Olympics: will Beijing be ready?

Tag : Jelly Stick

At 8.30 we walk out of our hotel into a hot, clammy Beijingmorning. Yesterday the city enjoyed what its 17 million inhabitantscall a “blue sky day”, but today the Great Pall ofChina has returned. A thick haze of dust and fumes smothers thecapital, leaching all colour from the sky and erasing distant towerblocks. Undaunted, we stride towards the main road past communaltoilets, old men in vests walking tiny dogs and a youthexpectorating noisily.
We have a mission. Armed with just two words of Chinese - ni hao (hello) and xiexie (thank you) - and the most rudimentary knowledge of Beijing, JackHill, the Times photographer, and I intend to test the watersbefore 500,000 foreigners arrive for the Olympic Games.
Will they be able to navigate a vast and bewildering city whoselanguage, written and spoken, most find utterly incomprehensible?Have the taxi drivers really learnt enough English to cope withforeign customers? Are the authorities really cracking down oncounterfeit clothes and pirated DVDs? Have the Chinese stoppedhawking and spitting?
We find a bus stop where a man and a woman dressed in orangeshirts, each clutching little red flags, make sure that a dozenmembers of the public form an orderly queue. “Do you speakEnglish?” I ask the man. He and the passengers burst intononplussed laughter. I try again. “Which bus for TiananmenSquare?”. More laughter, but I'm in luck. A young man stepsforward. “Sixty,” he says, just as a number 60 arrives.
We pay one yuan (8p) each. There is standing room only, but the busis spotless and has television screens showing Chineseadvertisements for McDonald's and Head & Shoulders. We inchalong clogged streets where the once ubiquitous cyclists are now anendangered species. The electronic sign announcing the stops is inChinese. Happily our young friend helpfully writes down ourdestination - Nan He Yan - before he alights, so that otherpassengers can tell us when to get off.
We find ourselves in a broad, tree-lined boulevard wherestraw-hatted workers are already sweeping the gutters and tendingroadside flowerbeds. One is even wiping down a litter bin.Beijing's streets are as clean as its air is filthy.
We say “Tiananmen Square” loudly and in various tonesto a policeman until finally he points us through one of theimmaculate little parks that have sprouted across the city as partof its £20 billion makeover. Beside a large fishpond, signsread “Refuse to Step On” and “Refuse toFeed”. A man with a red flag and a whistle shepherds usacross another boulevard - and there in front of us is the vast,Soviet-style square where tanks crushed China's young democracymovement in 1989.
A fearsome road as wide and busy as the M1 divides us from theiconic square. We take the underpass. As we emerge, police aresearching all Chinese tourists but wave us through.
The square illustrates one of the contradictions of these Games.The huge expanse of paving is being prettified with small gardensand ornamental ponds. Stands are being erected. This suggests fun,festivities, an impending party. But the authorities are terrifiedof mass gatherings. There are security cameras on every lamppost,and scores of soldiers and policemen, each standing ramrod stiff,scattered across the square. I pose beside one for a photograph andhe waves me away angrily. Later a policeman demands myidentification.
We head towards Mao Zedong's tomb, past groups of Chinese touristsled by guides waving coloured flags on sticks. A man who knowsEnglish numbers, if nothing else, offers us Chairman Mao watchesfor 180 yuan (£15) each. We beat him down to 50 yuan(£4) for two - still a rip-off, but he had only one arm. Whenwe point to where the other one was, he makes shooting noises.
Alas, Mao's tomb is closed. Perhaps Mondays are set aside fortouching up his waxen corpse. As we leave, a young man approaches.“Excuse me I have word with you,” he says.“Welcome to China. I enjoy speak perfect English. Englishopen door to great future. You have good travel.”
At Tiananmen's southern end, an escalator takes us down intoQianmen subway station. Tickets cost two yuan (16p). The maps areindecipherable, so I ask a lady with a red armband and white gloveshow to reach the Olympic Stadium. Two of her colleagues join us.
