Absurdity, Allegory and China

Here in Tianjin for the past month it has been quiet, and the normally grimy air has been cleaner. The Games brought a relative peace to the city, if not the promised Olympic windfall, since a dozen soccer matches is hardly enough to make a dent in the vacancy rate of the large number of [...]

[Read more →]

Last March I wrote a post anticipating the Olympic protests in support of a ‘free’ Tibet. Nothing prescient, mind you; anyone with a tooth in their head, and a lot of folks without, could have anticipated attempts at extreme displays. If your plan is to make a scene, I am asking you to review your [...]

[Read more →]

As the flap over the audio and video enhancement of the Olympic opening ceremony widens, Zhang Yimou, the director of the spectaculorama, is taking it on the chin. The foundation of his reputation was built upon his portrayal of life in the countryside, showing the world a side of China that the Chinese were not [...]

[Read more →]

I managed to score a free ticket to the US-China basketball game this past Sunday evening. My default resistance to being part of any crowded event usually keeps me far from large, snot-spitting sporting events where the object seems more about getting worked up into a common lather than it does about any higher ideals. [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve just arrived back in Tianjin from four days in Beijing, and there’s so much to talk about I hardly know where to begin. Photos of the CCTV Headquarters Building seems to be as good as place as any while I collect my thoughts. There’s the bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing (and vice versa, [...]

[Read more →]

Last night while I was talking with my mother in Philadelphia, a wonderful woman (she’s my mom, after all), she said, “I heard that there was another earthquake in China close to where the big one was in May.” I told her I’d not heard, though as we chatted I got on the web and [...]

[Read more →]

Whether or not it is official I cannot say, but it appears as if Tianjin has gone to Plan B. I just received word that the odd-even vehicular restrictions will go into effect tomorrow, Wednesday, August 6, effective through August 15th. From 12:00 to 22:00 inside the outer ring road – though not including the [...]

[Read more →]

George Bush is coming to town. For fun. And Games too. And to speak, as well, on religious rights (or right, as in, “When he fumbles the ball he’s ambidextrous, but in the church softball league he bats right.”), or so it looks from here. A duck, lame or otherwise, in Beijing in August 2008 [...]

[Read more →]

In the latest dance of finger-pointing into empty space, the IOC has unveiled their newest strategy, which is actually an ESL Revisionist View of Recent History. As the flap continues over what the IOC was promised by BOCOG and China and what the IOC head, Jacques Rogge, actually meant to say about the censorship issue [...]

[Read more →]

It’s 5:05 AM, the day the Olympic Torch comes to my neighborhood in Tianjin. The sound checks have just begun, eight minutes before sunrise. The sound-checker’s voice seems tired, as it should. He was sound-checking until after 10 last night. Perhaps he camped out in the stadium overnight so he wouldn’t have to walk so [...]

[Read more →]