Need2LearnChinese Blog

Forget the skimpily clad cheerleaders. The immaculate hostesses handing out medals at the Olympics have won the spectator vote for glamour.

Wearing Chinese silk dresses with their hair pulled back tightly into neat buns, the hostesses are beautiful, elegant and their eyes are three-tenths the length of their faces.

"They are so pretty and precise. They smile continuously," said Debra Sinex, a tourist from Atlanta, Georgia, in Beijing for the Olympics.

At every medal ceremony six or more hostesses are on duty.

Two wearing "cheongsam", or long dresses, stand either side of the podium while three or more in knee-length dresses hold platters bearing the medals and bouquets of nine red roses, with red a lucky colour in China and nine meaning everlasting.

But although the role looks simple these hostesses have been meticulously chosen and trained.

Hostess candidates have to be university educated, aged 18 to 24, between 1.68 and 1.78 metres in height (5 ft 5 ins and 5 ft 8 ins), with a "ruddy and shiny complexion", "elastic skin" and "a plump but not fat body".

Their faces needed to meet standards including the ratio between the "width of the nose and the length of the face" and "width of the mouth and width between the pupils", with eyes three-tenths the length of the face.

From about 5,000 applications, 297 candidates were chosen from a dozen Beijing colleges and 40 students from Shanghai to be "Olympic victory ceremony volunteers".

Five series of costumes were designed for the hostesses to wear at the 302 Olympic and 471 Paralympic medal ceremonies, each for different sports and featuring traditional Chinese images such as blue-and-white porcelain, embroidery and jade.

The women have been through thorough training at a kind of charm boot camp, learning to stand for hours in high-heels and honing the perfect smile exposing eight teeth by spending hours before a mirror with a chopstick between their teeth.

"In the standing sessions, we have to stand still and smile for half an hour or more. We also run about a 1,000 metres every day for physical conditioning," one of the hostesses, Ma Sha, 20, told reporters ahead of the Games.

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Tonight I can write the saddest lines. This Pablo Neruda line so truly describes the feeling of every heart that beat in China on Sunday night.

Even the skies couldn't hold back their tears – but they made sure to cry in silence as the last dawn broke over the Beijing Games. They realized immediately, though, that it's not in the right spirit to say goodbye with tears in the eyes, and saved the rest for some other day.
Tears are natural at the end of a grand get together. But the guests who had gathered in Beijing from all over the world to enjoy the 17 days deserved to be seen off with a smile.

This is exactly what the closing ceremony, with its bright fireworks display and mixture of Eastern and Western elements, did, It heralded the end of what a journalist who spent the past 17 days in the Olympics Village described as "a party that took a long time coming but was over in a jiffy".

The village was still bubbling with faces, of athletes and officials and journalists before the closing ceremony. Jerseys and country colors were exchanged, messages of love and affection shared and goodbyes said with the hope of meeting again.

The footfalls on the Olympic Green and in the Olympic Village will not cease, but sadly something will be missing. The ground, the stadiums and the buildings, nevertheless, will keep singing the song of the Olympic spirit, the spirit of participation, the spirit to help improve people’s lives, the spirit to make a difference to the world.

The Games also leave behind memories of packed stadiums, world-class performances, human endurance and the triumph of human spirit.
The Games is usually celebrated for the triumphs, but it is as much about failures, for as John Milton says: They also serve who only stand and wait. So this is the time to hail the spectators and the viewers across the world whose enthusiasm made this a "truly exceptional Games", as IOC President Jacques Rogge put it on Sunday night.

This is also the time to salute the workers and officials who sweated it out for seven years to give the world this 17-day wonder. This is also the time to honor the volunteers who worked day and night to make the Games a grand success, and the torchbearers who carried the flame as much in their hands as they did in their hearts. And this is also the time to thank the athletes, sports officials and journalists for making China’s dream come true.

Salute is also due to the thousands of performers who gave shape to the dazzling opening and closing ceremonies, under the direction of Zhang Yimou, and to all the artists from home and abroad who contributed to its success.

But the highest tribute is due to the human spirit, so beautifully presented in the opening and closing galas. The human element was everywhere: in the typefaces and painting scrolls and canvases on the opening day, and in the colorful, myriad geometric formations at the closing ceremony.

Beijing has done everything it could to enrich the spirit of the Olympics. It passed on the Olympic torch to London on Sunday night, with hope that the legacy will be carried forward.

And it is with this spirit that the sacred flame seemed to say: "So long, Bird's Nest, Water Cube, Chaoyang Park and Tian’anmen Square. Hello, Wembley, Wimbledon, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square."

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Former Olympic gold medalist hurdler and golden boy for millions of Chinese, Liu Xiang, limped off the track today, taking away with him the hopes of defending the gold and reclaiming his world record from Cuba's Dayron Robles.