Using their fingers and occasional words of English, they indicatethat we go one stop, change trains, then 11 stops north on Line 5.They write down our destination - Huaxinxijie Beikou. The platformsare shiny, the trains spotless and cool. Where we change, uniformedofficials marshal those trying to board behind white lines untilthose alighting have done so.
Again, there is standing room only. Television screens show filmsexplaining the rules of tennis and other Olympic events. A youngwoman training to become a tourist guide befriends us (clearlynobody older than their mid-twenties speaks any English). HerWestern name is Rebecca. She gives me a Chinese name - Yao Ming(China's most famous basketball player). She has a programme on hermobile phone that translates English words into Chinese and viceversa. We defeat it by entering “Bird's Nest”, nicknameof the Olympic stadium.
At Huaxinxijie Beikou we emerge into a world of dismal greyapartment blocks beside another roaring highway. The only colour isthat of the cars' red brake lights in the gloom. There is nostadium in sight. Rebecca rescues us. She takes us across anoverpass to a bus stop and, from a board chock-full of Chinesecharacters, works out that we need route 660. There is no way inwhich we could have discovered this ourselves. It starts raining,so she empties a plastic bag of her cosmetics to protect mynotebook.
We approach the 91,000-seat stadium along an avenue of newlyplanted trees and bushes, and gay Olympic banners. The Bird's Nestis visually stunning but ringed by guards and a high metal fence.We take pictures of ourselves with the stadium as a distantbackdrop. Then Chinese families start asking me to pose with them -probably because I am 6ft3in tall and Western. I am rescued by thearrival of a greater distraction: an American cyclist with a longgrey beard, a moustache tapering into two fine needles, and tattoosall over his legs.
Jesse, 62, tells us in a southern drawl that he manages the Gooseand Duck pub in Beijing. He got his first tattoos when he competedin boomerang competitions. He pulls up his Lycra to reveal thighstattooed with pictures of himself above the words “Live toBoom, Boom to Live”.
We are wandering towards the nearby Aquatics Centre, debatingwhether Chinese collectivism could produce such eccentrics, when webump into Jesse's Chinese counterpart: Shi Changlin, 56, who hascycled thousands of kilometres across China on a rickshaw bedeckedwith flags, loudspeakers and flashing lights “to celebratethe Olympic spirit”.
Of the futuristic Aquatics Centre, aka the Water Cube and venue forthe swimming events, we can see only a dark, rectangular outlinethrough the murk.
At 12.30pm we hail a green-and-yellow taxi and tell the driver:“Zoo”. No response. I draw a panda in a cage. His facelights up. “Tsooo!” he exclaims. He starts the meter, arecorded voice says “Welcome to Beijing taxi” and offwe go. Beijing's cabbies are all supposed to have had pre-Olympiclessons in basic English, but this one can say only “Sankyou” and “Welly good”. He compensates withnon-stop laughter.
I have no idea where we are going. Beijing has gridiron streetswith few landmarks. Without sun you have no sense of direction. But20 minutes and 26 yuan (£2.08) later we reach the tsooo. Igive the driver 30 yuan. He pockets the change.
There is a mobile blood donation unit outside. I offer mine. Thiscauses consternation. The foreigner's offer is eventually rejectedon the pretext that I cannot complete a registration form writtenentirely in Chinese.
Jack and I head for lunch instead. Four smiley young girls inyellow stand beneath a sun umbrella outside a restaurant. One leadsus inside. We spurn “Pig hoof gruel”,“The oldvinegar jelly fish” and “Fried goose intestines”.Dog meat has been removed from Beijing menus for the Olympics. Wechoose “Know taste pork meat pie” and “The noodleof hyancinth bean” washed down with chrysanthemum tea -though we were tempted by “Little confused immortalliquor”.
Zoo tickets cost 20 yuan (£1.60) each, less if you areshorter than 1.2m. Jack crouches, but to no avail. We decideagainst renting an automatic guide which promises “youneedn't any work when you get the every place”. To see thepandas - eight of them recently airlifted from the earthquake zone- you need only follow the crowds.
