Some time ago, I blogged about our wealthy Chinese neighbours, whose stretch Mercedes and phalanx of bodyguards fasincated everyone else in the compound where we live. Recently I saw the baby of the house going trick or treating accompanied both by his nanny and by a bodyguard. But there's been a big change. The house is dark, apparently abandoned. No nanny, no child, no Stretch Mercedes sweeping through the compound..Most obviously, no miniature army of bodyguards. Our neighbour - let's call him Mr Huang - along with his brother, another Mr Huang - heads a Chinese retail company with branches all over the country. Both brothers have reportedly been detained by the police and are being questioned about stock manipulation.  I miss the bodyguards, who have in the past gone to great lengths to helped us to catch our errant pet rabbit, Dusty, chasing him through the undergrowth of an overgrown abandoned garden.

Here's my original post:

We've spent the past week in Hainan, an island off the south coast of China,  at Yalong Bay in Sanya. It's advertised as China's Hawaii. And as you can see, it's very pretty, with golden beach and blue sea and surf (and even a Chinese tourist in a Hawaiian suit.)

I first went to Sanya nearly twenty years ago, when there was nothing but beach and surf, and not a hotel in sight,  but you could see the potential even then. The natural beach is really amazing. Now the whole bay has been developed so it is lined with Marriotts and Sheratons and Ritz Carltons and Crowne Plazas. The Chinese military - not to be outdone - has also developed the area  just around the corner with a big naval base, so destroyers can be spotted sailing to and fro across the shining sea. When James and Alistair went kayaking, they were warned to stay well away from the military base, because it was 'very dangerous'.

For some reason that I can't work out, it's a destination very popular with Russian tourists.

In the week that we were there, the taxi drivers went on strike, as they did in two other cities (and have done elsewhere since.) They complained that they had to pay exorbitant fees to the authorities, while the same authorities failed to take action against unlicensed cabs that stole their business. Some of the protesters called for the setting up of an independent taxi drivers' union.

Update: Since my return to Beijing, I've talked to local taxi drivers here, who have similar complaints. They are aware that the protests elsewhere in the country are being met with some concessions, and also with arrests. They also know that the authorities are far more worried about protests in the capital than anywhere else. One of their biggest complaints is the price of petrol - they know perfectly well that the price of oil has dropped. So why haven't prices dropped at the pumps?

The internet has already played a role in what may later today - bated breath - be a transformation of US politics. Here's what the internet is doing in China:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5077899.ece

I'm in Hong Kong for a few days. Here is the view from my window. It's what's known as a partial harbour view.

A British man who works in the Macmillan office here told me a nice story this morning. He has a domestic helper working in his home (this being Hong Kong she is likely an English-speaking Filipina, although I didn't confirm this). He discovered that she had removed my first book, Falling Off Air, from his bookshelf. A few days later it returned, and the next book, Out of Mind, had gone. That's all a writer wants to hear.

The air, over the past few days, has been vile. Back to pre-Olympic smog, despite regulations to keep twenty per cent of the cars off the road Monday to Friday (we can't use our car on Friday, and the inconvenience is already stretching my committment to the environment). You can smell the dirt in the air. I had been toying with the idea of buying an extra air purifier for the house, and looking out of the window convinced me that the time was right. I made the call to Mike, the genius who realised a couple of years ago that there might be quite a market here for IQAir units - the gold standard of the air purifier industry. I asked what discount he might give me as an old customer (just about any purchasing conversation goes like this in China), and he offered me a little piece of history. Instead of an entirely new machine, I could have - at 15% off full price - a machine used for just five weeks by the Olympic delegation. And now here it sits, humming in our sitting room, gently blowing nice clear air over us, just as it might well have blown nice clean air all over Michael Phelps! Or at least over a junior coach.  

For anyone reading The Slaughter Pavilion and interested in the story of the vanishing children, you might be interested in this from the very excellent Global Voices Online. http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/10/08/china-40-missing-children-parents-journey-in-beijing/      Sadly, the fiction in The Slaughter Pavilion is not without some basis.

