Coming to the rescue of China, their image to the world and to further their education, Chinese volunteers have stepped up in record numbers to provide English translation to visitors.

Made up of more than a million people, the 2008 Beijing Olympic “City Volunteers” are made up of students and other people who speak several languages that were willing to commit 5 weeks of their time to be out and about in the city to be approached and offer guidance, advice and help to visitors to China. For two years, the Beijing Organization Olympic Committee interviewed and trained qualified volunteers. In return, volunteers received McDonalds meals and complimentary Adidas clothing. 

Found in the malls, streets, banks and stores wearing bright blue 2008 Olympic t-shirts, you can spot the City Volunteers just about everywhere. Some volunteers are stationed at one of the 550 kiosks set up around the capitol to provide directions, offer aid or other services.

Without the volunteers, the Olympic Games would not be able to offer such support. The Olympic Games Committee would not be able to hire a million professional translators to help all the visitors and everything else that is needed. They have hired professional translators for several other aspects of the games, which include:

•    Pamphlets

•    Directions

•    Signs

•    Websites

•    Newspapers

•    Schedules

•    More

When it comes to the inside of the Olympic Games, translations into several languages needs to be spot on. The Olympics are serious and that means besides needing so many volunteers willing to vocally translate for visitors, hiring thousands of professional translators is also required for in-house operations.

Thousands of people from all over the world will require assistance through translation each day for instruction, direction or information during the Olympics and China will rely on their sea of volunteers to help on the outside, while they look to their professional translation team on the inside.



By: Melissa Peterman

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Click Here to Download Ringtones from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event which is being celebrated in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, from August 8 (with football starting on August 6) to August 24, 2008, and followed by the 2008 Summer Paralympics from September 6 to September 17. 10,500 athletes are expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports.

The program for the Beijing 2008 Games is quite similar to that of the Athens Games held in 2004. The 2008 Olympics will see the return of 28 sports, and will hold 302 events (165 men’s events, 127 women’s events, and 10 mixed events), one event more in total than in Athens. Overall 9 new events will be held, which include 2 from the new cycling discipline of BMX. Women will compete in the 3000 m steeplechase for the first time. In addition, marathon swimming events for men and women, over the distance of 10 kilometres, will be added to the swimming discipline. Team events (men and women) in table tennis will replace the doubles events. In fencing, women’s team foil and women’s team sabre will replace men’s team foil and women’s team epee.

Ringtones from the 2008 Summer Olympics currently being held in Beijing are some of the hottest ringtones in the world right now. Click on the link below and sign up to download 2008 Olympic ringtones for your phone right now!

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By: Daniel Sitar

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LOS ANGELES — The Beijing Olympics “were a triumph of the will for a people and a government determined to show their skill and confidence,” the Los Angeles Times said on Sunday.

“They were a triumph of the will for a people and a government determined to show their skill and confidence, as both athletes and organizers, to a world that once treated China as a weak, servile nation,” the paper noted.

“China won the most gold medals, hardly a surprise when a country of 1.3 billion people decides such a goal is important and commits enormous resources to achieving it,” the paper said. ” China also built sports venues that combined gargantuan scale and striking architecture in a way no previous Olympic host could afford.

Doping never became the issue at the games, the paper said.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge had predicted from 30 to 40 positives, based on purely mathematical projections of past results and increased numbers of tests.

But as of Sunday, with analysis reports on the final five days’ samples yet to come, there had been just six positives out of 4, 600 tests during the Games, only two involving medalists, none of them gold medalists. There were 26 doping violations in 2004, including three gold medalists.

“It is more difficult to cheat,” Rogge was quoted as saying, noting that 39 other athletes were banned from competing in Beijing after being caught by pre-Olympic testing.

The sky fell into the  ”blue” category, according to the measurements of air pollution, the paper said.

Despite turning an eerie white and then a murky haze that hung over Beijing for a week, the sky actually went blue in the middle of the first week of competition and the sun came out most every other day, the paper said.