Within minutes there were already 8000 Chinese commenting on the shocking turn of events. Some understanding, others, not so much. Perhaps among the angry ones are those who placed their bets on Liu and failed to pay heed to his hamstring injuries that were reported last month.

The star athlete took to the starting blocks with grimaces of pain etched across his face and reached back to slap his right achilles. NBC Olympics reported it as an achilles injury, with a report from Liu Xiang's coach last week claiming that the runner was "very close to his best form."

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Husband of Australian gold medalist for the 100m individual butterfly, Libby Trickett even says that his wife attributes her swimming success to consuming Peking duck for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This would make sense to those who have had Peking duck in Beijing as scientifically oil floats.

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Swimmer Michael Phelps is doing his best to make sure that Chinese fans have access to information about him. He had his personal Web site, Michaelphelps.com, built in just two languages—English and simplified Chinese.

Phelps, four gold medals into his attempt to win an unprecedented 8 Olympic swimming titles in Beijing, is a hot topic in China right now and it looks like his efforts to keep it that way extend beyond the pool. Smart man.

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Our parents and sister just visited China for the first time. We won’t bore you with the details on what we did in Shanghai, but since many of you are hosting visitors and/or visiting China for the first time for the Olympics, here are some of the highlights from our travels to Beijing including suggestions for elderly and disabled (something we couldn't find anywhere else online).

Accomodation
We were looking for a moderately priced (by our Chinese-like standards) and centrally located hotel close to a lot of the famous tourist sites. A friend in Beijing inspected some of the cheaper “suggested” hotels listed on Elong.com and Ctrip.com and found them to be shabby at best and wretched at worst. In the end, we decided on the chain Motel 286 (the luxury version of Motel 168), located directly across from the new Hyatt. The rooms were decent sized with modern, Ikea-like decoration. The only odd note is that many of the bathrooms have partial, see through glass walls, which can be a bit uncomfortable for guests who don’t want to know each other that well. Shanghaiist booked online and paid RMB 378 (USD 55) per night pre-Olympic madness. Motel 268 Wang Fu Jing Inn, Address:NO.19 Jin Yu St, Bei Jing, Tel No.:86-010-51671666

Forbidden City
The Forbidden City is huge and daunting, as it was designed to be. But for the disabled and elderly, the 2+ hour walk may seem too challenging. However, there are options! Once you make it as far as the ticket gate, the Forbidden City offers free wheelchair service with a RMB 500 deposit (look for the booth on the left side, just before you give your ticket). The caveat, though, is you’ll need to push the chair yourself (we also suspect you also need to return the chair to the front gate, not the back gate where everyone exits, but that’s unconfirmed). A great alternative is an enterprising businessman who for 200 RMB (with no deposit required) offers to push the wheelchair through the Forbidden City and returns it to the front gate. He has 10 wheelchairs and offers some type of full day service for 800rmb. Our wheel chair pusher spoke fluent English and was extremely helpful. His number is (86) 13552812818 or 13683620828 or you can find him waiting around the wheelchair booth.

Great Wall
There are three popular spots for visiting the Great Wall from Beijing. Badaling is the closest and most touristy, Mutianyu offers amenities like a cable car and toboggan slide, but sees less people, and Simatai is the most remote location. For the avid outdoorsy types, there is also a 4+ hour hike from Jinshan to Simatai.

Shanghaiist opted for Mutianyu (40 RMB entrance fee) and the 2-hour walk from the enclosed cable car (35 RMB one way) to the ski lift car. For those physically challenged, we definitely don’t recommend this! The Great Wall is basically made up of steps up or down with no handrails and once you start walking there is no exiting until you reach the end. The walk was very difficult for our parents and in retrospect, we would have gone up in the ski lift car (since it’s closest to the car park), walked around for a while and then taken the same lift down or used the toboggan run (40 RMB and loads of fun).

For lunch, we stopped at the quirky School House Restaurant on the way to the Wall. They have a limited, but good selection of Western food and free tortilla chips with salsa (our Mom couldn’t get enough after eating Chinese food for days). When the sky is clear, you can see the Great Wall from their terrace top dining area. They also have a Chinese restaurant built into the Wall.

To get to Mutianyu, you can join a tour group, take a bus, or rent a car. Shanghaiist hired a private car with an English-speaking driver, John Ping. John is a very friendly guy with excellent English. His phone number is +86 13146889929 and website is www.beijingcardriver.com. John typically charges about 600 RMB for the trip to Mutianyu from the Wangfujing area. This is about the same price we were quoted from non-English speaking drivers, too. We ended up paying 700 RMB as we also visited the Beijing Zoo to see the Panda bears (20 RMB and right now the zoo is housing many of the Sichuan earthquake refugee pandas) and stopped by the Bird’s Nest so we could snap a few pictures.

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Beijing is praying for the mercy of Mother Nature this Friday, as the latest weather forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms on the day of the Opening Ceremony.

