 Outside View
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-24 07:34 Beijing 'extremely' ready for Games Beijing has taken all measures to welcome the coming Games, though some seem to go to extremes, says an article in the Los Angeles Times. Since May, restaurants have been required to have no-smoking sections. DVD shops have pulled their stocks of pirated Hollywood films. Western-style toilets have replaced squat models in many locations. Almost all Olympics have been a springboard for host cities to reinvent themselves. But everything taking place in Beijing outsized what Barcelona, Athens and Seoul have ever done, the newspaper said. A forest twice the size of New York's Central Park was created next to the Olympic stadiums for air quality, 40 million pots of flowers were ordered, factories hundreds of miles away have been closed. "This is an extreme, extreme version of what has happened at other Olympics," said David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian. Costs are running three times those of the 2004 Games in Athens not only for large buildings such as the futuristic new airport terminal but also for taxi drivers' English skill training and etiquette training program for Olympic volunteers, the article said. "The problem is that the market economy happened so suddenly that people got involved in this harsh competition," Sha Lianxiang said, who is a professor from the Renmin University of China. Olympics changes capital of China Though it is too early to assess how well the Olympic-driven rules are being enforced in Beijing, taken together, they have already transformed the city, to some extent even unrecognizable, less than three weeks before the Summer Games begin, says an article in the Washington Post. Visibility was far above the usual few hundred yards. Streets were lined with newly planted flowers instead of dusty shrubbery. In parks and hotels, smoking was officially banned. And the city's legendary traffic jams had mostly vanished, the paper depicts. As the city prepares to welcome as many as half a million overseas visitors to the Games next month, residents greeted the two-month plan- including alternate driving days, depending on a car's license plate number - with a combination of grumbling and acceptance. "Usually it takes more than 10 minutes to cross under the Changhong Bridge, but today it took a minute," said Zhang Shuwang, as he traversed downtown on a major avenue nearly devoid of cars. "Ten years ago, the government promoted the dream of owning a car in order to develop the car industry," said Zhang Dalin, 40, a sales manager who usually drives to work but now takes a bus and the subway. "Now, traffic and pollution are so bad, they have to do something. But ordinary people shouldn't pay the price for the government's wrong decisions." The temporary traffic rules, ban on construction and factory closures are meant to reduce the amount of fine particulate matter and other pollutants that can harm athletes and spectators, the article said. Readers' comments are welcome. Please send mail to Letters to the Editor, China Daily, 15 Huixin Dongjie, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029 China. Send faxes to (86-10) 6491-8377. Send e-mail to opinion@chinadaily.com.cn or letters@chinadaily.com.cn or to the individual columnists. China Daily reserves the right to edit all letters. Thank you. (China Daily 07/24/2008 page9) |