“The Beijing Olympics wound up looking as most expected,” the paper concluded.

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By: alexda

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Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland has decided to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games in an act of protest against Chinese actions in Tibet. This is a fact that few people through out the world are aware of and perhaps even fewer actually care about for at the end of the day neither us nor Tusk should delude ourselves in to believing that Tusk’s absence from the opening ceremony of the Olympic games is going to make any difference what so ever to anybody. Let alone to the people of Tibet in whose name Donald Tusk is supposedly doing it for. If we may be realistic the Chinese government which granted has an appalling human rights record not only with regards to Tibetans but all its citizens will not change anything simply because one person fails to turn up at a ceremony even a big one.

 

If we go back to the year of 1980 when the Olympic Games were due to take place in Moscow, it was Jimmy Carter; then president of United States who took the monumental choice of not sending our American Olympic team to compete in the Moscow games in protest of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Carter’s actions naturally achieved the goal of

hurting those American athletes who had trained so hard for that moment of glory in their lives but apart from this what else did his efforts amount to? Well let us think for a minute. The Olympic Games were not shown on American television not that I myself missed them given that I spent this summer in Madrid where I witnessed how not even the UK; our closest ally in any war did not follow in our footsteps of boycotting the Moscow games in the naïve hope that it would make the Soviets withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. Naturally if even the UK would not go along with us on this one, it is needless to say that neither would some of our less American influenced allies such as France, Spain, or Italy who like the UK did not fail to make their presence felt at the Moscow games.

 

Carter’s drive to get the nations of the world to join us in our boycott obviously failed miserably as did his bid to be reelected President when in November of the same year he would go on to suffer a landslide defeat at the hands of ex-actor, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Carter however had other “brilliant ideas” on how to assist the people of Afghanistan and one of them being a grain embargo of the Soviet Union. This tactic contrary to the first one had stronger effects. One of them being hurting our farmers while not helping the people of Afghanistan in the slightest. Perhaps it was ideas like this one that earned him his Nobel Prize?

 

It is with this in mind that I ask not only Tusk but those who may be contemplating similar actions the following question. If a boycott of the Moscow games by the United States Olympic team, which is one of the biggest with perhaps the one most fans to follow it along with American networks also choosing not to broadcast the event (which meant tremendous lose of revenue to organizers of the games) failed to make the slightest difference in Moscow’s decision to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan why then would Donald Tusk’s absence from the opening ceremony even be noticed by anybody outside of Poland let alone change anything with regards to relationships between Beijing and Tibet?

 

The simple answer is it will not change anything apart from perhaps making Tusk feel better about himself for having made a gallant though futile effort at something that was doomed to failure from the get go. The Olympic games for better or worse are going to be held in China weather we like it or not; this is a fact and they will not be canceled and even if the whole Polish Olympic team along with other nations were to boycott them as was the case with the Los Angeles games of 1984 it will not alter Beijing’s attitude toward Tibet or anything else for that matter. China right now has an economy that is literally growing by leaps and bounds to the point that it has already past Italy and will soon do likewise with France if it has not done so already with regards to the size of their G.D.P. and though the Olympic Games will provide them with a boost to their economy, it will not be much in comparison to the size of what their economy presently is. With this in mind we should come to the conclusion that even if the Olympic games were not to take place in Beijing this year it would not make that much of difference to the Chinese economy let alone to their political machine.

 

I am a Republican so it would not be my tendency to agree with a Democrat but I must say that Bill Clinton was not entirely wrong when he said the way to bring about change in China is not via isolation or boycotts or embargos but dialog and negotiation. It is these two however that should never be mistaken for appeasement which clearly failed in Munich in 1938 as it did at the Yalta conference in 1945. For my part I can claim if only Clinton and other American Presidents had held this same line of thought toward Cuba as they did and still do toward China who knows what changes might have taken place there by now? As for China things are changing even with regards to politics though perhaps not as quickly as some would like them to but for sure gone are the days of the “cultural revolution” and its brutalities.