This week, I wrote a blog for the Guardian's Comment is Free section on the banning of Western religious music from concert halls.  The ban has not been made public but is, as far as I understand, common knowledge in the concert halls of the capital. No one knows why exactly the authorities have done this, but in my view it's part of a general trend towards the left, that is, towards a more inward-looking China and increased paranoia about exchanges with the West, and fear of Christianity. You can link to my blog here (why the link mentions tibet, I do not know.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/08/china.tibet

Also, I've had two lovely reviews for The Slaughter Pavilion in the last few days. One, by Matthew Lewin writing in The Guardian, can be read here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/crime.roundupreviews2

And from Susanna Yager writing in The Sunday Telegraph:     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/05/bocrime105.xml

I've written a blog on the Guardian's Comment is Free site about the stresses on the Communist Party leadership post- OIympics. As the concern surrounding the melamine-tainted milk powder spreads, and all domestically-produced dairy products are removed from shelves, the Communist Party now faces a major food safety scandal. The World Health Organisation is now asking what the central leadership knew and when. They want to know whether the delay in taking timely action was because of a cover-up or simply because of a failure of systems. Among people I've spoken to here, no one is surprised that the Central government knew that children were getting sick way back in July but did not issue a recall for the tainted milk powder until September, and people assume that the centre covered-up because of the Olympics. Anyway, here's the link to the piece I wrote for Comment is Free, complete with comments from several people who seem to believe that no one should raise questions about anything going on in China. Try telling that to the World Health Organisation. Try also telling that to the many Chinese who are desperate for a more responsible and responsive government:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/17/china.olympics2008

The Paralympics ends tomorrow, and already the Olympic decorations are being dismantled.

The facade of perfection also begins to crumble.

Over the past two days, news has begun to emerge of more than a thousand babies sickened by infant formula tainted by melamine. Two babies have died. What is not yet clear is who knew what and when, but it seems that the New Zealand partner to China's Sanlu manufacturer was pushing for a recall of the product even before the Olympics, but that Chinese officials refused. When New Zealand representatives brought the matter up in Beijing with Chinese officials, a recall was eventually made, too late for many babies who had developed kidney stones.

So, did Beijing know about the tainted milk product and allow it to continue to be sold in order not to disrupt the image of the games? We know that news organisations were ordered not to report on food safety problems during the Olympics. Or did over-zealous local officials hide the scandal not only from the public, but from their bosses in Beijing?

After a series of scandals, food safety is an immensely sensitive issue here, and not only as it relates to the Olympics (there were worries that athletes might become ill). This morning I was chatting with a taxi driver, who told me that he meets up for lunch with other drivers every day, but that he avoids small restaurants because of the poor quality of their ingredients. 'Eat there and you get a tummy ache,' he told me, and then suggested that tummy ache was the least of the problems - many people, he said, were suffering from cancer and leukaemia in Beijing, and he put this down to tainted foods. True or not, food safety is a potential minefield for the Communist Party as it tries to retain the trust of the population.

Like many expatriates here, we buy a lot of imported food, from New Zealand milk to German fruit juice and US honey.  Increasingly, those Chinese who can afford to, do the same.

Ask many people in the West what the para in Paralympics stands for, and they may hesitate, wondering whether it is something to do with paralysis, or whether it means parallel, as in games that run alongside the Olympics. It is the second, para as in paramedics. These are the Parallel Olympics. 

However, in China the Games have been translated erroneously as the "Can Aoyun", or the Disabled Olympics. It's an easy mistake, of course, but it does nonetheless reflect the fact that China's level of awareness when it comes to disability is not as sensitive as it might be.

We're hearing a lot about China's efforts to help people with disabilities, but in fact they've suffered terrible discrimination for years. I know one excellent linguist who is entirely self taught, but was not allowed to attend university because of her hunch back. I know a teenage girl who is a member of the national troupe of disabled entertainers. She's become something of a star, singing sweet songs from her wheelchair, but she's been treated heartlessly as her condition deteriorates by the very officials charged with helping those with disability.

Still, we went to the Opening Ceremony in the Bird's Nest, and joined a crowd of about ninety thousand people there to witness another brilliantly choreographed spectacle. When the Chinese team emerged into the arena, the crowd went wild.

History moves in mysterious ways, and perhaps nationalism will do as much for disability awareness in China as anything else. I don't know who first dreamed up the Paralympics, but it is an entirely brilliant concept to stage something so challenging on the back of the Olympics. Crowds are already enthused, stadiums built, and a whole new world of achievement is presented seamlessly after the main event.

We have seen big crowds at events, tickets seem to have sold well. Security is less oppressive than for the Olympics, and the sky is still blue - there are many Paralympic pleasures to be had. 

