Beckie Loewenstein

This evening I joined the Chinese folks congregating together outside the Bird's Nest and Water Cube to watch the Closing Ceremonies. Olympics sentinels stood in every nook and cranny. The Olympics volunteers took orders from the police. Their job was to deny entry to all roads leading to the Olympic stadiums. Chinese soldiers looked sharp and attentive to remind us who was boss. With one glance, they curtly turned all of us no-Olympics-access-folks away from the paths to the Olympics Green. The pubescent beanpoles in green uniforms marched drills, squeezed together in alleys, and held onto stools (later to squat on them while staying in line formation). They held onto stern grimaces. In spite of the crowd control function of the street, I did manage to squirm my way through to an area with a view of the Bird's Nest. I crowded with Chinese folks at their residential community southwest of the Olympic stadiums. The end of the lane gave a partially obstructed view of the skies ab...

The Olympics spirit calls for peaceful competition between nations. In China the bird that best represents both peace and competition is the gezi — dove or pigeon. The Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics took place at the Bird’s Nest stadium. One performance transformed the traditional Chinese character of 'he' (peace) into a flying bird. Considering the importance of pigeon racing to Chinese culture, I think that the bird that roosts at the Bird’s Nest is a pigeon, not a dove. Pigeon racing in China goes way back to the Ming Dynasty. Pigeon breeders across the centuries have raised the pigeons not simply for their calming coos, but for the jolts of excitement of the race. During the Cultural Revolution pigeon racing was banned because it was determined to be "feudal, capitalist and revisionist." China now has a capitalist economy, and official ceremonies release flocks of pigeons in true capitalist fashion. Preparations for the Olympics have meant some restrictions o...

Watching an Olympics match on TV at Liangmaqiao station on subway line 10, I read the lips of Chinese fans saying "zhong guo, jia you" or "china, add energy!" With gas prices skyrocketing, public transit ridership in Beijing may be at an all time high. Beijing has been working to reform its public transportation services in preparation for the Olympic Games. This has provided affordable travel options. The spanking new subway lines provide a convenient, inexpensive, and safe way to get around Beijing. It is a veritable subway system. Right now Beijing's residents and tourists are more likely to add cash to their subway cards than pump gas into private vehicles. The nine subway lines give a broad reach to places in the center and outskirts of the city. Lines 10 and 13 have air-conditioned trains with soft seats and TV monitors. Line 8 gives access to the Olympic Sports Center and Olympic Park and the blue line goes straight to the airport. In this sense, Beijing...

It makes the most sense to take the eleven hour train ride from Harbin to Beijing at night. The chug chug of a train steadily rolling across the tracks lulls me straight to sleep. The bunk beds of a sleeper train would feel as cozy as a den if they were not quite so narrow. The Chinese family reclining on the bunks below mine munched on ruby red tomatoes. They held their tickets to the Olympic Games in their laps. I would have eavesdropped on their conversation, but they were speaking a dialect of Mandarin I could not quite grasp. We departed Harbin on August 8, 2008 around 9:00 p.m., an hour after the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games at the Bird's Nest in Beijing began. We were missing the fireworks, but I counted my lucky stars that I was on my way to Beijing. My Chinese friends were surprised that I managed to purchase a train ticket to Beijing at all. They held the perception that the train station only reserved those train tickets to those who already possessed tickets ...