Where to start? Yes, it is as foggy, smoggy as advertised. It's a sunny Friday morning here, but the sun is a round yellow ball amid a sea of light gray. It's muggy but not intolerably so. We've had days like this in Philly. But not a summer's worth.
I expected it to look different than when I accompanied a high school soccer team here in 1984. But it's still a shock seeing all the highways, all the cars, all the buildings. Now when Chinese men huddle in crouches to play their various gambling games (I presume), they do so on cleanly paved sidewalks and amid flower-lined walls. Back in 1984, it was a scene often played out on dirt roads and rubble. Beijing looks very Western these days.
This may go down as the most manned Olympics of the five I have attended. The effort to be helpful may be unparelled. Australia had the weather and the water, and the people were great. Much more would have been made of Turin's rainy weather -- indeed days here look like days there only warmer. But Turin had the Alps nearby, and the food and wine. and their people were so welcoming.
Beijing is trying and trying hard. It's not an exaggeration to say that five people are ready to help you at each turn through even the smallest problems, and their English is at least passable and usually much better. Even the bathrooms are manned with helpful volunteers. Enthusiasm is always best at the start of these things, but the time and effort already taken by the workers here -- and I assume they are workers more than volunteers -- suggests that they will maintain it for the entire two weeks. still, I will be looking, for entertainment purposes, for signs that they are getting sick of us.
Tonight here, tomorrow morning there, I will attend the Opening Ceremonies. On our last day back in 1984, we watched the Closing Ceremonies in Los Angeles while having breakfast with Chinese diplomats. So it's fun for me thinking now it will be you watching at breakfast.
Speaking of food, I have yet to eat real Chinese. This is not all my fault. Handed out in a package given to the media was a list of phrases including this one:
War shamg my yee ger jew woo baa.
Translation: I would like to order a Big Mac.