Off the Press Bus blog

As many of the city’s guests leave Beijing, the atmosphere here is quieter. I almost want to say somber, but just as these Games never quite reached the level of all-encompassing national celebration that some Olympic Games have in the past, one is now not aware of that huge letdown that sometimes follows a celebration. Then again, that greyness of feeling may be due to the fact that today is a cloudy, somewhat smoggy day. The Games did, however, end on a perfect, proud and patriotic note.

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The Olympic city is back to normal again today, with fewer security volunteers out on the streets and fewer visible tourists wandering around. The newspapers here are filled with praise from foreigners. That’s half the story, and we all know what the rest of the world is saying. Here, newspapers like the state-run China Daily have continued to proclaim a perfect Games. “The curtain is rising,” they say, highlighting “first-rate facilities” and “first-rate organization.” What is left out, of course, is the first-rate denial of freedom of expression for Chinese citizens, as viewed by foreigners. Yet one cannot discount the impact of these foreign views. China has recovered from a prolonged sense of being ridiculed or underestimated by imperial powers by now displaying a new-found pride in itself.

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The Olympic baseball stadium in Wukesong, Beijing was filled with American fans on Friday night. The game: Cuba vs. USA. The American fans: Korean, Japanese and Chinese. This time, instead of a Chinese laladui cheer leader conducting the cheering crowd, as has been the case at almost every Olympic event this summer, it was an American fan.

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As with just about any product, a fake version of alcohol is readily available in China. And the Beijing night scene, a booming and relatively new one, offers moonshine drinks a dime a dozen. Propaganda is one of those bars that can guarantee a bleary night. It might also bring a night at the hospital. With all you-can-drink 30 RMB nights (that's about $4.39), it's guaranteed that some Olympic tourists this summer will be enjoying the cheap drinks that a lot of Beijing bars offer.

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I've started to notice a pattern with Beijing cab drivers recently. Today was the sixth time that I got into a cab and starting talking to the driver, only to have my blabbering met with silence. This is unusual because Beijing cabbies tend to enjoy chatting, especially when they have a talkative passenger. A trademark of Beijing speak is the heavy “r” sound at the end of certain sentences. No Beijinger has a heavier accent than cabbies who, when riled up, often sound like boisterous pirates. I like chatting up cabbies because they almost always offer an opinionated perspective on things. Today I discovered the real reason why Beijing’s cab drivers are suddenly so quiet. Read more...

Cheering squads trained by the Beijing Etiquette Institute have been tasked with the job of showing Chinese spectators how to cheer properly, for athletes of all nations, during Olympic events. My new friend Walter, he of the grey wig, was one of those leaders. But sometimes, not even training can prevent these sports spectators from really getting into the game. Much of the Chinese audience at the women's singles semifinal tennis match couldn’t help but rip into a Russian rival whose lone, proud taunts everyone wished to silence.

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I saw the phrase, “Welcome the Olympic Game, Pay Attention to Civilization, Set Up a New Trend," on a red and white banner draped across a bridge. It's a perfect complement for a metaphor I heard the other day about China. Siok Siok Tan, director of the documentary Boomtown Beijing, told me that China is like a teenager who constantly checks herself out in the mirror, waiting for the world to tell her what she looks like. To her, the biggest change in Chinese people is a new self awareness of how the outside world perceives them and a desire to reinvent their identity. This couldn’t be clearer to me as I’ve been going around the city during the Olympics.

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Road sweeper Liu Zhi had planned to organize a 600-person performance for the 400-day countdown to the Olympics, but his local residence committee denied his request. As a veteran of the Cultural Revolution, he thought it only natural that the Olympic Games would be his calling to organize a grand spectacle. His story is just one of four in the documentary Boomtown Beijing, which shows how the Olympic dream has affected and changed the psyche of ordinary Chinese amid a nation continuing to invent and reinvent its image on the international stage. These stories fill a gap left by the media’s relentless focus on heroes like hurdler Liu Xiang. They are the stories of ordinary people.

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Biking along a small stone street in Nanluoguxian hutong on Friday night, and thinking about how clear the sky was and how beautiful the weather had turned, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man sitting on the street. I noticed him because of his almost defiant pose. With a bright red bandanna across his forehead, he looked as if he owned the street. I turned to look and suddenly slammed on my brakes. It was Qiteng, sitting on a rock in front of a small jewelry store, with two caged singing crickets behind him and his dog seated at his leg.

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Holding yellow batons and thumping them in unison, an entire section of Chinese laladui, volunteers specially trained to cheer athletes, yell jia you, or good luck, as each marathon runner enters the Bird’s Nest. I'm behind them watching with curiosity as their leader conducts choreographed moves. Little do I know, moments later I will be stuck in that sea of yellow t-shirts, the laladui all asking me to pose with them in an ambush orchestrated by the conductor.

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