The morning dawned hazy. I went to a talk by Norman Foster – who designed Beijing’s new aiport – and Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist who has recorded the building of the new aiport in photographs. Last week Ai Weiwei accused China’s leadership of turning China into a police state in advance of the Olympics. Before the talk began, we were warned we must limit our questioning to the subject of the airport and to keep off politics and The Olympics. We were all very obedient, but Ai Weiwei seemed to chafe at the bit. Sarcastically, he said he hoped we’d all enjoy the blue sky days we were about to enjoy.
The roads around the city were already becoming difficult to navigate because the police kept closing them for official delegations. I guess it’s like this all over the world, and wherever the Olympics takes place. I saw people taking each other's picture in front of an Olympics countdown clock as it ticked down the last minutes and hours. I saw a lot of police. I saw very few Western tourists, and the taxi drivers I spoke to agreed that there were very few.
This evening we attempted to find a big screen outside to watch the opening ceremony. We had heard that Chinese were being urged to stay at home rather than gathering on the street. Sure enough, when we got to our nearest open air venue, Chaoyang Park, the screen was declared out of order. We were suspicious. We got back in a taxi and set off in the direction of another open air screen, but found ourselves gridlocked in traffic. In the end, rather than sit in traffic all evening, we did a U-turn and headed back to the Lido Holiday Inn, where we’d earlier spotted a screen outdoors. But there was no room at the Holiday Inn – Samsung, one of the Olympic sponsors, was hosting a private party there. Local bars with tv screens were full.
So, with no place to go but home, we visited the local grocery store for supplies of popcorn and fizzy drinks, and found it full of local Chinese stocking up for the evening’s tv watching. The tv was on in the grocery store, and everyone was watching the countdown to the opening ceremony while they queued.
Back at home, on our comfy sofas and with a mountain of food to eat, we watched as the ceremony began with fireworks that burst above the packed Bird’s Nest stadium and the near-deserted city. Then thousands of People’s Liberation Army soldiers from the Cultural corps, in a spectacle of awesome discipline, began to bang their drums to the glory of China…