The spirit lives on
Enjoying the Olympics does not necessarily mean watching the games either on TV screen or in a particular competition venue, although the Games has offered the Chinese people, residents in the host city of Beijing in particular, the convenience to have such fun.
Even for those who sit glued to their TV sets or frequent different competition venues to watch their favorite contests, it may mean catching different fragments from the same competitions. They may cheer for the victory of their favorite teams or athletes, and they may applaud the tenacity losing athletes have displayed.
Such a world gathering has provided an opportunity for people to have fun in different ways. Some rush to every competition site to collect brochures, although they do not have tickets for watching the games. Some collect mascots, stamps or other souvenirs and even used tickets.
A dentist from Anhui province has volunteered to be a shoepolisher for visitors free of charge outside the Water Cube. He feels the happiest to contribute to the Games in his own way.
Xiong Wei, a tobacco control advocate, donates competition tickets to whoever wants to sign an agreement to quit smoking for a year. He has already donated more than a dozen tickets to such smokers. Actually he has received hundreds of letters from smokers, who promised that they would quit their addiction to cigarettes since he published his notice in Beijing News. As a result, he called on more people to donate their tickets to encourage more to give up smoking. For him, the happiest thing from the Games is undoubtedly the chance to encourage more smokers to abandon their addiction.
As a world gathering for people in different colors, speaking different languages and from different countries to communicate and exchange not only in competitions but outside sports venues, the Olympic Games conveys its spirit of being faster, higher and stronger to all who participate in it either as athletes, volunteers or even spectators.
The Games will draw to its close in less than a week and life will continue as normal for athletes and residents in the host country as well. But the Olympic Spirit will remain, and many will have learned how to seek joy in the pursuit of their own goals.
Albert Schweitzer said that success is not the key to happiness, it is the other way round; and if you love what you are doing, you will succeed.
This should be what the Olympic Spirit means in a broader sense.
(China Daily 08/20/2008 page10)
