A little over a year ago I was studying Mandarin in Beijing. There were days I would walk out of my apartment complex in the student district and, thanks to the dense smog, not be able to see across the street. In fact, I did not realize that there were mountains around Beijing until almost three months after I landed. Blue-sky days were not something to be celebrated: the sun scorched the air, creating a furnace that was trapped by the still-present layer of pollution.
If you’ve ever been to Beijing, or are here now, you know what it’s like. As early as a month ago, China had yet to pass its air quality control tests for the 2008 Olympics. But really, why does that matter? What, really, can the IOC do if China fails? Cancel the Olympics? Tell the athletes, who have trained for years, their entire lives, for these two weeks, to pack up and go home, that sorry there won’t be an Olympiad? Hardly. And with China’s stringent security measures, the absurd visa situation, and censored information, how successful can the 2008 Olympics really be?
I came with the intention of trading and selling Olympic pins, a vaguely entrepreneurial activity my brother first started doing in 1996 and that I joined him and my sister for in 2004, in Athens. Will I get in trouble for it? Possibly. The Chinese could view it as stealing business from the officially licensed vendors, even though I’m pretty sure none of them have Athens, Salt Lake, Sydney, and even older pins for sale. Either way, I’ll be on the ground, and talking. So…this blog has a new purpose. Olympic reporting. That’s a sport, right?