I've been interested to watch the reactions of my children, who are as enthused about the Paralympics as about the Olympics. It occurs to me that children are much closer to the idea of games, and understand that all games are constructed from fairly arbitrary rules designed to handicap the players. What, after all, is the difference between a three-legged race, in which competitors have to race despite a handicap, and the 50km walk, in which competitors have to race whilst never taking both feet from the ground at the same time, and basketball played in wheelchairs or blindfold?

We watched the closing ceremony last night on television - a huge North Korean style extravaganza. I couldn't make head or tail of it, although the plethora of aliens in bicycle helmets and glowing green men  suggested some kind of space race theme. (This is entirely speculative, but it would vaguely make sense, since the opening ceremony depicted China's history and thus the closing ceremony might depict the future, and China certainly has space travel ambitions. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know.) If you think I'm trying to read too much into it, rest assured that there is no state-sponsored cultural event in China that does not carry a message, and we now know that from leaks to the press that the opening and closing ceremonies were subject to massive political intervention.

The best, I thought, that could be said of London's uninspiring display was that at least it didn't involve thousands of soldiers who'd been rehearsed to the limits of their endurance in order to please the politburo's endless tweaking of the show. But what political vision did Beijing's ceremony portray? I can't even begin to think. If all this sounds sour,  the comparison to North Korea comes from Zhang Yimou himself, who directed both shows.

Interesting, I thought, that Jacques Rogge's speech referred not to a wonderful or fantastic Olympics, but to a diplomatically and neutrally worded  'exceptional' Olympics. For the IOC, dealing with Beijing has been like nothing they've ever had to do before. He thanked the thousands of volunteers - who were unfailingly cheerful -  before he thanked BOCOG, the Beijing Olympic organising committee.

And yet, despite the almost tragic politics of the thing, I am a convert to the Olympics. I am not a sports fan, and thought I would be left cold. But I was wowed by the athletic prowess I saw, and moved by the teamwork, and by the extraordinary effort. On Friday, we went to the Bird's Nest and watched the end of the 50km men's walk. It's a strange sport, to my mind, with the athletes surely having to struggle not to run. But one couldn't help but be full of admiration when these men, who'd walked through 50km in the roasting heat, collapsing when they got to the finishing line.

Some of the most impressive athletes have been the Chinese, who won more gold medals than any other country. Every athlete from every country is of course under pressure to perform. But it has been very evident that the Chinese athletes are under exponentially greater pressure to perform in order to fulfil the leadership's gold medal ambitions. After the match in which the Chinese women's volleyball team won bronze, their coach was interviewed on Chinese television. The interviewer asked whether there had been too much pressure, and the coach burst into tears. Athletes had been told - although he didn't say this - that a gold medal was the only medal that counted.

The Bird's Nest is a beautiful stadium, stunning from outside and intimate inside. Although whoever chose the lights made a mistake.

At the moment, the media seems to be portraying the Bird's Nest and the surrounding Olympic Green, as the new heart of Beijing, replacing the politically problematic Tiananmen Square. But at the moment it's a vast concrete slab, unrelentingly free of shade, and it's a vast tranche of real estate. The end of the Olympics leaves China's leadership facing many challenges. The Olympic Green is only one of them.

Meanwhile, to put all this in perspective, on Saturday afternoon we went to the Crab Island water park, thinking that it would be empty because everyone would be gathered around their televisions watching the Olympics. We were wrong, everyone was at the beach.

Discouraged from visiting the Olympics, the city's inhabitants watch them on TV - or rather, they watch an edited version. To read the whole of this blog, go to  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/olympics2008.china/print

It being Sunday, we did what many families traditionally do on a Sunday afternoon, which was to go for a walk in the park. We'd been told there was all sorts of excitement going on at Ditan, so off we went eagerly, especially interested in the big screen, which relays Olympic action from the television.

Yesterday, the Beijing organisers of the games struck back at those who said there was no Olympic excitement for ordinary people, issuing this statement: "The live sites are parts of Olympic culture building in Beijing for citizens in Beijing, and friends and journalists and tourists from China and abroad, for the athletes and officials and other visitors. The live sites provide the best opportunity for them to take direct participation in the festive activities and the ambience of the Olympic Games.
Since the 13th of July, the opening of all the live sites, at every live sites, a colorful and rich variety of activities has been staged including performance troupes from other provinces and other countries. Dance troupes and choirs and non professional amateur performers at the community level, they are consisted of a large format screens and cultural showcases, the exchange of emblems and souvenirs."