By 2.45pm it is time for a sterner test. We decide to take a taxito one of the more obscure Olympic venues - the basketball stadium.The driver does not understand “basketball” or“stadium”. I draw the Olympic rings and a stick manthrowing a ball through a hoop. He studies the drawing, picks uphis mobile phone and chatters away for a couple of minutes.“OK,” he says with a smile, and sets off. His onlyEnglish is “Welcome to China Beijing”.
We drive along wide roads fringed with new trees and bedecked withOlympic bunting. We hit traffic jams where any semblance of lanesbreaks down, and wonder how much longer Beijing can absorb 1,300new cars a day. Finally we arrive at a huge arena.
We approach the nearest guard. I do my basketball imitation. To mydismay he shakes his head and swings an imaginary baseball bat.Then he points to another stadium nearby.“Basketball!”, he says. Success!
In the empty car park we watch an old man manipulating a two-headedkite with a dexterity that would surely win gold if his was anOlympic sport. Then we confidently hail another taxi to take us tothe Silk Market, epicentre of China's trade in counterfeit goods -but no matter how many times we say “Silk Market” thedriver does not understand. After a couple of minutes he ejects usbrusquely from his vehicle and drives off.
Another taxi picks us up. An hour later, even I realise that it isgoing the wrong way. I cheat and give him the name of the nearestsubway station. He gets out at a red traffic light to consultanother cabbie. The lights change and we are stranded amid acacophony of hooting. Eventually, at 5pm, we reach the station.Unprompted, our driver reduces the fare for going wrong.
He drops us beside a bright blue tent manned by five of the 70,000Beijingers who have volunteered to help visitors to the Games. Theywear matching blue shirts and delightful smiles. Two even speakhalting English. “Where is the Silk Market?” I ask.They point to a six-storey building across the road. “Wherecan I buy pirated DVDs?” Their smiles freeze. “We canonly answer questions about Olympics,” they say.
The authorities have promised to crack down on fake products aheadof the Games, but in our 90 minutes in the bustling Silk Market,communicating on calculators, we buy two “Ralph Lauren”sports shirts, a “Columbia” ski jacket with fleece, anda pair of “Timberland” sports sandals for less than wewould pay in London for one genuine Nike baseball cap.
Jack wants a “Louis Vuitton” handbag for hisgirlfriend, but can find only “Dolce & Gabbana” or“Ralph Lauren” bags. No problem, says a youngstall-owner who does speak English. She produces a Louis Vuittoncatalogue from beneath the counter. Jack chooses a bag. It arrivesa few minutes later in a black binliner, and we knock her down from2,700 to 200 yuan.
Why the secrecy? The girl explains that the police regularly searchfor Chanel, Burberry and Louis Vuitton bags, and issue fines, butdon't care about Ralph Lauren and Dolce & Gabbana rip-offsbecause those companies have not protested.
The Government's crackdown on pirated DVDs is allegedly evenharsher, so I set out to buy the latest Indiana Jones. They are nolonger on public display, but it takes five minutes and one furtiveconversation before a bootlegged copy appears from another blackbinliner. It costs 10 yuan (80p).
It is now 7pm. We are tired and hungry. We head for the Wangfujingfood market. Our taxi driver exhausts his entire English vocabularyas we get out. “Bubbye,” he says.
The market is extraordinary. From the colourful, brightly litstalls you can buy kebabbed scorpions, sea horses, silkworms,snakes or dragonflies. There are boiled sea urchins, bowls of cows'tripe and mounds of lambs' testicles. Jack and I opt for staid meatdumplings, but my phone rings before we can eat.
I wander up a side street so that I can hear. A woman approachesme. “You want massage?,” she asks. “You want sexand massage?” That's another thing on which the authoritiesare supposed to be cracking down - prostitution.
Jack and I discuss our day. We have more or less mastered a publictransport system that is cheap, clean and efficient. Except for asingle taxi driver and a few officials, everyone has been charming.We have not been hassled, and only mildly cheated. In no other cityhave we felt as safe, even from pickpockets. We saw no drunks, nolouts, and hardly anyone spitting.
But neither, of course, could we see the countless shops and shacksthat have been demolished, or the thousands of street vendors andmigrant workers who have been driven out so that Beijing canpresent its prettiest face to the world.