RICKY DLS 英会話 blog

When it comes to the question of who won the Beijing Olympics it gets complicated. The US earned 110 medals in total whereas China got 100. From the perspective of gold medals China is the clear winner with 51 gold as compared to 36 pieces of the sought-after prize for the US. So - why not let the winner be the nation with the most athletes competing in the Olympics? It’s all about being part of it, not about winning, right?! On another note, the Chinese internet is overflowing with information about a creepy coincidence. If you compare the numbers of medals won by China with the date and time of its deadliest earthquake, you get this: China won 51 gold medals, 22 silver and 28 bronze. The Sichuan earthquake happened on 5/12 at 2:28 PM … 51 22 28 vs. 5 12 2 28! Numerology, a jinx or an omen? No … just a hoax! China won only 21 silver medals.

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We were lucky enough to witness one of the Olympics great moments: A world record by Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. She vaulted by herself for almost an hour, taking sufficient time to recharge between each try, after all her 11 competitors had dropped out. Before each try she kept gripping and twirling the pole - and praying. God heard her the third time, both for the Olympic record and the world record. The crowd ranted, and the Russians that seemed to be in superior number went berserk. Then again an African American family - two women, two kids and one man - who were sitting just in front of us fell asleep in the stadium! They must have had a really bad jet lag to be able to sleep amid some serious noise, and also - why spend a hundred bucks on an Olympic ticket and then not watch? All in all, the competitions were great, the athletes outstanding and the lasershow at the Water Cube afterwards was not less impressive. I’m glad I was part of the Olympic spectacle and I congratulate the organizers. It was close to perfect.

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Picking up the tickets was an experience on its own. The Olympic ticket office was located in a posh neighborhood on the 26th floor of a high-rise building. Sleek agents greeted us in an environment dominated by marble, tropical woods and gold. We became once more aware that China is a two-class-society, and the two classes never mix. I used the ladies’ room and encountered elegant Chinese women fixing their gorgeous make-up and doing their hair - in their work time! My friend exchanged money downstairs in the Bank of Beijing and while waiting I had the chance to do some people watching. This was definitely the place where the rich worked and mingled. Women in designer suits and 5-inch-heels, dark sunglasses and Hollywood hairdos. Men dressed just as tastefully or should I say costly, with the indispensible brand briefcase, brand loafers and brand sunglasses too! For a moment I forgot that I was in China and almost found myself beamed to Los Angeles, if it hadn’t been for the exotic eyes and oriental features of the passers-by.

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China did everything to make the world believe it is an up-and-coming superpower - and succeeded. From the one-of-a-kind opening ceremony to the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube to the crucial decision to temporarily shut down all factories within the city, halt construction and ban everyone who’s poor, paltry or pathetic from the streets of Beijing. At the same time traffic was cut in half by alternating even plate numbers with odd ones, i.e. one day off, one day on. Big surprise to arrive in Beijing and see the city clean, the air not bad for a metropolis - not bad after having breathed the grey smog of Shanghai that is - and tap water okay enough not to come down with an eye infection after washing ones face. No kidding, they seriously sent all street vendors and beggars to the country during the Olympics! While talking to Beijingers I learned that the city had never been that quiet, and that it didn’t seem like Beijing at all. I guess the latter was also due to the fact that there were foreigners everywhere you went and as far as the eye reached. We all had one goal in common: to catch a glimpse of some of the world’s best athletes in a high-tech stadium. We arrived in Beijing without tickets but as expected it was not hard to get them online once we were there. The only stadium that was sold out was the Water Cube, well there were tickets actually but they were US-$ 1,500 each!! We were part of the Olympic spectacle last Monday, exactly a week ago … wow … and now I’m back at my office, reality has set in … hmmmmm. More on that later.

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I had a chance to see some Olympic competitions while in Beijing and I must say I was stunned by all the new infrastructure. The Bird’s Nest is a real eye-catcher, and so is the funky water cube. The five new subway lines are state-of-the-art with acrylic glass walls separating the tracks from the rails, reusable microchip tickets and flat-screen TVs in every compartment. They showed - you guessed it - the Olympics around the clock. I happened to be at the Bird’s Nest aka National Stadium on the day of the hurdles. During the men’s 110-m-competition there were three false starts and everybody started to get nervous. But the one surprising and to many shocking incident ocurred when famed Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang withdrew from the competition after experiencing acute pain in the Achilles tendon. The stadium was in silence for a moment, and Liu’s coach in tears. Major sponsor Nike continued to run Liu’s ad but his Chinese fans were apparently not that gentle on him. He was accused of betraying his beliefs, his fans, and his country. While traveling in China I noticed that Chinese people have extreme personalities. Either very friendly or totally harsh and even rude. In Japan audiences are gentler on their athletes, and on their fellow human beings in general. It makes me wonder whether this all-forgiving, all-tolerant attitude has contributed to the fact that Japan is not among the top 5 anymore? I’m not saying that Chinese-style condemnation is okay, but a certain amount of pressure from coach and country alike is necessary to push the athletes to their limits. I’ll be back with a lot more stuff about China so stay tuned.

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I must say I love this midsummer-gift-giving-season!  I’ve been more than blessed this year.  Friends of mine just got back from Kyoto and Osaka and I received, you guessed it, more gifts!  Good opportunity to introduce some popular souvenirs from Kansai.  First and foremost there’s otabe yatsuhashi, the raw form of yatsuhashi, triangular pastries made of rice flour, sugar and cinnamon.  Each box contains green tea flavored and plain cinnamon flavored snacks.  Then there’s the baked yatsuhashi type, shaped like half-round-gutter … doesn’t sound appealing, uugh, but tastes pretty good actually!  And yep, there are non-edible souvenirs from Kyoto as well.  Very cool cell phone straps from sanjusangendo temple depicting the god of the wind and thunder, respectively.  Demonhead-shaped temple bells and a cotton bag that’s currently all the rage in Kyoto.  It can be used as a tote bag, a table cloth, a cover etc.  A popular souvenir from Osaka are the gaufret cookies from the Umeda Sky building, and all kinds of commodities with the imprint of the castle, like mirrors, coasters etc.  What I couldn’t get is the most popular souvenir from Hokkaido - and that’s almost a contradiction cause I live here!  Have you heard about hanahatakebokucho namacaramel?  (= flowerfield ranch fresh caramel)  It is notoriously sold out at Chitose airport, and here in Sapporo people line up for two hours every morning (from 8 AM!) to get hold of the treasured treat …  No way.  I’ll wait until the craze is over.  In the meantime I eat cantaloupes … thank you Mayumi!!

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