PARENTESIS PEQUINES

Una amiga, Susanne Strombom, manda una carta desde el Beijin de los inminentes Juegos (por cierto, ¿ya existe el nuevo toponímico, beijinés?), donde está comisionada por su empresa. Como no tiene desperdicio y para información de curiosos, la transcribo en las partes genéricas.

“...
You won't get one of these every week, but whilst things are still not as crazy as they may become, I may as well give you some insights.
It's nice to have had a couple of days to see the city without construction sites, and things covering buildings everywhere and squeeky clean.

Beijing has been "logofied", the whole city is covered in "Beijing 2008" logos, even the drug sniffer dog at the airport had a little blue jacket with an Olympic logo on it..I am not sure where the Logo
Useage Guide Book mentioned dog coats...but had I known, then I would have tried and tested at home :) Plant pots, chopsticks, the roadsigns are so full of logos that you can barely read the directions. You name it - it has one.

The pollution is just as bad as it's always been, it has been raining continuously on the cities west of Beijing, as that is where they shoot/ ionize the clouds so that it will "rain the pollution away" -well, those cities are probably shiny by now - but here it hasnt changed squat.. and the traffic is worse than ever - as they are closing the city down for bomb search and security to guarantee us
"safe and smooth Games". Well at this rate, that won't be an issue, as the athletes will all be late to their runs - if they even get out of the airport, as that takes 2.30 hrs just that.

The hotels are still as empty as before, the occupancy is at 40% and everyone is going bust. Mainly for three reasons - the first is the Visa problem, if you reject Visas you wont' have any tourists - that's for sure.
The second is the fear of the Olympics taking over, and therefore foreigners dont' plan a trip as people are convinced there are no rooms available.
The third is that they have built so many hotels that you could probably house every man on earth in this city - and his family. They are giganormous structures of over 2500 rooms. Yes - I guess you see the problem.

We are happy to receive a letter in the hotel room today telling us -in the name of smooth and safe games- that the Chinese authorities have communicated and trained their 100'000 plus volunteer staff in several things:
- cheerleading
- the 8 questions not to ask foreigners: don;t ask them what they do, their home adress, how much they earn, about their marriage, about politics and I laughed myself over the rest ;)
- eating in restaurants - dogs have been taken off the menu in Beijing restaurants ..and foreigners don't like Chinese greens as it makes them "airy" (I'm still struggling with this one, cause SURELY
they can't really mean THAT can they? :)
- finding your way in Beijing : the "volunteers" are at your disposal but keep in mind that they are not from Beijing so please put patience (Im copying off the note..) :)
- cab drivers have been trained to English. Cool - I still haven't managed to get to the Stadium without a fight in 5 days...and it has got to be the landmark of the week no?

My Chinese is improving by the day. I learned today that the "negative" words are always starting with Poo - (which sounded very appropriate to me) so Yes is Ser and No is PooSer. How logical is that?? Sui - or rather a whistling Shhrui is entrance and PooSui is no entrance. Simple no?
I propose to change the English language : Yes and PooYes - or the wonderful story of Winnie the No...hm there could be flaw in the plan..

Our Omega Pavillion is nearly ready and the Olympic park is actually mindblowing. It's beautiful in the night, and the architecture is fantastic. This afternoon we had security search (for smooth and safe games remember..?) with 56 dogs and military. But one dog was tired apparently, started barking and then all the others (I guess) thought he found something so they all started howling - so we were told they were "confused" and that they are coming back on Sunday. Not so
smooth yet.

The rehearsals for the Opening Ceremony are on the way nearly every night - and being the country of fireworks it's quite impressive - they are in shape of dragons, flowers, smilies and more...looks very promising!
...“