Peaceful Rise

Dreamy riot police, where are you now? (from www.telegraph.co.uk) There was a crazy man on the subway during my commute this morning.  He sat across the car by the door and swore uncontrollably, punctuating the end of each string of curses with a tight swipe of his arm, as though he were smacking a child upside the head.  Then he would look around, half indignant and half afraid, and self-consciously stroke his long thin hair back behind his ear with the other hand.  As if suddenly remembering that the imaginary child hadn't quite learned his lesson, he would then burst out with another barrage of cursing, and strike the air again with his palm. This went on for at least ten minutes before I reached my stop.  Some people got nervous and went to other cars, and some people laughed at him openly.  Eventually one lady wearing a red security volunteer armband came by from the adjacent car and peered worriedly at the man.  People looked from the man to t...

There is a cute row of sculpted plant people engaging in various Olympic sports on display near Baishiqiao.  The artists behind the installations must have run out of time or funds by the time they decided to furnish these green creatures with actual sports equipment, to quite an amusing effect: The tennis and badminton players each have a ball and birdie respectively dangling sadly by a wire from their rackets.  I'd guess the tennis player is not actually supposed to be holding a tennis racket; he'd look much more comfortable with a kendo sword in his hands.  And I think the rifleman is aiming with something that might have been picked off a construction site across the street.

Don't be "excessive" when helping handicapped people. The diagram shows how to say "Beijing Welcomes You" in sign language. Today I happened across a new series of posters on the neighborhood propaganda bulletin boards about etiquette to be observed during the Olympics.  Olympics propaganda is not new to Beijing, nor are paternalistic slogans on how to be a "civilized" citizen, but this new series in particular caught my eye because of one poster with a list of rules for how to act around foreigners.  Always curious to understand more about Chinese behavior towards us Western folk, I stopped to take a closer look.  Most delightful was a list of eight questions Chinese are not to ask us, which if observed, would leave these curious and enthusiastic hosts with essentially nothing with which to make conversation.  Following are some translated excerpts along with photos from some of the posters: Smile When Communicating with Foreigners A Smile...

One World, One Dream, One-Piece Pajama Suit Usually when an area in Beijing is fenced off for destruction, the fencing is covered with huge canvas printed with repeating pictures of greenery: woods, lakes and parks with elderly people in wheelchairs happily being pushed along brick paths by healthy role-model youths, strolling one way down the right side of the picture and then the other way back in mirror image.  "No destruction here!" said the facades.  "Only beautiful greenery!" Now as of last week they have all been uniformly replaced by coverings printed with Beijing's Olympic slogan, brightly decorated in solid rainbow colors.  There are so many construction sites and all of the coverings were replaced so quickly that it's as though the whole city slipped into a new pair of pajamas.  It doesn't seem right that it should remind me so much of pajamas, seeing as Beijing is getting ready for either a party or an important formal occasion rather t...