summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2009-02-19 11:47 pm
summercomfort) wrote2009-02-19 11:47 pm
China and the Olympics
I feel like I've blogged about this, but in fact, it was all in a series of emails. Plus there's a whole list of things that I didn't write about on a post-it somewhere.
Basically, I was in China to volunteer for the Olympics this summer. It was quite an experience. I think I understand certain aspects of China better now.
I was in Shanghai for a week, visiting all the family members. Then I took a train to Beijing and found myself at the wrong Beijing train station and way too early in the morning for our handlers to be awake.
The Location:
I was assigned to work at Fengtai Softball Field, which was not part of the main Olympic Park, but was instead in the Southwest, around the 4th loop. Whereas the northern half of Beijing is very developed around the 4th loop, southern Beijing around the 4th loop is basically the boonies. It was a 40 minute bus ride just to get somewhere with a subway line.
We lived in the student dorms of a city economics school, and rode a charter bus to work at the stadium every day. The student dorms were gender-segregated. There were 4 bunks in each room, but they assigned only 2 of us per room. The bathroom is down the hall, and the hot water was across the yard. Showers were across the street in another area, and only open 7pm-12pm. In the rooms there was a fan. This was frustrating because there was no TV for us to actually watch the Olympics on. The other frustrating thing was that their curfew was 12:30am-6am. Which meant that if you were out past 12:30pm, you wouldn't be allowed in until 6am. Add to that the fact that it takes 1-2 hours to get into the city, and the fact that the evening shift gets off at 11pm, meant that night revelries were difficult.
The Job:
I had gone there knowing that I was part of "Spectator Services", but not knowing anything else. There were 18 of as Chinese-Foreigners, but we were in fact integrated into a 300-person group of "Spectator Services" college student volunteers, doing basically what everyone else was doing. I think many people were frustrated because we went there to "do our part", expecting to be able to contribute more with our knowledge of foreign countries, but instead we were stuck doing something that really any Chinese college student could do. In fact, many of us were much worse at Chinese.
Anyway, I was assigned to be in the "grounds services" sub-branch of Spectator Services. Spectator Services was divided into the Gate, the Grounds, and the Stands. Those at the Gate were in charge of checking tickets and scanning bags. Those in the Stands were in charge of ushering and managing order. Those in the Grounds were in charge of giving directions and running the information booth. Specifically, my job was to sit in a tall lifeguard chair with a megaphone and inform the spectators to "Proceed forward 100 meters to the softball field." While those in the Gate services would be moved to the Stands as support staff during the game, those in the Grounds was not allowed to step onto the Stands, so I didn't actually get to watch a softball game until the final game, when I went there in normal clothes and snuck into the stands. A good thing about Grounds Services was that we got to hand out little trinkets, which meant that we got to keep some surplus trinkets. Aside from Spectator Services, there were a variety of other departments, such as media, guest services, etc.
There were 4 games each day, starting 8:30am, 12:30am, 3pm, 7pm. These games were divided into two shifts. The morning shift would arrive at the field at 6am, have breakfast and be at our posts at 7am. There would be a half-hour lunch between 11am-1pm, after which the shift ends at 2pm. The evening shift shows up at 2pm, work, have a half-hour dinner between 5pm-7pm, and then finish at 10pm, after which there is a small snack. I was in the 6am-2pm shift, but I switched twice with someone to the evening shift so that I could go somewhere in the morning. When we signed in in the mornings, they would hand out small "incentivizers", such as small pins or buttons. Some would then attempt to trade those pins with spectators.
The other students had had half a year of training. We had ... 2 days. One of them was spent playing cards. Well, technically there were seven days, but 1 was spent arriving, 1 was spent "adjusting", 1 was spent being welcomed by officials, 1 was spent meeting our officers of spectator services and getting our assignments, 1 was spent actually at the field and getting a tour, 1 was spent off, and 1 was a rehearsal day, wherein we played cards while the broadcaster figured out the sound system. I guess there was no point in really training us. There was an issue of getting a uniform of the right size, as well. (This frustrated many of us, because they asked us for uniform sizes back in May, so we expected to have something our size when we showed up.)
The food was horrible. Breakfast the first day was promising: a bread roll, a choice of yogurt or milk, an apple, a half-cup of congee, a choice of meat bun or plain bun, and 2 powder sausages (yuck). Then the bread disappeared (apparently they were discovered to be past the expiration date?). Then the yogurt disappeared. Then the fruit started getting worms. For a week it was just plain buns, congee, milk and 2 powder sausages. Ick, powder sausages. And lunch was rice and 4 stir-frys of yuck. To be eaten with a SPORK. I promptly started packing my own chopsticks. Also, the only food available for the spectators was sold in Cola-Cola stalls. They had: dry ramen packets, potato chips, and sausages. This was not helpful for the spectators who wanted to stay past lunch.
