Month: August 2008

16 Aug 08 – Belgium beats Italy

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

My real first competition to watch was the football game Belgium – Italy, in the Workers’ Stadium next door. Thanks to the BOIC (Belgian Olympic Committee) lots of Belgians got tickets, I was lucky to have one just next to the VIP area.
It was for the football quarterfinals men in the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
Our chances were considered slim, worse even after the referee (unfairly?) gave a red card to a Belgian player and the Belgians had to face the Italians 10 against 11 and scored a penalty.
Well, the Belgians did great, recovered and managed to win 3 to 2. A full moon was there to watch over us.

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The many Belgian supporters were of course ecstatic and we all headed to The Tree to celebrate with lots of Belgian beer.
We have so little to celebrate anyway so we have to take this unique opportunity!
The pics show the Belgian flag, the teams, the penalty goal, the supporters, public, Piet Moons and others from the BOIC and our VIP supporter ambassador Bernard Pierre who also joined us all in The Tree.
Yes The Tree is open but, for the silly reasons of the silly police, last order is 9:30pm to close around 10pm.
More about the highly incompetent police later on.
As for the Workers’ Stadium:
– security checks went fairly well considering the crowd of over 50,000
– indications were good and volunteers helpful
– drink and “food” outlets were a shame, impossible to buy anything unless you were ready to wait in line for 30 minutes. A real screw-up (as it is in most venues where overall the food is kinda horrible). Call that planning.
– the Panasonic screen was OK (north side) but the other one (south side) is of poor quality.
– the replay did not work for most of the game and we were left to guess what happened
– the public was cheerful and behaving nicely, a welcome difference with European hooliganism (though they were clearly favoring Italy, too bad guys)
– quality of repairs done at the stadium look questionable, the staircases already start showing damage.
So, next step – Shanghai on the 19th.

Pollution: API and what you see

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

See here below two pics, a view from Capital Club on 19 June and one from my Julong Garden on 18 June at 14:20 (strictly speaking, I should use the API for 19 June, but…) – look for Wold Trade Center Tower 3.

The official API figures were respectively 69 and 74 (Dongsi Station in Dongcheng). Those figures are PM10 only.
Obviously it looks much worse.

Helicopters in a blue sky but no “The Tree”

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

After a welcome and torrential rain yesterday we had a very cool evening.
Today Friday, real blue sky with CCTV flying over.

See the rain in Julong, with “green roofs” and my private jungle on my office balcony.
Disappointment yesterday evening. I wanted to take some foreign guests around Sanlitun Bar area and have a drink at The Tree (a very popular Belgian bar with the best pizza in town). It was closed. Under pressure from the paranoid police nearby – they also closed down nearby shops and noodle restaurant. And erected a big iron gate to seal off access to the alley on one side. So, no more shortcut between The Tree and Nearby The Tree.
Sad. In the most important time for Beijing, outlets are forced to close without compensation. “Welcome to Beijing”. Kind of.
Well, could be worse. Kai and the others were open. The DVD shop was closed however.

Helicopters in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

In the past, one would never see anything like a helicopter in Beijing, certainly not in the city. With the Olympics that all changed.
See here some shots all taken from my office balcony in Julong Garden.

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You can see 3 different types, one is army/police, one is CCTV and one is special for the Olympics (BOB logo). If you look well you’ll see the special cameras hanging on the side. See also the pic I took of one of the many scale models in my office. You will notice the similarity!

Distorted media coverage

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Yes, Chinese media do not give the full picture. We agree, China is not perfect. But too many of the foreign media continue to report nonsense. Just a few days ago I watched CNN reporting the Beijing Olympics had cost 40 billion US$, the most expensive ever. So, let me list some of the foreign crap:

  • Beijing spent 40 b US$ for the Games; untrue – most of this was for much needed city improvement
  • The city spent over 2 billion US$ for the sports venues – untrue, the vast majority was funded by private companies and the city paid only for a minor part
  • Beijing built an expensive and unneeded airport (Terminal 3) – untrue, it is modern, efficient and will be soon too small for Beijing so the city is planning a second airport; nobody complained when it started operation, much different from the fiasco in London (is it working now?)
  • too much real estate was built for the Olympics, will lead to a glut and bubble bursting – untrue as most has nothing to do with the Olympics, construction will restart at top speed after September and the outlook in Beijing is rather positive
  • the hutongs and siheyuans were destroyed because of the Olympics – largely untrue as what happened was because of (sometimes corrupt) real estate developers; there are no Olympic facilities within the second ring road
  • over a million of people were ‘forced” to move because of the Olympics – now, talking about crap…
  • etc.

As for security, human rights and all: let us all be happy we are in Beijing, not in Italy (Mafia), not in Russia (gangster country), not in India (total exploitation of the lower class and plain slavery), nor in the Middle East (women, shut up and cover yourself). And we have a united country with a government, something we miss in Belgium.