Took a tour of the Olympic Green today. I’m so lucky my venue is next door to the two coolest stadiums in the world right now. To pass by the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube on my way to work rocks.

The area around the National Indoor Stadium looks like a Six Flags without the rides: long stretches of concrete with scattered sculptures and port-o-potties. We called it the Olympic Gray. Right now, it looks like a ghost town. It’s the only place in this city where I don’t have to worry about being run over! It’s weird to think that in, like, 20 days, this place will be teeming with athletes, coaches and fans from around the world.

I also work next to the tower where TV stations will operate during the Games. Right under the tower, workers were building the semi-circle mini studio for Good Morning America. Look for great pictures by clicking (more) below.

(UPDATE: Earlier, I said the tower near my venue was where the Olympic Flame would rest during the games. On further research, this may not be accurate. Turns out, details of the torch's whereabouts in Beijing are still unreleased. My bad! Don't worry though, I'll find out where it's going!)

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At the first day of BOCOG training, I sat next to a Chinese journalist from Beijing TV. We got to talking, and I don’t remember how this came up, but she taught me how to count to three in Chinese (yi, er, san!)

Anyway, she ended up interviewing me for her show, Beijing Nin Zao (Good Morning Beijing). The link is here, although I’m not positive it will work in the States. We’ll have to see. (Basically, I just have a 15-second clip explaining that, while I’m nervous about working as an ONS reporter, I think my journalism training has prepared me. Still, pretty cool and seen by millions!)

The other day, she sent me an email to tell me my story had aired. Apparently, when she Googled my name and related news, she found that I am “very famous” on the major Chinese news wire, Xinhua. She called Xinhua “the most authorized web news in China.” Here’s that link.

And if you live in China or get CCTV 5, check it out tomorrow at 5:30pm China time. They did a story on me, kind of a "Day in the life of a Beijing Olympic Volunteer."

Pretty crazy, eh? I should start charging. I asked the Beijing TV reporter why the media was so interested in doing stories on us, and she looked shocked that I'd even ask. "We want to know what you think about our country!" she said.

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So I tried the Mexican food…

Now, when it comes to Mexican food, I’m pretty tough to please, as I’m sure most of y’all are. My Mizzou friends say I’m a snob when I call it “queso” and not “cheese sauce.” (I mean, really. Cheese sauce?)

Anyway, last night I joined some girls at Beijing’s oldest Mexican food restaurant, the Mexican Wave, founded in 1988 near Beijing’s Soho. The tortilla chips were made of pita, and the salsa tasted more like marinara – but they were still good. My burrito was delicious! It was baked, so the tortilla was slightly crispy. I’d never had anything like it in Texas. I could pick up the burrito and not worry about anything falling out!

Click (more) to read my review of the two Mexican joints I’ve tried!
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When Grampa got to Beijing on January 22, 1979, he said it was the smoggiest and most cosmopolitan city he’d seen in China. In the margins next to a story he tells about his hotel, he writes this note: “For newspapers they post signs on billboards and the people stop and read them.”

Today, the media scene is very different. I wrote a little about it earlier after visiting two of the major newspapers in Beijing: the People’s Daily and the Beijing Youth Daily. Today’s Chinese media serves millions of readers in dozens of languages by providing news on the TV, in papers, and even on cell phones. I figured posted papers had died off as the city grew.

Then the other day in Purple Bamboo Park, I saw a group of old men gathered around several pages of newspaper posted in a glass case. They stood in a big group, hands behind their backs, reading. I was reminded of a picture my grandparents took of people reading the paper 30 years ago. They look exactly the same.n (Click (more) below to see the pic.)

Maybe these men are holding onto tradition? Maybe the park is a place to unwind and find today’s news? Or maybe it was just a list of advertisements and I couldn’t tell because they were in Chinese… Does anyone know if posted papers are still a way Beijingers get their news?


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Yesterday was my first day of work at the National Indoor Stadium, where competitions for Artistic Gymnastics, Trampoline Gymnastics, Handball and Wheelchair Basketball will happen during the Olympic Games and Paralympics.

The stadium is designed to look like a fan lying on its side. It’s next to the Water Cube and caddy-corner from the Bird’s Nest – so I’m right in the heart of the Olympic Green. Inside, they’re still working on a few last minute things, like getting all the direction signs up and decorating the press conference room. The office where I’ll be working (mostly tables and computers) and the office where the press will be working (same thing) both seem ready,

When we entered the FOP (fancy acronym for the Field of Play, or gymnastics floor), my eyes went skyward. The ceiling is one long skylight with wooden slits, so the sun beams down in rays. It’s beautiful (see the pic). As I followed the rays down, I saw a line of flags from countries around the world, rows and rows of spectators’ seats, and, at the bottom of the stadium, a big blue floor with a beam, vault and parallel bars set up and waiting.

