So how’s Beijing coming along for the games?
Posted on: September 3rd, 2007 by Dave Bess
The Summer Olympics to be held in Beijing next year are monumental in the eyes of China, and some of the projects underway in preparation for the big event are truly staggering in scale.
The new airport terminal for example, Beijing Capital International Airport’s Terminal 3 is set to take the title of the largest terminal building in the world. And the Chinese will be ready to welcome world citizens with open arms. The event even has a theme song, something that fairly reeks of the last time Chinese solidarity songs were all the rage during the tenure of Mao.
Unquestionably the times have changed, but lines like, “This nation is ready, wearing a smile and saying hello,” reek of that same old blind idealism. Trainees for the new terminal describe their training: “We are told to smile more, deal more politely with people, and look at them when talking. We are the window for Beijing and China.”
The government surely sees the games as a way to clean up its image, but with stunts like this, how many of us do they think they’re fooling?