City Weekend’s Olympic specialist, Miranda Lin, sets off with one mission: to find out exactly how locals and expats are feeling about the upcoming Olympics

Home

9:30 a.m. Rise and shine. I hate my alarm clock. I throw it across the room and roll around for another half an hour. I begrudgingly force myself out of bed and into the morning haze.
10:05 Daily breakfast and browse routine, starting with world news and the Olympic blogs that have now taken over my bookmarks folder. Quickly degenerates into trashy celebrity gossip blogs. Before I head out, I do a final email check. Only an email from my mother making sure I’m still alive. She worries.

First Stop: Full Link Plaza

11:48 Most days the Starbucks here is buzzing, but today it’s really only zzz-ing as the first three people I approach all look as though I’ve just woken them from slumber. When I ask about the Olympics, they quickly wave me away with nothing more than a grumpy “I don’t really know.”
12:05 p.m. After scouting out my next victim, I approach with my well rehearsed introduction. He nervously blurts out that he has to go pick someone up and bolts out the door faster than you can say “Beijing Huanying Ni.” I later spot him on the front steps by himself.
12:12 At last, I score an interview—of sorts. I get a few somewhat meaningful comments from a Chinese student, who answers without looking up from his computer screen. He explains how he sees the Olympics as an important event in China’s development and a symbolic rebirth for his homeland. He himself has no tickets and doesn’t seem eager to get any. He just wants to play Doom, or whatever the kids are playing these days.

Taxi Cab

12:32 On my way to The Place, I try to engage the cab driver in casual banter. I finally find my opening when the rain begins to pour (at least it serves some purpose). We both lament the recent onslaught of precipitation, talk about how it must be for the Games and then: “So, shifu, what do you think of the Olympics?” His response sounds eerily familiar: It’s an important moment for China and symbolizes its new place in the world. I’m beginning to sense a pattern.

Second Stop: The Place

12:50 Grab an afternoon pick-me-up at Pacific Coffee and chat with three local businessmen. I ask if they’re excited, which gets a very enthusiastic “Of course!” When pressed for greater detail, they fall silent and exchange sideway glances before one cautiously says, “It’s a great moment for China ...” I know how this ends.
1:05 Inside the coffee shop, I meet a group of American expats hanging out in the back corner. Though they seem warm and jovial, when the topic of the Olympics is raised, their mood turns more somber.
1:17 The Place is the place to be on Saturday morning. There’s some sort of outdoors concert being staged featuring half-naked, rayon-clad men scampering around and an equal number of powder-pink tulle-robed girls fluttering about backstage. Rapt onlookers make perfect prey, but after speaking to almost a dozen locals and several passing foreigners, I come away with only two messages: The Olympics are great for China and visas suck.

Third Stop: Sanlitun

3:25 I subway up to expat central. The sun is still up (though not visible behind the suffocating layer of whatever it is out there) and Bar Street has yet to descend into debauchery. I drop into cafes and DVD stores. Foreign patrons seem, at most, ambivalent towards the Olympics; each has a visa story at the ready.
5:12 I pass by Worker’s Stadium. It’s the Kro’s Nest Bachelor Auction and the women loitering around have no interest in talking to someone of their own sex, much less about the Olympics. These ladies are on the prowl.

Final Stop: Wudaokou

8:05 I’m really here to see Carsick Cars and Hedgehog at D-22, but decide to do some “investigative research” while I’m at it. It’s exam season in student land and everyone seems too sleep deprived and anxiety-ridden to form coherent thoughts. No one has tickets to the Games, no one is looking for tickets, no one seems to care that much.

Home Sweet Home

1:03 a.m. Feet trampled from the concert, I arrive home and bee-line it to the shower. Clean and hydrated, I kick up my feet and settle in for more late night web surfing. There’s another message from my mother. Yes, I’m still alive.

What we think...

Miranda flew 10,000 kilometers to cover the Olympics for City Weekend, but that’s nothing compared to all the ground she covers each day keeping her finger on the pulse of Olympic Beijing.Check out her blog at www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijingolympics for daily updates.