Olympic Games
Olympic Games in China 2008
Rules of Etiquette
In 2006 the Chinese government started to clean up its capital city for the Olympic Games 2008. Beijing officials started a new campaign to make citizens behave better. More than fifty people have been fined for spitting in the streets. This is part of Beijing’s attempts to step up its efforts to civilize its citizens. 10000 bags were handed out to tourists to keep the city tidy and free from litter. Special teams patrolled the city’s tourist sites during China’s week-long Labour Day holiday. This is a time when hundreds of millions of Chinese are on the streets and spitting and littering are at their height.
The China National Tourism Administration has printed thousands of leaflets educating citizens and tourists on correct “street etiquette”. Also on the list of do’s and don’ts is jumping queues; people are reminded they have to stand in line and wait patiently. The 11th day of every month is now “voluntarily wait in line” day in Beijing. The city hopes its citizens will win the gold medal for perfect manners.
Bad behaviour:
· spitting
· eating as you walk
· dropping litter
· walking slowly
· queue jumping
· listening to a loud walkman
· staring at people
· drinking alcohol
Human rights
The Games in Peking have not made the People´s Republic any more liberal. They have stirred up more violations of human rights in China. July 2008, China had not allowed free internet researches in the Olympia–Press centre. Critical websites for example of Amnesty International were not recallable. None of the promises made by Peking before the contests concerning the human rights situation have been fulfilled. On the 10 July 2006 the city council published that 70 local laws and orders were released because they didn´t want undesired people in the city. Concerned are habitants without rights for living in Peking, migrant workers, beggars and handicapped people. 1.5 million people had to resettle because of the Olympic Games. The habitants of Peking were not allowed to go out.
But the International Olympic Committee and the sponsors of the Games have also failed, since they did not put any pressure on China´s authorities to bring an end to the violations of human rights. China has proved itself to be an important nation of sport, but with its frequently breaking its word has lost all credibility in questions of human rights.
Infrastructure
China invested 40 billion dollars to build up sports facilities and infrastructure projects. It was one of the largest construction projects ever in China since the construction of the Great Wall. 30000 workers realized this project. Beijing wanted to triple the length of its expressway networks, to expand and to upgrade its public transport system.
The sports facilities should be finished until the end of 2007 but they had to give up because the costs exploded, there was a lack of steel and they had technical problems. 3000 families were forced to resettle which cost 155 000 000 €.
The Olympic village is situated in the North of Beijing.
New buildings:
· National stadium for soccer and for athletics
· University for science and mechanics for judo
· University of Beijing for table-tennis
Weather manipulation
The Chinese wanted to make an attack on the clouds. They tried to inject clouds because they wanted to avoid rain during the Olympic Games. China invested between 35 and 60 million €. It was the greatest weather-manipulation programme worldwide. They also had employees, weather-manipulation-offices, a lot of planes and missile launchers Planes, canons and missile launchers are placed on 100 different places in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The Chinese government claims that they carried 30 billion tons of rain to the earth between 1999 and 2006.
The Chinese tried to let it rain in the outskirts of Beijing. Small clouds should not cover the sun and so they abrogated the clouds with salt.
The Chinese wanted to inject the clouds with silver iodide. There were lots of tries with silver iodide after World War 2. Silver iodide isn’t dangerous for the air but the attack on the atmosphere is extremely dangerous because heavy rains can occur on different places.
The spacious influence of the weather in Beijing is forbidden because of a law of the UN.
