"It is almost as hard for friends to meet, As for the morning and evening stars. Tonight then is a rare event."
"But meet they did for the Olympic Games as Beijing kept its date with history. The lines by Du Fu, composed centuries ago, are truer than ever in this materialistic world where it has become so difficult for true friends to meet.
Tonight, friends will gather at the National Stadium (athletes, sport officials and journalists) and those across this wide expanse of planet we call our home will get a second glimpse of what China, its people, history and culture are all about.
Some medals are still to be won and the celebrations are still on. And no matter what Spanish tenor Placido Domingo and Chinese soprano Song Zuying sing tonight, the words will mean Amigos para siempre or We'll be one.
But the parting has to wait. Not so soon. China had to wait more than a century since first expressing its desire to host the world Games. It had to prepare for seven long years for 17 days of joy, with its 1.3 billion people rising as one to turn that dream into sweet reality. So when the dark cloud ultimately shrouds Beijing tonight it will not be without a silver lining."
Tom and I have been truly touched by this experience. We have been moved beyond words by the spirit and enthusiasm of the young people who are volunteers for these games - young men and women whose eyes just shine when they meet you and say: "Can I help you?" There is a lot of talk about a new, open China and a Beijing with a resolve to keep its air cleaner in the future. My hope, for the sake of these young people, is that this will all come about because of the big Coming Out Party which was called the 29th Olympiad.
We have been moved by the huge effort that went into putting these games on and by the sheer beauty of the venues; the whole city is manicured and for over two years, people in Beijing planted 1,000 plants or trees every day just for these 17 days.
I really get the feeling that China wants to promote peace and harmony, and that is what their slogan "One World, One Dream" was all about. I hope we can all live to see this happen.
I want to share my experience of two days ago. I had a day "free" so I went off alone to the Beijing Zoo, which is in the heart of downtown. Actually, all of Beijing seems to be downtown, as this is a city of 17 million people.
I had a wonderful afternoon with the pandas and tigers (see my photo album) - but when I left the zoo at 5:15 p.m. and tried to hail a taxi outside, I found myself out of luck. There I was in the heart of the city with 17 million other people trying to get taxis. After 15 minutes in the hot sun, I decided to walk somewhere and try to find a nice hotel, which could hopefully get me a taxi. I only got as far as the first corner, where four young volunteers were standing. As I approached, one of them said, "Can we help you?" I said, "I can't get a taxi."
They said, "Oh, we'll help you." And help me they did. It took them ONE HOUR to locate a cab, but the boys all stayed with me the whole time, walked me a long way through a tunnel to a hotel, and gave the cab driver one of their cell phones to call our hotel for directions.
I LOVE these boys!
The ride through the stalled traffic in Beijing was exactly one more hour. I could never deal with the conjestion here on a daily basis, and everyone tells us, "Oh, this is GOOD. Half the cars are off the road now for the Olympics". They use an odd/even license number rule to determine who drives on which day.
OK, more later. We leave early in the morning for our post tour with a flight to Shanghai, on Wednesday we go to Yi Chang for a transfer to a boat on the Yangtze River and on Sunday we arrive in Chongqing, after the river "cruise", and fly from there to Shanghai and home from there.
Here is the link to my latest photo album: http://picasaweb.google.com/ecker.carol/ATTHEBEIJINGZOO
More later,
Carol
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