China’s Wang Jie hits over compatriot Xue Chen / THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images
When a Chinese team plays at the Beijing Olympics, the volume of crowd support can be impressive. And when two Chinese teams play each other? It was far short of deafening this morning when the team of Tian Jia and Wang Jie met Xue Chen and Zhang Xi in the …
KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
The excellent China Media Project based in Hong Kong University has put up an post examining the contradictory reporting in the Chinese press of the age of China’s “secret weapon” and multiple medal winner He Kexin. It cites a bunch of stories last year referring to her as a 13 year old (here’s our …
The other evening I chanced upon two copies of the TV & Entertainment Times from 1986. The magazine has long folded, but it was widely read in late colonial Hong Kong—my family were subscribers—and as an indicator of expatriate attitudes at the time it’s marvelous.
One article warns readers that the percentage of Chinese passengers …
You really have to feel for poor Liu Xiang, the world champion Chinese hurdler who more than anyone—more than Yao Ming or diver Guo Jingjing—was the face of these games for the host country. To those of you who haven’t been living here for the past couple of years, it’s hard to describe how omnipresent this guy was in the …
From Lin Yang, a look at how Beijing police are cracking down on Olympic ticket scalpers, and their instructions to her as a journalist on the scene:
Beijing police have launched an “iron fist crackdown” on Olympic ticket scalpers, the state-run Xinhua News Service reported. On the 15th alone, police arrested 110 “scalpers and
…
A visibly pained Liu Xiang pulled out of his first heat in the 110m hurdles today due to an injury. The star runner, who won the event in Athens four years ago to become China’s first men’s track gold medalist, had been under great pressure to defend his title in Beijing. Liu, whose face is ubiquitous on billboards in China, had been …
From my colleague Lin Yang on Friday’s baseball game between China and Taiwan, which is playing under the name Chinese Taipei:
Friday was a day of wonder. It had been a while since i last saw a sky so blue, and the Chinese men’s baseball team, in its Olympic debut, beat Chinese Taipei in 12 innings.
Unlike Taiwan, Japan and Korea,
…
Without a doubt this is a new must-see on a tour of the capital. It’s a rooftop bar at the boutique Emperor Hotel that opened a few months ago just outside the east gate of the Forbidden City, a stone’s throw from the moat. On a good evening (and even on a not so good one) the view at sunset is absolutely spectacular, the sun …
For all the Gold Chinese athletes have won so far in these games, yesterday had to hurt. First, in women’s gymnastics (or should that be, in China’s case, children’s gymnastics…?) the United States won Gold (Nastia Liukin) and Silver (Shawn Johnson) in the all around, making up for their humiliating loss in the team competition …
One interpretation of the Olympic spirit / MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images
It turns out the Spanish Olympic basketball team isn’t the only athletic team from Spain to be photographed making a racially charged slant-eyed gesture. Today the Telegraph reports on this picture of Spain’s Tennis Federation Cup women’s team members and …
This is my first Olympics as either a journalist or a sports fan, and I’m sure in any Games there always a bit of disconnect between Olympics World and the Real World. But I’m thinking this disconnect is a bit more pronounced here, in Beijng in 208. Can you imagine what the press coverage in the US would be if, in the run up to and …
