Chinese Lives

28th July marked the opening of the Beijing Olympic Village, and Chinese athletes attended the ceremony and moved in on the same day. Yao left America and appeared in the event. Finger crossed he will not yell at his team members during match. Liu Xiang, who won 110m hurdles in 2004 Athens Games, looks fine and relaxed. It was a surprise he won last time. Good Luck to him.
The village is newly built, costing a lot of money, branded as luxury building by BBC’s report in a not good tone. However, since this is the first time China host Olympics, the government did try most efforts to impress the world, of course in priority to provide athletes a comfortable accommodation. We are happy about that.

As the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games approaches, more than 400,000 volunteers have been working at 550 street stalls around Beijing since July, providing information, emergency aid and translation services for people from around the world. A total of 74,615 volunteers will provide services at Games venues, the Olympic Village and media centers of the Olympic Games. In addition, one million “social volunteers” have been helping to keep traffic and maintain social order in the communities and townships of Beijing.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will stimulate volunteering in the society
It is not like you want to be a volunteer, you go to an application point, and you become one. At least volunteering for the Beijing Olympic Games has strict requirements about language skills, appearances, energy and good health. All chosen volunteers are regrouped as where they work and get trained separately. News say 300 volunteers were picked from 70,000 applicants to work on awarding ceremony. They started complicated etiquette training since last August. Now time is up. I know you are all ready.

Now this month, June of the Chinese traditional calendar , is the hottest and busiest month for Chinese farmers. In South China countryside, which i know a little, farmers often leave home and start harvesting rice plants at 4 am when it is the coolest time of a day. Between 12pm and 3 pm, the temperature inside rice paddy can rise up to 50 Celsius Degrees after hours direct sunlight, when farmers have to stay home and rest. After 3 pm, they work again till late night.
Harvesting rice and planting new rice shoots for autume harvest, make Chinese Calendar June a hell month, because delaying harvest will cause ripe crops to rot in field, and delaying rice planting till autumn, will not secure a good harvest. That is to say, farmers have to finish planting before 7th August.

Source: http://cache.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1390180.shtml

What will they wear at the Olympics Opening Ceremony soon coming?

Only in less than a month before the big day did China Sports Officials unveil the Chinese team uniform that has been secret for a while. Apparently, the uniform is out of a safe and classic concept. It is made up of two colors, red and yellow, which are also the colors of our national flag.

Some interneters think Australia’s team uniform photo shoot looks really cool, seeming they are making a movie poster. Canadian’s perhaps not our favorite type, it really reminds you it is bed time.

Another hot topic grasped people’s attention on China’s most popular forum Tianya. The post was series story-telling about Tianwan’s 30 years by a 30-year-old Taiwan born young man. Mainland Chinese are interested in post-1949 Taiwan history, especially Jiang’s family, how GMT stepped down the ruling seat, and how Taiwan achieved economic boom and democratic progress in the last more than half century.
After July 4th this year, China and Taiwan formally agreed to restore direct flight between two places though only limited through weekends, which was a big gesture towards a harmonious relationship between China and Taiwan Strait.
More normal Chinese can see and taste Taiwan in their own eyes. Taiwan, as well as Hongkong, and Macao, are surely more advanced than Mainland in many ways, which will be worthy journey.

On June 28th, nearly 10 thousand Weng’an locals fought with police in a demonstration for justice relating to a 16-year-old girl’s death, which unfortunately lost control and finally set the local police bureau on fire.

The dead girl’s name was Li. She was with her classmate Wang, who was a girl, and two other teenage boy who possibly were Wang’s friends. Let the time go back; at 6pm June 21, Wang came to Li’s rent place and asked her out, and nearly quarter past 11 pm, Wang called Li’s brother to tell him Li would stay at her home, and at 21 minutes past 12am of June 22, Wang called Li’s brother again and told him Li drown herself out of despair and homesick. 36 minuts past 12 am of June 22, Li’s brother arrived at the spot with police whom he random met on the road and found two teenage boys there with Wang.

Li’s family thought Wang and the two boys were the suspects. But local police provided a postmortem report that stated the death reason as drown, and avoid proving whether Li was sexually harmed, which led to her death.

Now this point, how locals rallied to torch the government building. First, they heard one of three suspects was released because he was son of local county chief or county communist party chief . Second, they heard Li’s uncle was beat dead when he was taken to police station. Third, they heard the uncle’s wife became insane out of police’s beating and threatening.

What’s the ending/ Li was buried, and a third and final postmortem report will out on 8th July. Local government Communist Party Chief and the county Chief were both removed from their post.

Some truth. Li ’s uncle was not dead, and Li’s aunt was not insane, but it was true Li’s uncle was beat by unknown men outside police station. 3 suspects’ parents were ordinary local farmers.

Some assume that: Li refused two boys to copy her answer during the secondary school graduation exam, and two boys wanted to teach her a lesson. They raped Li, and pushed her down in the river. In a similar case many years ago, a girl was raped and killed by three men, who escaped law’s punishment because some unknown reason. Some people compared two cases to think that someone inside government wanted to cover up for the criminal.

Weng’an was not a heavenly peace place, but a place full of crime, thanks to local gangsters. There were a lot of gangs, and they have been living threats on daily basis to local citizens. Local police certainly failed to protect people, and there were deep hatred and disappointment towards invalid government officials, especially police station, so it was ruined by fire.

What’s the truth? Shall we wait until the report is out? But to those who destory police station, did they do anything wrong, and should they answer for their doings?