Well, in Ditan, on what should be a busy weekend afternoon, this is what we found:

AND we had to go through a security check to get to the screen. Throughout Ditan park there were vast numbers of police and plainclothes police. Vendors at a craft fair complained that there were very few customers. And this is what one drinks concession looked like:

Today, we had lunch in the picturesque Ritan Park, which is one of the three designated protest areas. There was, of course, not a protester in sight. Not much visible security, either. Presumably the authorities already know full well that there won't be any protesters.

In the evening we went to the Worker's Gymnasium to watch the boxing. After Thursday's torrential rain, the sky was utterly clear, with scudding white clouds and views of the mountains in the distance. This was the view in the early evening - not a whiff of pollution.

This is so different from the pall of smog that usually covers the sky.

After half an hour sitting there not knowing what was going on, we had to Google the rules of boxing, after which things became a little clearer. The crowd was interested if not excited....until Zou Shiming appeared. Suddenly, the stadium developed powerful lungs, yelling 'Jia you, jia you!' I wouldn't have liked to be Zou's opponent who, as if to rub salt in the wound, was French (the most hated nation if you are a Chinese nationalist.) But then I wouldn't have much liked to be Zou either - the weight of expectation on these athletes is palpable. Several who have not done as well as expected have collapsed in tears. They are told that the only thing worth having is a gold. Anyway, the crowd loved Zou.

Especially when he beat (literally) his French opponent.

I took all the children and one of their friends miles out of town to the water sports centre to watch the rowing yesterday, and it was such a hellish experience it's taken me 24 hours to be able to write about it.

We arrived at 2, as instructed, decked out in sunhats and sunscreen. In fact it was already raining but we were still hopeful. We took our seats in the stand, wrapped ourselves in the plastic capes the volunteers give out, and gritted our teeth.

Then the rain got heavier, thunder began to roar, lightning flashed, black clouds rolled overhead.... the rowing was postponed for an hour, and we all sat in utter misery without any shelter assuming that the organisers knew that this bad weather was about to blow over. At this point it was too wet even to get my camera out - my mobile phone got so wet that it stopped working. Then, after we'd sat there for an hour and a half, the weather getting worse rather than better.... the rowing was cancelled.

And several thousand people all flooded out of the stadium at the same time. There were crowds a dozen deep all along the roadside. I worried about losing a child, and insisted we all hang onto each other. By clambering across a muddy ditch and climbing up the other side, we managed to talk our way onto a bus and even get seats. But still it took us two and a half hours to get home....By which time we had been soaked to the skin for four hours. 

I was told I could use my tickets again today, but by the time we got home I simply couldn't face the idea of starting all over again, so I gave my tickets away. Today, of course, in blue skies and gorgeous sunshine, I have been regretting that. Still, it would have taken a lot to get me to trek all the way out there again.

A friend who went to a different event yesterday said she felt the security checks had got stricter - she had a biro confiscaated because it was 'too sharp', and her husband was told he couldn't take his Toblerone into the venue, so he ate it on the spot. I was told I couldn't take in a packet of mint imperials. But when I blanched at the thought of eating them all up, and said I'd throw them away, they softened and allowed me in. The security checks remain good natured, but the security obsession seems to be deepening. Armoured personnel carriers have appeared on the Olympic Green, and sponsors have complained that too few ordinary people are being allowed into the open spaces around the venues.

James took Alistair and Kirsty to hockey this morning, and they got sunburned not soaked. I have been trying to track down some other tickets - there's an online market in unwanted tickets. But there's almost nothing left. The only option was boxing tomorrow night. It's a brutal sport, of course, and we shouldn't encourage it. But most importanly it takes place indoors, so we'll all have seats ringside tomorrow night.

On Saturday, an evening of volleyball converted me to the Olympics - I hadn't realised sports could be so much fun. I resolved to try to get tickets to more events. The women in black and white are cheerleaders, by the way, not players. And the characters in the inflatable plastic suits are the fuwa mascots, not players either.

