Asia

After several days of smoggy skies and widespread skepticism about whether Beijing can get air pollution under control in time for the start of the Olympics next week, the city caught a break. Last night produced thunder but little rain, but the skies finally opened up around mid-morning. The downpour was short but effective. For most of …

From Gracye Cheng, a look at the state of Beijing’s air:

Beijing’s manifold approach to cut down on pollution–limiting vehicle use, suspending construction and shutting down factories in the city and across 6 provinces–has certainly prompted changes in the everyday lives of its residents, but these sweeping measures seem to have …

FYI, here’s our take on this issue.

Seeing that this generated a fair bit of commentary–and argument–I think it’s worth noting that the Beijing Olympic Committee apologized for the behavior of the police during the scuffles at the Olympic ticket sales last week. Here’s the story from the South China Morning Post (which is not entirely disinterested in this matter of …

Furthr to Lin’s post below, some of the police didn’t take kindly to their crowd control efforts being filmed and a Hong Kong reporter and cameraman got roughed up and their equipment broken. They managed to preserve their footage (see here), which shows some pretty aggressive behavior by the police towards the reporters, something that …

From my colleague Lin Yang, here’s some footage and an account of the arduous ticket lines in Beijing today:

The final stage of Olympic ticket sales started at 9 a.m. Friday. I wanted to witness the moment of excitement when the ticket windows finally opened and people who had waited for two days got their tickets—if only I

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I was going to call it the dirty little secret of China’s Olympics, but it’s not so little and it’s not much of a secret. China is and has been a huge source of product for blood-doping, steroid-shooting athletes across the sporting spectrum. Now, ARD, the German television network, has done a terrific documentary on the subject, …

The character for pressure in Chinese is 壓力 . (That’s YA LI in pinyin). Think the Chinese hoop team is feeling any these days? This from 7 foot forward Yi Jianlian’s blog (Yi played for the Milwaukee Bucks this past year and was recently traded to the New Jersey Nets):

This morning Hu Jintao came to watch our practice. Even

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Some thoughts from our colleague Lin Yang:

Many of us joined the spontaneous carnival in the streets on a summer night seven years ago when Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. But as the moment of glory finally arrives, the exultation is no longer shared by all.

I have noticed growing sentiment recently in Internet posts and daily

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And speaking of living in Beijing (my story about how great it is here), it can’t hurt to repeat just how gobsmacking the changes in the city continue to be, particularly for those of us who saw the place in the 90s. The video below is taken at a new shopping center on the north west corner of Chaoyang Park, Beijing’s largest. It is …

The Pew Research Center (which describes itself as “a nonpartisan ‘fact tank’ that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.) has just released a poll of attitudes in China. There’s a bunch of interesting stuff but one fact should warm the hearts of cadres in Communist Party headquarters in …

Lin Yang from TIME’s Beijing bureau has these thoughts about the city’s Olympic traffic plan:

Driving the four miles between my home and the office can take up to an hour, but with vehicle traffic drastically cut yesterday it took half that. Beijing’s drive to radically improve air quality for the Olympics means only private cars …

Literally, one gas mask.
I began using this headline for these postings months ago with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Now comes today’s Wall Street Journal with this hilarious piece about Olympic athletes who are LITERALLY planning to wear gas masks in Beijing.

U.S. triathlete Jarrod Shoemaker has a decision to make at the opening

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