Breningstall Zone: A picture-close view of China and the world

Watching the Opening Ceremony on TV right now. Quite a spectacle. Why on TV? Well, I was planning on going to a party to shoot the overlook of Olympic Village, but the whole northern part of the city was split in two by police barricades and after trying four taxis and walking several miles I gave up and came home... Enjoying the many costumes from various countries. Can't say that I'm surprised that the Opening Ceremony is a fine show--the Chinese are professionals when it comes to putting on this kind of performance.

Flew to Beijing on Shanghai Airlines this morning. After recent flights out of Chengdu and Lijiang, where lines were slower than BWI right after 9-11, this flight was relatively smooth. It was helped, no doubt, by there being a row full of counters dedicated solely to Beijing flights.

This being China, the company colors for Shanghai Airlines were of course red and yellow (there are only two colors in China). Red and yellow flowers were installed by the windows and the stewardesses wore rather garish-looking red patterned qipaos. The airline did feed us, however--something that American airlines stopped doing long ago (small bags of pretzels do not qualify).

Arriving in Beijing, I was pleased to discover that they now have an express train straight from the airport to the city. Waiting for the train in the steamy heat, I looked out and saw the smoggy haze that has been getting so much attention lately. Standing at a transfer station, I watched CCTV's continuing coverage of the torch relay. On a day when visitors from all over the world in town and international athletes were preparing to begin competition tomorrow, showing people running down a street with a torch for the umpteenth day was a surprisingly boring choice. It was followed, by a few profiles of Chinese athletes, then an international story!... a brief series of clips of Marion Jones confessing to taking performance-enhancing drugs. Getting off the subway, I met up with my friend James, who has been most generous to offer me lodging for the current journey. James seemed in good spirits, full of wry humor. He has tickets to the opening ceremony, lucky bastard.

After some chit-chat and a lunch of lunch meat and crackers, I went off to Tiananmen Square, which was actually closed; maybe to prepare for tonight's Opening Ceremony? Don't know. In any case, I walked around gathering two kinds of pictures... Chinese fans wearing stickers and bandanas and police officers and soldiers. I saw virtually no emblems represented other than Chinese. I thought back to the World Cup in Paris in 1998... the opening parade then had been CRAZY, all sorts of jumping painted fans from all over the world.

...That is why it is refreshing now to see the Opening Ceremony, and all the people gathered from many countries, in their national attire... it reminds you that the Olympics are an international event... They are bringing out the Olympic flag now. I wonder who will light the torch... A Chinese weightlifter is running with it... Now a gymnast is flying through the air.

Actually, I missed seeing who lit the torch. The running of the torch through the Bird's Nest took so long that I walked into the kitchen to get another beer and when I came back a giant torch had been lit. One world, one dream! Welcome to Beijing.