we got on the bus. On our way to the subway, people told us that Tiananmen was closed off to visitors. Damnit. Plan B: Take a cab to the Bird's Nest. I'd been advised not to go there because you wouldn't be allowed anywhere near it. Luckily, this didn't prove to be entirely true.

We had five people in our group, so we were forced to take two cabs. We weren't too sure where we'd reconnect, but we had each told our cab drivers to take us as close to the stadium as we could go. As we neared it, we paid the driver in advance and he stopped just long enough for us to jump out of the car. The stadium was 400 meters away across a large highway, and we joined people congregating along a ramp that leads up to the bridge used to cross into the Bird's Nest. While there were many spectators like us, there weren't huge crowds the likes of several millions in Tiananmen. This is what China was hoping to prevent. Though I don't think they anticipated people standing where we were by the street.

We stayed long enough for the 8/8/08 8:08:08 pm jubilation. Inventors of the fireworks, China put on a pretty good show at the start, but we didn't stick around for the grand finale that I think would have been truly breathtaking. We did see smiley face fireworks, which was a first for me.

After the police eventually told us we could no longer sit on the ramp, we moved to the bridge which had previously been closed to spectators. (Go figure. We were told we couldn't be in one spot, so instead we moved closer...) All around there were Chinese people cheering:

Ao yun! Jia yo! Zhong guo! Jia yo!

Olympics! Add oil! China! Add oil! This is the cheer that the Chinese have been instructed to chant incessantly at all the events. It can get pretty annoying, but I imagine that U!S!A! can get tiring as well. Either way, you hear this everywhere now.

And, of course, the Chinese were taking pictures. There was a small contingency of Mexicans dressed up in their colors and waving flags. They almost drowned out the Chinese in cheering volume, but I think this is because all the Chinese stopped to stare and take pictures of the Mexicans. At this point, we only saw a group of four other American girls. Again, where are all the foreigners?? No matter, the feeling was electric and I was excited to be a part of it.

We finally decided to get some food, and left the area we'd been hanging out in. We walked south to the entrance of the Olypmic Village, which was deserted because, remember, we weren't really supposed to be there. At the first place they'd allowed people to camp outside the boundaries, there was a group of spectators and a PLA (People's Liberation Army) procession. We inadvertently walked through the procession because everywhere else was roped off, and none of the police knew how or where to direct us. One of our friends' friend is in Beijing now after doing a summer's worth of research around China to study Chinese nationalism. He's tall and lanky with a silly two week's old mustache, and he was running around leading the Chinese in their cheer. Jai yo! The people loved him. Everyone got excited and participated in the cheering. He's on at least 200 Chinese camera phones and was offered many cigarettes.

The night ended with Adam and I watching the conclusion of the 4 1/2 hour cemerony on our TV at home. We watched just enough to agree that we would have been bored watching the whole thing at home and missing the fireworks and the hum of excitement at the Bird's Nest. However, the cool gymnast, Li Ling, who flew with invisible cables around the perimeter of the stadium in order to light the torch was pretty impressive. Once China reopens YouTube, I plan on watching clips of the other dazzling moments.