"We may see a cloudy sky on August 8, and it will probably also meet scattered showers or thunderstorms," said Wang Jianjie, deputy director of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. "The highest temperature may be between 30 and 32 C."

Wang spoke to reporters at a press conference August 3, 2008, but refused to give details on when and where the rain is expected to fall.

She did, however, say contingency plans have been made to reduce, delay or even bring forward the rainfall before it reaches the National Stadium, where the ceremony will be held.

Games organizers previously said there was a 41 percent chance of rain on the Opening day. At the first outdoor rehearsal for the Opening Ceremonies on July 30, a sudden downpour cut the fireworks display.

Weather modification expert Zhang Qiang said the July 30 thunderstorms were beyond control. During a visit to the Beijing Olympic Meteorological Monitoring Center on Saturday, she told reporters her team will likely be able to control rainfalls of less than 10 mm.

Beijing has prepared cannons to either disperse rains for important activities or produce artificial rains to reduce temperatures when there are enough clouds.

Heavy rains, high temperatures and pollution caused by sultry weather conditions are Beijing's main concerns during the Games, Guo Wenli, an expert on the Olympics weather monitoring team, told China Daily.

Games organizers say if any extreme weather conditions arise, they will provide warnings about them as early as possible and let BOCOG decide what to do in case of an emergency.

Beijing has enjoyed three consecutive sunny days, and the air quality has remained "healthy" for all groups. Such weather could continue into the Aug 8-24 Games period as Beijing enters autumn on Aug 7, said Guo Hu, Beijing Meteorological Observatory director.

Co-host cities are also keeping their fingers crossed. Two or three typhoons may strike Shanghai, Qingdao and Hong Kong in August, according to Qiao Lin, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center. The three coastal cities are set to host Olympic soccer, sailing and equestrian events. Poor weather during last August's equestrian event in Hong Kong affected competition, but Games organizers had enough time to reschedule the event.

"If there will be typhoons, warnings will be issued 36 hours in advance to let everyone prepare," Qiao told reporters at the Main Press Center.

On August 6, an updated weather forecast from Games organizers is expected.

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As always, September brings the beginning of a new academic year. Millions of fresh faced teenagers across the world leave home for the first time to start university. The nerves and excitement at the dawn of this new life stage are remembered for a lifetime. It is only natural that the university journey in the Far East has its own distinctions from other parts of the world – but some of these differences are pretty surprising for a Westerner.

The obvious question when you start at university usually is: what will you choose to study? In my own home country, for the most part people have the freedom to choose to major in the subject they have interest or talent in, or simply enjoy.

When I was chatting to my friend who studies in Beijing, however, she had an interesting answer to my question about why she chose her major: “I didn’t choose English, English chose me!”

I learned that her major of choice was Telecommunications, but at school it was decided for her that her major should be English (a subject she confessed she did not even like). While this is not a universal experience for every Chinese student, it is still something of a shock to people new to China.

After subjects are chosen and bags are packed, the eager student arrives at university to move into their new term time home. Now, student halls of residence do tend to slightly differ between various countries. However, a typical Chinese student dorm is as different as could be from a British one. In the UK, students usually have their own room in a corridor with other first year girls and guys, perhaps with a shared bathroom and kitchen. The Chinese student dorm, on the other hand, tends to be in a single sex building and shared by four to eight students. Yes, each student has their own bed, but one wonders whether this is enough personal space for a generation who all grew up as only children.

A visit to a Chinese university campus in September will surprise some people as students wearing military uniforms march about. This is because Chinese freshmen students start university life with three to four weeks of military training, involving several miles’ worth of marching and the possible opportunity to shoot a rifle. All of this is a far cry from the typical European freshman week, where the emphasis is on making new friends in all kinds of ways – one of the most well known being drinking together and going to parties.

After moving in, and surviving freshers’ ceremonies, the logical next step is going to some classes. Again, classes in China are not exactly the same as they are in other countries. So far as I can gather from what Chinese friends have told me, there is less of an emphasis on independent study. Chinese learning methods often involve techniques like learning a text by heart. Also, penalties are pretty strict for missing class without a good excuse. Missing a class can lower your course mark by 5%.

In their spare time, Western students are expected to take advantage of being at university to make friends and learn new skills and hobbies. Who doesn’t have a crazy story or two about the mischief they got up to at college parties? Again, this party culture seems quite different in China. Most dormitories have strict curfews that their students have to be home by. Besides this, a lot of Chinese students are under a great deal of pressure to do well at university. A common reply to queries about favorite hobbies is “I don’t have any spare time, I am always in class or studying”.

Indeed, a certain East-West divide does seem to exist, when it comes to choosing your university, subject, student residence, freshman experience and even studying itself… Even though Chinese and foreign students might be studying the same subjects at their respective universities, the university experience can still be worlds apart.

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