Beijing is offering five families from around the world a chance to become part of the 2008 Olympics and win a trip to China in an Internet project launched on April 9.
Ten families in all, five will be from China, will visit Beijing and other "selected co-host cities" in July and August after being chosen as an "Olympic family" by public vote on the official Games' Web site (www.beijing2008.cn).
"We continue to encourage public participation in the Olympics," Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, said at the launch ceremony.
"This will allow foreign families to get to know China and Beijing, shorten the distance between China and the rest of the world and reflect our slogan 'One world, one dream'," he added.
Janusz Tatera, a counsellor at Poland's embassy in Beijing and a former Polish Olympic official, was the first to sign up his family as part of the ceremony.
A short-list of 100 families, who will be required to write a "theme blog" about the Olympics, will be whittled down to the final 10 by votes on the Web site and by mobile phone text vote. The Beijing Olympics start on August 8, 2008.