Click (more) for more description and pictures!
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Today was our second and last day of BOCOG training. I won’t go much into it because even I thought it was boring, albeit useful. Tomorrow, I start training at the National Indoor Stadium with the other Gymnastics reporters.

After training, we went to the Olympics Flagship Store on Wangfujing street, a major shopping thoroughfare. The shopping area is pedestrian-only (a must when you consider Beijing traffic), and the Olympics store is right next to a 2-story McDonalds that is so packed they added an outside service window (like a drive-through, but without any cars.)

The Olympics store sold everything you could possibly want with the Olympic Rings logo on it: flash drives, calligraphy sets, silk PJ’s, stamps. Well, almost everything, I guess. I tried to get a cool sackpack for my brother, Will, whose old one is trashed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one, and “sackpack” doesn’t translate. (Don’t worry, bro, I got you a sweet T-shirt!)

I wanted to go to the Olympics store today because I have a feeling all the prices will go up in the next week or so. And either everyone else had the same idea or Olympics stuff is just really popular because the store was jammed with people. To buy something, you had to tell a sales clerk what you wanted, get a ticket, take it to a cashier, pay, take the ticket back and receive your wrapped merchandise. The line to pay wrapped around whole sections of the store.

How about you? Do you need any Olympics cuff links? A solid gold model of the Bird’s Nest? Cause I know where to get ‘em.

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My grandfather always said that if he moved to China and wanted to strike it rich, he would raise pigs. When he was there in 1979, every household needed pigs for meals, and today is no different. The most common meal I have is sweet-and-sour pork!

But I don’t know how good I’d be at raising pigs, so I’ve decided that if I want to get rich in China, I’ll work as a translator. Not a Chinese to English translator…a Chinglish to English translator. The signs and menus here are hilarious. They’re all so close to being right…and yet so far.

Click (more) and check out these pics.


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After training, I took my friend Regan to the Purple Bamboo Park I’ve blogged about earlier. We walked around the lake and talked about home. Mostly, we just lay in the grass and listened to the saxophone players practice.

For some reason, the Chinese love playing Christmas carols. The sax players serenaded us with Jingle Bells and the pizza joint next-door to our hotel switches between Sleigh Ride and songs from the ‘90s. Even the cafeterias here on campus have Santa decorations up! I like to think Christmas is all year round in China.

For dinner, a huge group of Americans got together at the Hard Rock Café! I know I’ve only been gone two weeks, but it felt really good to eat a cheeseburger and sing along to music I knew! In English!

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Monday night, I was invited to join the audience of a big CCTV talk show! The name was in Chinese, so I don’t remember it… We just called him Choprah, because his show is watched in China the way the US watches Oprah. (UPDATE: The show is called "Xiao cui shuo shi", means "Mr. Cui talks about something..." Thanks JHuang!!)

This show was about volunteers at the Olympics. His guests included a guy from BOCOG, the oldest volunteer for the Olympic Games (He’s 88!), and disabled children from a province in China who made gifts for volunteers in the audience. I left with a beautiful carving of a Chinese opera character, which I loved because we’d seen the opera the night before.

The show reminded me a lot of a daytime Jay Leno, although our host didn’t talk to the band. The host of the show is famous for being ugly, and he improvised the whole show for about two hours while we listened on headsets for the translations. (That must be tough for the host – all our laughs are a second off!) Off camera, a guy sitting at a keyboard would play sound effects after every joke, soft music during every cute story, and techno the rest of the time.

Click (more) for…well…more



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We had our first day of training yesterday!

Basically, it was one big introduction to who we are, who we work for and what we do — all very helpful. I’ll be working during the Olympics as a Flash Quote Reporter for the Olympics News Service (ONS). My job is to interview gymnasts and upload their quotes into a computer database so working journalists can use them in their stories. Pretty simple.

Yesterday we practiced by listening to interviews and trying to take down quotes. It was tough, especially when the athlete didn’t speak English well or spoke with a thick accent. (Can you do it? I challenge you: Find a YouTube video and try to write down 2-3 good quotes from it! It's tougher than you think.) I’ll have training every day fro now until the Olympics, so hopefully I’ll be prepared by 8-8-08!

Just wrap your mind around this: There are 200+ international volunteers (what I am) joining the 951-member team of the ONS (a new record!) to help 20,000+ journalists cover the Games. That blows my mind.


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