2008 Beijing Olympics

There is an Olympic craze all over China. The games don't officially begin until 8-8-08 at 8:08:08pm (They have a superstitious thing about eights), but you see Olympic paraphernalia everywhere. Hong Kong will actually be hosting the equestrian events here, but all over the country there is an obsession about the upcoming games.

I remember in 1996 being excited that the Olympics were in Atlanta, and my family was able to go to a few events, but there wasn't the national pride feeling that you have in this country. It's not just about Beijing, but about the entire country.

I don't know if you have read any of the news concerning the Olympics, but Lindsey and I have tried to keep up with it all. There have been many things that have been typical of Communist China, especially as they have tried to keep a tight reign on the events surrounding the torch relay around the world. Last night we read another article about the official Chinese Olympic cheer. It is definitely laughable. I can't imagine our country telling us how we should cheer at sporting events. In the articles we read, they had diagrams and videos and talked about the thousands of Chinese that would be trained in how to perform this cheer. Here is a link to the article.

Another interesting thing is that they are calling these the "Green Olympics." I can't think of a more polluted place than China. Specifically, there was a marathon runner than dropped out because he was worried how the pollution would effect his running. Also there was an article about about excessive amounts of algae in the waters where the sailing competition is to take place. Here's that link as well. China is claiming the algae was a result of the weather, but the article begged to differ.

I do hope that China is able to pull it all off without too much debacle, but I doubt it. I love this country, but I also see a lot of it's faults, and it could have a PR nightmare on it's hands by the time the Olympics come and go. Hopefully the official cheer will get them through it.