On Sunday  the girls and I sat under umbrellas and swathed in plastic capes in a rainstorm waiting for a hockey game. After an hour waiting, watching the teams warm up in pouring rain, every swipe at the ball sending up gallons of water from the pitch, and soaked to the skin, our good spirits flagged. Shortly after the game started with thunder roaring overhead, we gave up. How the teams played on, I have no idea. We went to the information kiosk (below) for directions home. About a dozen  friendly volunteers scratched their heads and consulted maps and frowned and took photos of the girls. I gave up and headed for a bus.... any bus. But to give them credit, one of the volunteers raced after us and followed us onto the bus. Panting, he told us he'd worked out a route for us. It took us two hours to get home by crowded, steaming, bus, then underground, then taxi. but it was a good route, and home we got.

Today I tried booking us tickets for performances advertised in the official Olympics publications - how great, I thought, that we can live in Beijing and see modern dance from New York, and megastar violinists from Italy, and Hairspray in the Great Hall of the People, and Cuban ballet.... But of course we can't. Every performance I wanted to see had  been cancelled.  I assume it's the Bjork effect - she shouted out 'Free Tibet' after a concert in Shanghai last year. Now it seems the authorities have decided they can't trust foreign performers on their stages.

The morning dawned hazy. I went to a talk by Norman Foster -  who designed Beijing’s new aiport - and Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist who has recorded the building of the new aiport in photographs. Last week Ai Weiwei accused China’s leadership of turning China into a police state in advance of the Olympics. Before the talk began, we were warned we must limit our questioning to the subject of the airport and to keep off politics and The Olympics. We were all very obedient, but Ai Weiwei seemed to chafe at the bit. Sarcastically, he said he hoped we’d all enjoy the blue sky days we were about to enjoy.

Catherine Sampson's top 10 books on Beijing

• guardian.co.uk,
• Wednesday July 23 2008
• Article history

The newly built Herzog de Meuron Olympic stadium in Beijing. Photograph: Iwan Baan

Catherine Sampson has lived in China for more than 15 years. Her fourth crime novel, The Slaughter Pavilion, is set in Beijing and features private detective Song Ren. It will be published in hardback by Macmillan on September 5. Her third novel, The Pool of Unease, in which private detective Song Ren was introduced, is now available in paperback. She has also contributed a short story to the book Beijing Portrait of a City, a collection of fiction, poetry and essays published by Odyssey which you can buy online here.

"Beijing is about to become host to what will be one of the most fascinating Olympics ever. I first came to Beijing in 1981, more than a quarter of a century ago. It was a sleepy place, where you couldn't get a taxi and the streets were full of bicycles. Restaurants were staffed by snapping waitresses and closed at eight o'clock. Because of astounding economic growth and because of the Olympics, the city has been transformed - but with restrictions on visas, traffic and public gatherings, Beijing could look like the world's most over-built ghost town come August. Great swathes of old alleyway housing and street markets have been demolished to make way for some of the world's most audacious skyscrapers and stunning sports facilities. But the history of this city is one of sometimes murderous political struggles. These ten novels and collections of short stories are rich in satire, and in metaphors for political oppression. Most of the books below are written by Chinese writers who have chosen to live abroad in order to write freely about their country."

1. Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

Published this year, Ma Jian describes the events that led up to the 1989 massacre in Beijing. He has found the perfect metaphor. Dai Wei, a student activist, lies paralysed years after being wounded during the army action of June 4. Those around him believe Dai Wei to be unconscious, but he can see and hear and, most importantly, remember. He is locked in - just as China is locked in - unable to speak or communicate freely, but silently remembering, unable to forget. The novel is rich in contemporary detail – doctors who gouge families for cash for treatment; bulldozers that threaten demolition of homes. Like much of the book, the intricate description of factional rivalries among students is rooted in fact. Ma Jian lives in London.

2. Please Don't Call Me Human by Wang Shuo

As a teenager, Wang Shuo ran wild in Beijing, and he writes in the slang of the capital. In Please Don't Call Me Human he's at his most scathingly satirical. In a thinly veiled reference to the Olympics, his Beijing taxi driver anti-hero competes in an international competition to find the nation most able to humiliate itself, with gory and gloriously symbolic results. Wang Shuo lives in Los Angeles.

3. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

In this short story collection, Yiyun Li writes beautifully about the lives of ordinary people to tell the greater story of contemporary China. In Extra, the first story of the collection, she follows a middle-aged woman who has just been laid off from the bankrupt Beijing Red Star garment factory. The unemployed woman navigates the grim realities of modern China, first in a marriage of convenience, then as a cleaner for rich kids. Each ends tragically, but the woman catches a glimpse of love. Yiyun Li lives in the US.