The good thing about lunch was that there was TV in the dining room. So I would pick a good seat and get to watch 30 minutes of the Olympics. Yes, the irony of traveling to Beijing to sit in a lunch room to watch the Olympics was not lost on me. I saw the Olympics in snippets -- in the lunch room, when visiting parents' friends in Beijing and they had the TV on, in the foyer of the shower room, on the subway news monitors, etc. I would check online news sites every night for medal counts and some video streams. (But not too many videos b/c it cost a lot to stream it in the dorm).
To be fair, I did watch 3 games during the Olympics. As a "special treat", some of the Spectator Services people got tickets to a Women's Soccer game. And because our handlers felt bad for us, they worked out some connections and got us in to watch 2-person synchronized swimming prelims. And of course, I snuck into the Softball game finals, which was pretty awesome because Japan beat America. So yes, I got to see games! Yay! Although they were all pretty confusing without any sort of commentator. Me at synchronized swimming: "um... they were under the water a lot and did cool spinny things with their legs? Does this mean they're good? What, why was that an 8.2?"
The People:
The Chinese-Foreigners come from: New Zealand, England (2), Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada (3), USA (4), Germany, Austria, Italy (2), France, Korea. But really, the division was between those who went abroad in high school (7 of those), and those who grew up abroad (11 of us). But there was also a difference between those who grew up abroad in an environment with a strong Chinese cultural identity (Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong->Canada, Malaysia->New Zealand), and those who grew up in places with little pressure to be "Chinese" (England, Canada, US, Austria, Italy, France). We all got along pretty well. The morning shift had me, a guy from New Zealand, and the two Brits, so we walked around speaking English all the time. There was a wide range of Chinese knowledge among the foreign-born, so I magically became the "representative" of the girls. As in, our handlers would talk to me ("Make sure everyone is gathered at this meeting spot at 3pm" "No, make that 3:10pm" "No, make that 3pm again"). It also meant that during certain officials-visiting situations, I'd have to represent, and sit at the table with the officials and do schmoozing. The representative for the guys is this China kid from Germany. He was young (18), and also affiliated with the embassy in Germany, and it showed.
Then there's the college students who we worked with. Most of them were pretty cool. I got to become good friends with a few of them, and they would take us out to cool places around Beijing. Monv and I once braved torrential rain to go visit the Capital Museum. She also took me shopping and invited me to her house for dinner! The students at this school were an interesting mix. This school is a second-tier school, which means that the students here are either second-tier students, or first-tier students who aimed too high. (For example, if you needed a 630 on the college entrance exams to get into Beijing University, but you only got 626, then you can only go to your second tier school, which might have a cut-off line of 400. Whereas if you listed as your first-tier Qinghua university, whose cut-off line was 623 that year, then you would have entered a first-tier school.) So, really smart and ambitious students, and average students. Basically, half the students are confused, and the other half don't want to be there, and are all taking the TOEFL to go abroad.
Then there's the leadership/the handlers. Most of these people were young-ish. Between 22 and 24, mostly. Younger than me! At first I was confused: why was everyone calling these people "teacher"? Did they teach at the college? It turned out that they're college students who graduated the previous year. They were part of the student party structure, which meant that they were guaranteed a graduate position at the college. But instead of going straight into graduate work, they take 1-3 years off and help with school administration. Basically, they functioned in Student Life, or as RAs. Our handler from the Overseas Chinese Affairs is a 30-year-old guy with a 6-year-old daughter. He really liked taking pictures and was fun to talk to, but also very much had to toe the party line.
The Other stuff:
My mom gave me a list of 3 people to visit, and my dad gave me a list of another 2, plus 2 museums, so when I wasn't working I was running around meeting people and doing stuff. After a long conversation with one of Mom's old friends, I feel like I finally understand the idea of guanxi. She also hooked me up with one Chinese Opera show and one show in the Bird Egg (the opera/music place). I watched the opening ceremonies at a fancy hotel near the Birds Nest after some delicious Brazilian food. I visited an avant-garde artist studio area with our Chinese School's ex-veep. I discovered a hidden shadow-puppet theater while walking around Da Shan Lan. I rode a bus way out to the boonies to see a private Chinese art gallery. All of the foreign Chinese went on a all-night karaoke. And visited some of the night clubs. Plus I visited family. All in all, I made very good use of the free Beijing public transit pass that they gave me, and got to know the city pretty well.
