We have been assisting the emergency medical center “120” with tips, screening call center candidates etc.
Now Valerie (and also Sun) is on standby whenever foreigners call and the 120 people are “lost in translation”, during the two weeks of the Olympics.
Over the weekend we got the first calls… Always a challenge with the different “English” and some Spanish speakers (Valerie speaks Spanish too, as well as English, French and Chinese).
A couple of days ago I had to make a test call to 120 to play a sick foreigner. I found inspiration in Don Corleone, the mafia guy speaking with a deep voice. Well, I had COPD and an attack of asthma you see. They handled it quite well and we made some suggestions for improvement.
Hopefully none of you will have to call us!

I would say, unlucky Beijing and very unlucky all of us.
During the Olympics, no pollution – guaranteed. But despite the tremendous efforts and restrictions, Beijing has been plagued by lack of wind, sultry weather, bad visibility. And higher than expected API.
I have now on record all data from 21 May 2008 till 2 August. You can’t find that back by the way. Anybody interested, let me know. I would like to put some figures on my blog but I always run out of time.
Some conclusions:
– dust really has drastically been reduced as I can see on my balcony; no need to measure, just wipe the dust from the inox rails; they never have been so clean.
– I thought the official API were unreliable but I think they are closer to reality than expected; the point is they don’t give the API of some critical locations such as Qianmen (disappeared from all listings – was the worst location) nor the Olympic Green (there is an hidden advanced meteorology station in the Park, never mentioned – I have pics of it).
– the API supplied as usual actually only refers to PM10; in a distant past you could read daily figures on SO2 and NO2 but they all disappeared, probably because they are too bad; with the new additional data for the Olympics one immediately sees the API is only the PM10; SO2 and NO2 are listed again; other dangerous pollutants are not listed, such as ozone and many others
– in the same way China Daily stopped publishing national API because it was too horrible anyway
– for the poor of us, it only proves once and for all the battle against pollution is hopeless; just think – if with all the efforts it is hard to go below API 100, how bad it must be under “normal” conditions.
As I said already – living in Beijing is hazardous to your health. Only moron foreigners or dinosaur bureaucrats deny it.

See also a chart and a cartoon from the South China Morning Post. Of course some of the IOC officials belong to the “All is well” category.

We all know about the often unpleasant security checks wherever you go. Beijing looks like a giant airport terminal with scanners and security people all over – discos, metro stations, exhibitions, anywhere. Some people are really fed up. On the other hand, as long as the checks are done in a polite way, we should not complain too much.
Extremist are the worst of the worst and for me they can be gassed or shot. They kill innocent people in the name of their stupid causes. Remember Bali discos? At least I feel safe – once inside – in a Beijing disco. Or do you say “never mind” if some of those monsters blows up everybody in China Doll where so many infidels are engaged in very infidel behavior? Or blow up the subway like in London?
Think yourself.
Open your bags, cooperate and dance the night away.

Readers might notice my silence on this topic despite being sometimes called “Mr. Olympics”. Well, I just hope it will all be over ASAP and this without too many sad incidents.
I have serious Olympic fatigue. Media have been interviewing me several times per week, with some unexpected reactions:
– I saw you one CNN!
– I’ve never been interviewed on CNN!
– Well, it was you and you said….. but why do you hide your name and call yourself Gustavo?
Well, after some other reactions seems Channel4 (UK) misspelled my name, showed the interview in the UK and then passed it on to CNN. Channel4 did apologize for the hiccup.
But Beijing is becoming a sterilized city. Many foreigners had to leave or did not get a visa. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were forced to leave the city. Hotels and restaurants as well as tourist agencies are far from happy.
Business is stopped for many as getting a business visa is officially nearly impossible (Shanghai explained while Beijing as usual continues its empty propaganda blabla).
No more tickets, so I’ll watch it on TV. Not that I’ll miss much with the chaos you can expect to go to the venue and then return home.
I did go to the rehearsal of the Opening ceremony (as one of the very very few foreigners). Can’t tell you more about except I was rather disappointed. And came home soaking wet from the downpour and the lack of transportation. And tired of the poor signage and chaos. That was with 50,000 people. Wait for the 100,000!.
Hopefully they’ll do better on 8/8/8 and I suggest you stay home and watch on TV. Except you are a VVIP.
But I will go to the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics – I want to support those as they receive too little attention.
Beijing is not completely dead. Nightlife is sanitized but some discos are still fully packed and I dragged some 20 people to a Brazilian Luxury Carnaval in KlubbRouge, all thanks to Leo Anjos (see his pics!). Other full spots are Suzie Wong and China Doll (3.3).

We will have to wait till the Halloween Party is over to find back good old perverted Maggie’s with the old PSB guys back in business. Yes I know, we are bad boys.