4. The Uninvited by Yan Geling

This is a comic novel that gently lays bare all manner of social issues. Dan is an unemployed factory worker who discovers by accident that if he pretends to be a journalist he can attend press conferences. That means eating like a king at banquets laid on for the press, and receiving "red packets" of cash which amount to payment for writing adulatory stories. In fact he can make a comfortable living from his assumed identity. Things get more complicated as he is approached to write the stories of several people with grievances. He tries to help, with disastrous consequences. Yan Geling lives in the US.

5. The Crazed by Ha Jin

Here is another metaphor for the censorship of free expression in China, and again it is set during the student demonstrations of 1989. At a provincial university, Prof Yang suffers a stroke. His subsequent outbursts draw parallels between the cultural revolution and pre-Olympic China. This unsettles his student Jian Wan, who eventually leaves to go to Beijing to take part in the demonstrations. Ha Jin lives in the US. His novel Waiting won the National Book Award.

6. The Last Empress by Anchee Min

This is fictionalised history. Anchee Min has taken one of the most notorious women in Chinese history, the empress Dowager Cixi, and has turned her into a surprisingly accessible heroine. Drawn in by the first person narrative, the reader is taken into the heart of imperial life and witnesses first hand the life and death struggles between those who would open to the west and those who would turn China in on itself. It is a struggle that continues today in Zhongnanhai, the Communist party compound which occupies part of the old imperial palace. Anchee Min lives in California.

7. Servet the People by Yan Lianke

Yan Lianke lives in Beijing, and has said that this means he sometimes tones down what he writes. Nevertheless, Serve the People is an unashamed satire on the Communist party's instruction to "serve the people". A lowly cook working in the provinces takes the instruction too literally when his boss, a local party leader, leaves for Beijing, and the cook finds himself seduced by the official's wife.

8. I Love Dollars by Zhu Wen

Zhu Wen is another writer who chooses to live in Beijing. I Love Dollars is a collection of short stories that are often absurd and have a strong undercurrent of nihilism. Zhu, tongue firmly in cheek, debates the relative values of sex, political idealism and money.

9. The Dragon's Tail by Adam Williams

Williams' latest historical novel, The Dragon's Tail, follows British spy Harry Airton through the Japanese invasion, the cultural revolution, and up to the Beijing massacre of 1989. Williams' passion for China's modern history is rooted in his own family's experiences as expatriates in China during the same period, and in his own experience as a long-time Beijing resident. The result is engaging, enthusiastic storytelling.

10. Beijing Doll by Chun Sue

This is all teenage angst and boredom. Chun Sue is the name both of the author and the protagonist, and this is thinly veiled autobiography. Chun is pessimistic, rebellious and more interested in sex than in school. The book can feel as tedious as the narrator's life, but it is an interesting insight into a generation whose lives are as far from the Communist Youth League as from the moon. Don't be taken in. Beijing Doll tells only part of the story. Back in the late 80s, middle-aged people rolled their eyes about young people's shallow materialism. In 1989, millions of young people took to the streets nationwide calling for political change.

 

I wrote this for The Guardian before blue skies swept across Beijing! 

This is the man I saw in Beijing a few weeks ago, outside the Olympics stadium, who had bicycled all the way across China to support the Olympic games. He sleeps rough. His family thought he was mad when he told them what he intended to do, but he went anyway. He says he'll spend his whole life publicising the Olympics. He is parked, here, next to another man who set off from another province with the same single thought in his head.

This is the poster that has appeared outside our local pharmacy.

The wording:

No illegal sales of Protein Assimilation Preparations and Peptide Hormones. Athletes should be cautious with drugs containing banned substances.

This is the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, and in the distance Panggu Plaza, which is built to represent a dragon. To the rear of this tall block - you can just see the edge of a roof here - are a series of lower buildings that represent the dragon's back. The screens on the side of the buildings will transmit Olympic programming. Below, there's a close up. You can see a small sphere in the dragon's mouth, intended to represent a pearl. The building houses, as I understand it, a seven star (!?) hotel, as well as luxury office space. When I was there, a week or so ago, it looked as though it had a way to go before it was fully functioning. However, this is Beijing, and there are a whole four weeks before the opening ceremony, so there's plenty of time. The pictures give an idea of the smog which has blanketed the capital recently. The photograph of the Bird's Nest was taken from outside the perimeter fence, which is manned by guards.

