A friend of mine had a bottle of Macallan 18 that was going to “expire” today (when you buy a bottle at a club in Beijing, they only keep it for 30 days). So, it was on to Lan in the Twin Towers (right across the street from the Silk Market). Lan is a pretty crazy looking place - designed by Philippe Starck.
After about an hour of sipping some whiskey, I look to the door and see a giant walking in. It was Yao Ming with his entourage. There weren’t a lot of people there, so it didn’t turn into a mad house, but it was hilarious watching the young girls who work there giggle while trying to get a glimpse of the Chinese giant.

Yao & crew hung out for a couple hours, didn’t seem like Yao had anything to drink at all. I walked by on the way to the bathroom to get a closer look … I look tiny in comparison. His feet, looked twice the size of mine (I have 15s). It was pretty cool to see him up-close and in-person.

Yao’s back in Beijing trying to recover from his foot surgery (going for some “traditional Chinese” medicine). Yao not playing in the Summer Olympics would be a huge disappointment to all of China.

Yao Ming seeks traditional Chinese… 

Last night, I decided that from now until the start of the Olympics, I will ask every taxi driver that I get a ride with whether or not they can speak English. I will ask in English first, then Chinese. If they can speak English, I will test for key words (like…airport, forbidden city, olympic park, gymnastics, etc…). I think a monthly view of this will be more interesting.

So far, the tally is … 1 taxi - no English.

As part of Beijing’s effort to clean up the “Chinglish” around here, they are attacking the menus of Beijing’s fine dining establishments.

Beijing to fix menu names for Olympics

This is one clean up that I’m looking forward to. Many restaurants to provide pictures on the menu, which is quite helpful in distinguishing between “steamed crap” and “steamed crab.” That’s really just a typo though. Some of the truly “Chinglish” names are hilarious. Virgin chicken is probably close to the top of the list.

It’s simple in Beijing - tell people they can’t drive.

So, the Olympics traffic test happens this weekend. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to see how it goes. However, witnessing last year’s reduction for the China-Africa Summit leads me to believe this will be a success.

Police to limit traffic into capital

I need your help, and it’s fairly urgent. We’ll start small, I promise.

Tomorrow (any time between 11am and 9pm) head down to the Silk Market. You’ll find a strip of coffee shops/small restaurants on the east side. Just focus on one, for now … Subway. Yes, the Subway all of the westerners flock to after a few hours of being nagged, hit, cornered and ripped off while shopping in the market (but, everything is real, so it’s worth it).

What you need to do:

1. Get people to stand in line. I know it’s not a large space, but assuming there is already someone there ordering, it’s easy to figure out where to stand. Please guide the customers.
2. Get people to make a decision on their order in 30 seconds or less. Usually, there is at least one person in front ahead, so that gives them an additional 30 seconds to make up their mind. I realize Subway is new to many people here, but it’s bread, fake meat, some veggies and your choice of sauce. Please encourage the customers not to ask too many questions and just make a decision.
3. Have a talk with the Subway employees. Tell them it’s best if they just focus on one customer at a time.

So, that’s it. I’ll look for the results two weeks from now to see if we’ve got any improvement. Don’t worry, it only gets more complicated from there!

Supposedly, Beijing is removing 1 million cars from the roads between 7 August - 20 August (this year - 2008 will be more drastic). I’m not surprised by this and completely believe they can and will do this (did something similar last October for the China-Africa Summit). However, I didn’t notice any reduction in cars between the 7th - 10th.

Beijing has over 3 million cars on the road today…they add over 1,000 new cars to the roads each day. Why not stop adding? I know it’s not that easy…but for a government who can tell 1 million people they can’t drive for 2 weeks, why can’t they tell potential car buys they can’t buy for 1 year? Yes, this has other impacts (car sales, fuel sales, etc…), but there will be just that much more of a demand post Olympics - just start preparing for that.

Much of the city traffic, in my view, is caused by people walking and on bicycles. The “people watchers with flags” really don’t do much in the way of stopping people from walking or riding through the intersections when they aren’t supposed to.

Happy to report that the skies are blue in Beijing today - not one sign of polluted air (other than the stains on all of the buildings).

Today marks the 1 year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but it doesn’t seem like there is much celebration going on. Maybe because I’m out in Shangdi, very far from the “cool area” of Beijing at work. But, even at Lenovo - I haven’t seen any sign of a celebration…

Tomorrow (08/08/07) marks the 1 year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It also marks my attempt to get back to regular blogging again and put some more interesting content up to get my following back! We’ll see how that goes…

Lot’s of talk as to whether China is ready for the 08′ Olympics or not. I can’t speak to the status of any project in particular, but I can tell you the following…

• Construction projects - seem to be moving faster & faster. It’s unbelievable to see how quick they are moving on the CCTV complex and China World #3 … both huge, huge projects. But, will all the cranes be out of sight by year’s end? … doubtful.
• Traffic - sucks…will continue to suck until; 1) They get better driving schools in China; 2)Stop selling new cars; 3)Current drivers get better road manners (patience, for starters).
• Food - I haven’t noticed a problem, but maybe that’s because I’m used to it after being here for almost a year.
• English - taxi drivers aren’t even close to being able to take foreigners around without relying heavily on written directions from the passengers (in Chinese) or maps (in Chinese)
• Air quality - keep forcing it to rain, maybe it will wash it all a way (for a few days). I think this and food are the two biggest concerns for Olympic athletes coming to Beijing.

NY Times has a good article published today too -

“China under fire…”

My recent experience (yesterday) with the traffic situation, which is mentioned in the article, really opened my eyes to how bad these issues may be. My commute sucks as it is (1 hour in the morning, usually 1.5 hours in the evening). Last night … 3 hours. Why? Due to the rain. It has been raining here a lot lately, which is very unusual for Beijing. Usually, the rain is “forced” (they seed the clouds with sulfur rockets). Why is this done? People believe mainly to clean up the air when there are important visitors in town. I’m taking a guess that this is why it’s been raining so much the last week.

Well, a lot of rain causes problems…flooding. Was this not expected? Last night, 2 days before the 1 year mark, this flooding wreaked havoc on the city (and caused my shoes to be caked in mud). I hope tomorrow (8/8) proves to be a clear and traffic free day!

Beijing is really starting to make an effort with changing out Chinglish to English. The most well known example is the change from the “Dongda Anus and Intestine Hospital” to the “Dongda Proctology and Intestine Hospital.” That place is right near my apartment, laughed every time I saw it.

Here’s an article covering the other areas…

“Hello toilet, goodbye WC for Beijing Games”

Some concerns with this:

1. Taxi drivers cannot speak English. Out of the thousands of taxis I’ve ridden in Beijing, a handful could speak some, very broken, English…similar to my level of Chinese. If street signs are changed to English - are the taxi drivers going to understand? I think not. Same goes for Olympic venues, restaurants, etc… I had heard all taxi drivers in Beijing have to pass an English test prior to the Olympics if they want to drive during the Olympics. I’m not sure how this is progressing, but from what I can tell…it hasn’t move past “Hello!” and “OK”.

2. I don’t want to see the pinyin removed. For someone who lives here and is trying to learn Chinese to effectively communicate with the the people of China, the pinyin is very helpful. Keep the pinyin, add the English.

3. Good luck with the menus…that’s all I have to say about that.

I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of pointing during the 2008 games. Pointing at maps, location cards, menus, sporting events, etc…