Olympic Torch passing Admiralty Hong Kong

It has been madness... cheering crowds, some protest, no interruption

We Are Ready!

is the title of the song released by 130 Artists from the Mainland, Hong Kong and even Taiwan.

The Song, titled "We Are Ready" was released on August 1 to commemorate the 1 year countdown moment for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The artists will perform the song on Wednesday 8 August LIVE at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Kan Ke, Deputy Director of the Culture and Ceremonies Department with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOCOG) hoped that the song will accompany Chinese to finish the last step of the preparation work and will accompany the dazzling fireworks in 2008.

source: CriEnglish

Hmm that would give some good media attention I would say.

Interestingly the song was composed by two Hong Kong musicians, Peter Kam and Keith Chan. From composin to producing took apparantly a few days only with the help and hard work of more than 200 people. Hmm is that to symbolize and reflect on the efforts the people put in to get the Olympics ready?

Official copies of the song can be downloaded from the official website of the Beijing 2008 Summer Games or from China Mobile’s Wireless Music Chart. The “We Are Ready” music videos have begun airing across China.

The song is in Mandarin though, which leads me to think whether it will be a big hit outside China.

Beijing Mobilized?

The olympics in Beijing in 2008 drive many new initiatives in and around the city.

Activities like cleaning up and restoring major tourist areas as the forbidden city, the summer palace, numerous temples and of course increasing security measures around tianmen square to protect the visitors.

A very interesting initiative is a WAN deployment in the Chongwen district in Beijing.

On top of that a city information portal will be deployed. The portal will be providing information like maps, events, travel information etc. The cool bit is that this will be accesible online with PDA's, mobile phone, basically any device with WIFI.

I would be curious to see if only the portal can be accessed or the generic internet as well. THat would be a good challenge for blogging regulations etc I would say.

Cooperation takes place with a number of companies that build up experience with a similar excercise in Heidelberg Germany. The network there is called Heidelberg Mobil

Other companies involved are www.eml-development.com, www.capinfo.com.cn, and www.cwi.gov.cn

Now other then being absolutely cool for users I do see some ideas on linking virtual and the real world. How about the forbidden city in a 2nd life kind of environment?

Location based marketing and advertising for Mr Ho his noodlejoint.....a yellow pages site that in combination with google earth tells you where your company is and how to get there.

In short a very interesting development!


Posting inspired by an article in De Ingenieur, 25 May 2007.

Beijing 2008: IP protection

That China is developing fast is no news, that Beijing is focusing on the 2008 Olympics is no secret either. They even start realizing the value of IP and are in touch with Hong Kong customs officers to train up their own staff on how to recognize fake products.

So the customs officers receive training on how to recognize the so called FUWA mascottes. There are basically 5 characters. a fish, a panda, a Tibetan antelope a swallow and the Olympic flame. They are symbols representing the so called five elements of sea, forest, fire, earth and sky.

The naming of the Olympics Mascots is actually quite interesting, as they are called BeiBei, JingJing, HuanHuan, YingYing and NiNi. When taking the first part of every name it leads to BeiJing HuanYing Ni! or in English, Beijing welcomes you!

Anyway, especially the Guangdong customs team, united with Hong Kong via the Guangdong/Hong Kong expert group on the protection of Intellectual Property are stepping up the efforts in clamping down on illegal copies of the FUWA materials sold. Results so far cover.....key hangers and a number of moulds to produce goods.

The main motivation behind it is obviously that all those articles bring in BIG CASH for the olympics organization...and who wants to loose out on that.

Language Clean up in Beijing

Many blogs have posted pictures or references to interesting translations from Chinese to English that people come across. Interesting examples can be seen here, and I had some as well that unfortunately got lost in the transition to the new blogger version.

Since the Olympics in Beijing 2008 bring in a lot of work, the Beijing government decided to to improve this as well and started up a special program. THis is called the "Use Accurate English to Welcome the Olympics Public Bilingual Sign Standardization Drive."

As part of this program people can send in their observations which then will be taken care off. A few quotes from the website:

"Residents sent in a wide range of complaints," said Zhou Chen, an official at the programme's office.

For example, the "Racist Park" sign was spotted and posted online by a Canadian student named Eric.

"It suggests China hates other nationalities; and foreigners coming to China would feel uncomfortable," he said, adding: "I love China, please change it."

Jay Shen, from the United States, pointed out that the introduction to the Summer Palace says "three quarters are under water" instead of "three-quarters of the park is a water surface."

The website where people can report their findings is: http://www.bjenglish.com.cn

Interestingly enough....there is no English version of it........

Chinese learn to smile in preparation for Beijing 2008

I just read an article in a Dutch newspaper (http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/54233631/Chinezen_leren_glimlachen_voor_zomerspelen.html?p=6,2) which commented that the Chinese volunteers are getting lessons in smiling.

During my last visit to Beijing I could recall quite a lot of smiling faces. However, the bosses have decided an people are going on smile training. Interesting to know is that the majority of volunteers are university students, which are brushing up their english big time.

Walking around as foreigner will definitely get you some attention of people that want to practice their english. Lets see the results in 2 years :)