A couple of hundred yards from our home is the Rosedale Hotel. Suddenly, a couple of days ago, a kiosk landed, like the tardis, on the pavement outside. We have all inspected the kiosk, which so far remains locked and - apparently - unoccupied.  On the outside there are pictures of a few  foreigners asking directions outside the Olympic stadiums, and a sign saying 'Volunteer.' 

But increasingly it looks as though there won't be many foreigners asking directions. Reports are coming in thick and fast of people turned down for visas, even if they have Olympic tickets. One American woman told me her sister had been in a queue in a consulate in the States, in which every single person in the queue was turned away because they had inadequate paperwork. Some of them may sort their papers out - they need hotel vouchers, tickets, flight bookings, etc etc - but some never will, or will still be turned down. China's government is in an alarmingly paranoid mood.

Today I had an alarmingly paranoid taxi driver, who spoke angrily about European leaders who had decided not to attend the Olympic ceremonies. 'Suppose you have a neighbour you don't like, ' he said, 'if his son is getting married, you don't cause trouble on the day.' He told me it didn't matter if foreigners didn't come, Beijing wasn't holding the Games to make money, unlike other countries. He said the most important thing was safety, there had never been an assassination in Beijing since the beginning of the People's Republic, and there wouldn't be at the Games. He happened to liver near the Olympic stadium, and  told me that the security guards in his building would all have to leave town because they were migrant workers who would be banished. Because of the building's proximity to the stadia, these doormen would be replaced with People's Armed Police.

I walked around the perimeter fence of the Bird's Nest today. It has become quite a tourist pull, and there were groups of people taking photographs or having their photograph's taken against the backdrop of the building. There were also two men there who had cycled carts to Beijing from in one case Zhejiang and in the other case Yunnan. They sleep in their red and yellow decorated carts, or sleep rough. They had decorated their carts with pro-Olympic slogans. Once I've worked out how to post photos, I'll post some. One had his head shaved in a kind of Olympic sculpture. He said that even once the Olympics were over, he would devote his life to the Olympics. Neither of them had any tickets to attend sports events.  They were both, I suspect,  pretty close to crazy.

These eccentrics were the one colourful and human splash in what was otherwise a grey, over-sized and bleak landscape. You've all seen photos of the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. But it was another building that freaked me out. Pangu Plaza is vast - I can't begin to describe it's huge arrogance - and shaped like a dragon, the iconic representation of China. It will house a seven star (seven??) hotel, and an apartment complex offering homes that cost millions of dollars.

This just in from the great website www.danwei.org

The official Olympic cheer

This segment from CCTV's Network News introduces an authoritative, four-part Olympic Cheer. Go Olympics! Go Beijing! See below for detailed instructions.

The cheer is a joint product of the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP), the Ministry of Education, BOCOG, and CCTV. Here's an illustrated guide, which will appear on television and promotional posters in the near future:

Step 1: Clap two times (while chanting 奥运, "Olympics")
Step 2: Hands in fists with thumbs up, arms extended upward (while chanting, 加油, "Let's go!")
Step 3: Clap two time (while chanting 中国, "China")
Step 4: Hands in fists, arms extended outward and upward (while chanting 加油, "Let's go!")

Li Ning, president of the Beijing Etiquette Institute, described how the cheer can be adapted to different contexts (from The Beijing News):

At yesterday's ceremony, Li Ning explained that the uniformity of the cheer contained a multitude of variations. It could be "Go Olympics! Go China!" as well as "Go China! Go Yao Ming!" or "Go Brazil! Go Ronaldino!" It will work to give encouragement to every country and athlete in competition.

She said that the civilized cheer "Go Olympics! Go China!" expresses the "Citius, Altius, Fortius" Olympic spirit and is in line with general international principles for cheering, while at the same time possessing characteristics of Chinese culture. Overall, the cheer unites both gestures and words into a smooth, flowing whole.

The Beijing News also reports that students across the country will be trained in the cheer, particularly the 800,000 students who will watch the games on-site. In addition, 448 volunteers will lead spectators in the cheer at both the Olympics and Paralympics.

Links and Sources

• The Beijing News (Chinese): Four steps to the Olympic cheer
• GODPP (Chinese): Illustrated guide to the Olympic Cheer
• Video from Sina