 

As for Donald Tusk; if his goal is really to assist the people of Tibet and not just make jests that are due to end in failure as did his bid to become president of Poland in 2005 then it is to him that I suggest attending the inauguration of the Olympic Games and claiming he is doing so on behalf of the people of Tibet. It would be a gesture like this that would bring more of the world’s attention to the plight of the people of Tibet then a no-show which did not work to persuade the Soviets in 1980 as it will not secede to do likewise with the Chinese in 2008.



By: Gianni Truvianni

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2 million people actually have the opportunity to explore the many things to do in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. I say “only” because that leaves 4 billion to watch it on their televisions. However, you can still enjoy a virtual tour and get a taste of the Beijing Experience.

So kick back and let’s explore the attractions near some of the Olympic venues.

It’s not often an entire city gets a facelift. But hosting the Olympic Games is a task of epic proportions so Beijing devoted 7 years and $43 billion in changing the face of Beijing! And not just with immense Olympic structures like the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium but with everything that branched off from them. From immense structures like a new airport and subway lines extended to include 85 more miles to color accents like trees and flowers lining the streets…to the tune of 22 million trees and 40 million flower pots!

GETTING AROUND

So, how does one get around a city of 15 million people? Beijing wanted to ensure that visitors could find their way to the Olympic venues so getting around now will be much easier than it was before. Still, we recommend you start your vacation by booking an airport-to-hotel shuttle. That way, you can relax and enjoy your first introduction to Beijing and leave the driving in the capable hands of someone who knows the city well.

If you’re planning to hit some of the rural areas outside of Beijing as one of the things to do, you’ll probably want to rent a car but count on traffic delays. If you’re a first time visitor, you might fare better using the subway system because all the signs are written in both English and Chinese. A good planning strategy is to take one subway line each day of your visit and make stops along the way.

STARTERS

After you’ve settled into your hotel & adjusted to the time difference, it’s time for discovery. You’ll want to hit the most famous attractions first:

Six miles from the Beijing Olympic Green Hockey Stadium, sits the Forbidden City. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. The complex has 70 structures and more than 9000 rooms with a royal garden behind the palace.

The Forbidden City sits on the north side of Tiananmen Square, the largest public square on Earth, covering more than 100 acres. It’s the founding site of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949 and is considered the most iconic location in China.

MUSEUMS

Check out the route of the Olympic Subway Line and make stops along the way. Not only will you discover museums near the National Indoor Stadium, like the China National Film Museum, but also shops and restaurants within walking distance. The museum is an extensive 63-acre museum devoted to film. It houses an IMAX theater and numerous exhibition halls, with 20 hosting permanent collections. Detailing the work of 450 filmmakers, 1500 films, and 4300 stills, it actually offers more things to do than can be covered in one day.

PARKS AND GARDENS

Near the National Stadium, sits Bei Hai Park: Originally built in the days of Kublai Khan, this park was used for recreation by the emperors of post-Kublai Khan dynasties. Famous features include the Nine-Dragon Screen, the Five-Dragon Pavilion and the White Dagoba, a memorial to a visit by the Dalai Lama in 1651.

Another noteworthy park is Eight Sites Park, with the chance to see eight temples and pagodas along the path to the top of the hill.

For those interested in China’s history, check out Stone Scripture Hill in the Shi Jing District. A total of more than 1000 volumes of Buddhist scriptures were carved and housed in the nine caves here in an attempt to preserve Buddhism when it was abolished the second time.

For months we’ve heard about Beijing, little tidbits to whet your appetite. Now it’s burst upon the scene with pomp & circumstance, starting with the Opening Ceremony Extravaganza on 8-08-08. I have my feet planted firmly on California soil but will thoroughly enjoy visiting Beijing virtually. And come the day when I visit Beijing in person, I’ll already have a good idea of all the things to do there.



By: David Reichman

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