So overall: Olympics-- B. People-- A. Other Stuff-- A.
Basically, I was in China to volunteer for the Olympics this summer. It was quite an experience. I think I understand certain aspects of China better now.
I was in Shanghai for a week, visiting all the family members. Then I took a train to Beijing and found myself at the wrong Beijing train station and way too early in the morning for our handlers to be awake.
The Location:
I was assigned to work at Fengtai Softball Field, which was not part of the main Olympic Park, but was instead in the Southwest, around the 4th loop. Whereas the northern half of Beijing is very developed around the 4th loop, southern Beijing around the 4th loop is basically the boonies. It was a 40 minute bus ride just to get somewhere with a subway line.
We lived in the student dorms of a city economics school, and rode a charter bus to work at the stadium every day. The student dorms were gender-segregated. There were 4 bunks in each room, but they assigned only 2 of us per room. The bathroom is down the hall, and the hot water was across the yard. Showers were across the street in another area, and only open 7pm-12pm. In the rooms there was a fan. This was frustrating because there was no TV for us to actually watch the Olympics on. The other frustrating thing was that their curfew was 12:30am-6am. Which meant that if you were out past 12:30pm, you wouldn't be allowed in until 6am. Add to that the fact that it takes 1-2 hours to get into the city, and the fact that the evening shift gets off at 11pm, meant that night revelries were difficult.
The Job:
I had gone there knowing that I was part of "Spectator Services", but not knowing anything else. There were 18 of as Chinese-Foreigners, but we were in fact integrated into a 300-person group of "Spectator Services" college student volunteers, doing basically what everyone else was doing. I think many people were frustrated because we went there to "do our part", expecting to be able to contribute more with our knowledge of foreign countries, but instead we were stuck doing something that really any Chinese college student could do. In fact, many of us were much worse at Chinese.
Anyway, I was assigned to be in the "grounds services" sub-branch of Spectator Services. Spectator Services was divided into the Gate, the Grounds, and the Stands. Those at the Gate were in charge of checking tickets and scanning bags. Those in the Stands were in charge of ushering and managing order. Those in the Grounds were in charge of giving directions and running the information booth. Specifically, my job was to sit in a tall lifeguard chair with a megaphone and inform the spectators to "Proceed forward 100 meters to the softball field." While those in the Gate services would be moved to the Stands as support staff during the game, those in the Grounds was not allowed to step onto the Stands, so I didn't actually get to watch a softball game until the final game, when I went there in normal clothes and snuck into the stands. A good thing about Grounds Services was that we got to hand out little trinkets, which meant that we got to keep some surplus trinkets. Aside from Spectator Services, there were a variety of other departments, such as media, guest services, etc.
There were 4 games each day, starting 8:30am, 12:30am, 3pm, 7pm. These games were divided into two shifts. The morning shift would arrive at the field at 6am, have breakfast and be at our posts at 7am. There would be a half-hour lunch between 11am-1pm, after which the shift ends at 2pm. The evening shift shows up at 2pm, work, have a half-hour dinner between 5pm-7pm, and then finish at 10pm, after which there is a small snack. I was in the 6am-2pm shift, but I switched twice with someone to the evening shift so that I could go somewhere in the morning. When we signed in in the mornings, they would hand out small "incentivizers", such as small pins or buttons. Some would then attempt to trade those pins with spectators.
The other students had had half a year of training. We had ... 2 days. One of them was spent playing cards. Well, technically there were seven days, but 1 was spent arriving, 1 was spent "adjusting", 1 was spent being welcomed by officials, 1 was spent meeting our officers of spectator services and getting our assignments, 1 was spent actually at the field and getting a tour, 1 was spent off, and 1 was a rehearsal day, wherein we played cards while the broadcaster figured out the sound system. I guess there was no point in really training us. There was an issue of getting a uniform of the right size, as well. (This frustrated many of us, because they asked us for uniform sizes back in May, so we expected to have something our size when we showed up.)
The food was horrible. Breakfast the first day was promising: a bread roll, a choice of yogurt or milk, an apple, a half-cup of congee, a choice of meat bun or plain bun, and 2 powder sausages (yuck). Then the bread disappeared (apparently they were discovered to be past the expiration date?). Then the yogurt disappeared. Then the fruit started getting worms. For a week it was just plain buns, congee, milk and 2 powder sausages. Ick, powder sausages. And lunch was rice and 4 stir-frys of yuck. To be eaten with a SPORK. I promptly started packing my own chopsticks. Also, the only food available for the spectators was sold in Cola-Cola stalls. They had: dry ramen packets, potato chips, and sausages. This was not helpful for the spectators who wanted to stay past lunch.
The good thing about lunch was that there was TV in the dining room. So I would pick a good seat and get to watch 30 minutes of the Olympics. Yes, the irony of traveling to Beijing to sit in a lunch room to watch the Olympics was not lost on me. I saw the Olympics in snippets -- in the lunch room, when visiting parents' friends in Beijing and they had the TV on, in the foyer of the shower room, on the subway news monitors, etc. I would check online news sites every night for medal counts and some video streams. (But not too many videos b/c it cost a lot to stream it in the dorm).
To be fair, I did watch 3 games during the Olympics. As a "special treat", some of the Spectator Services people got tickets to a Women's Soccer game. And because our handlers felt bad for us, they worked out some connections and got us in to watch 2-person synchronized swimming prelims. And of course, I snuck into the Softball game finals, which was pretty awesome because Japan beat America. So yes, I got to see games! Yay! Although they were all pretty confusing without any sort of commentator. Me at synchronized swimming: "um... they were under the water a lot and did cool spinny things with their legs? Does this mean they're good? What, why was that an 8.2?"
The People:
The Chinese-Foreigners come from: New Zealand, England (2), Malaysia, Indonesia, Canada (3), USA (4), Germany, Austria, Italy (2), France, Korea. But really, the division was between those who went abroad in high school (7 of those), and those who grew up abroad (11 of us). But there was also a difference between those who grew up abroad in an environment with a strong Chinese cultural identity (Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong->Canada, Malaysia->New Zealand), and those who grew up in places with little pressure to be "Chinese" (England, Canada, US, Austria, Italy, France). We all got along pretty well. The morning shift had me, a guy from New Zealand, and the two Brits, so we walked around speaking English all the time. There was a wide range of Chinese knowledge among the foreign-born, so I magically became the "representative" of the girls. As in, our handlers would talk to me ("Make sure everyone is gathered at this meeting spot at 3pm" "No, make that 3:10pm" "No, make that 3pm again"). It also meant that during certain officials-visiting situations, I'd have to represent, and sit at the table with the officials and do schmoozing. The representative for the guys is this China kid from Germany. He was young (18), and also affiliated with the embassy in Germany, and it showed.
Then there's the college students who we worked with. Most of them were pretty cool. I got to become good friends with a few of them, and they would take us out to cool places around Beijing. Monv and I once braved torrential rain to go visit the Capital Museum. She also took me shopping and invited me to her house for dinner! The students at this school were an interesting mix. This school is a second-tier school, which means that the students here are either second-tier students, or first-tier students who aimed too high. (For example, if you needed a 630 on the college entrance exams to get into Beijing University, but you only got 626, then you can only go to your second tier school, which might have a cut-off line of 400. Whereas if you listed as your first-tier Qinghua university, whose cut-off line was 623 that year, then you would have entered a first-tier school.) So, really smart and ambitious students, and average students. Basically, half the students are confused, and the other half don't want to be there, and are all taking the TOEFL to go abroad.
Then there's the leadership/the handlers. Most of these people were young-ish. Between 22 and 24, mostly. Younger than me! At first I was confused: why was everyone calling these people "teacher"? Did they teach at the college? It turned out that they're college students who graduated the previous year. They were part of the student party structure, which meant that they were guaranteed a graduate position at the college. But instead of going straight into graduate work, they take 1-3 years off and help with school administration. Basically, they functioned in Student Life, or as RAs. Our handler from the Overseas Chinese Affairs is a 30-year-old guy with a 6-year-old daughter. He really liked taking pictures and was fun to talk to, but also very much had to toe the party line.
The Other stuff:
My mom gave me a list of 3 people to visit, and my dad gave me a list of another 2, plus 2 museums, so when I wasn't working I was running around meeting people and doing stuff. After a long conversation with one of Mom's old friends, I feel like I finally understand the idea of guanxi. She also hooked me up with one Chinese Opera show and one show in the Bird Egg (the opera/music place). I watched the opening ceremonies at a fancy hotel near the Birds Nest after some delicious Brazilian food. I visited an avant-garde artist studio area with our Chinese School's ex-veep. I discovered a hidden shadow-puppet theater while walking around Da Shan Lan. I rode a bus way out to the boonies to see a private Chinese art gallery. All of the foreign Chinese went on a all-night karaoke. And visited some of the night clubs. Plus I visited family. All in all, I made very good use of the free Beijing public transit pass that they gave me, and got to know the city pretty well.
So overall: Olympics-- B. People-- A. Other Stuff-- A.