August 19th

I met up with my former Chinese roommate from CET. It was absolutely wonderful to see her. We picked up right where we left off. She always understands everything I'm trying to say in Chinese even if I say it wrong. Plus, I'm used to her vocabulary, so I can keep up with what she's saying (in spite of the fact that she speaks very fast). We had a meal and went to Bei Da (Peiking University), which I hadn't been to last time. My grandfather went to Bei Da back in the day, and it was pretty awesome to see it. I assumed it was easy to get in like most American colleges and followed my roommate in past the gatekeepers, but she told me afterwards that they let us in because we looked like students. It was actually not easy to be let onto the campus. Oops. Bei Da was beautiful and I took a ton of pictures. Hopefully I can post them soon.

That evening my family took me to one of the track and field Olympic games. Funny, I swore I wasn't going to the Olympics when I went to Beijing, but I had a blast (actually I think more of a blast than my family did...three hours of track and field is pretty tiresome when it is not your favorite sport.) It was pretty entertaining--when they first told me we were going I had no idea what event we were going to see (I didn't know the word for track and field in Chinese), so I figured I would nod and smile and be surprised when I got to the stadium. I wasn't only surprised I was super excited. Track and field and cross country are the only sports I've ever competed in. I wasn't very good at them, but I know the challenge of them, and to see these superstars in their game was amazing. Actually, when we first got there, I was surprised at how small the competitors were (we were on the 3rd tier up). They seemed a lot more human from the balcony and through binoculars than when they are on the TV screen. That is, until they started running, jumping or throwing.
Turns out, the track and field tickets are sort of like buy one get 15 free. You pay for one event and you get to see a ton of other ones. This is what we saw:
Trials for: Women's 200m, Women's 5k (my favorite), Men's 150m hurdles
Semifinals for: Men's 200m, Men's 400m
finals for: Men's high jump, Men's discus, Women's 400m, Women's 100m hurdles, and Men's 1500m.
and award ceremony for: men's long jump, men's hurdles (forgot which length--they were all Americans), women's pole vault, men's high jump and Women's 400m.
(whew.)
these were all interspersed and usually a track and field event were going on at once. (I kept being afraid that the men high jumpers were going to be run over by the women 5k-ers.)
The most amazing thing was the size of the stadium and the power of the crowd. As the runners ran around the track a giant wave of cheering followed them. Each country had their little group of fans (mostly the European countries and U.S.) that were wearing all the right colors and carrying flags and crazy hats and jumped up and went wild when someone from their county got on the field. And when a Chinese competitor (there were only 4) was on the track or field the crowd went wild. A chant of jia you (which means literally add oil, but is used to encourage people to do well, work hard, etc.) would start quietly and rise up and swallow a whole side of the stadium until the large video screens on both sides of the stadium would post in Chinese and English "Please be quiet for the start of the competition." Pretty incredible support considering these Chinese competitors were not the most famous or the most likely to get a metal. That certainly didn't stop the majority of the crowd from bringing Chinese flags, putting stickers on their faces and chanting their hearts out. What a time for China. The Olympics seem to take up the majority of the TV stations on Chinese TV, and every day the upbeat songs played while showing a review of the Olympics seem to be able to incorporate one more recent Chinese gold metal into their series of images. Amazing.
I didn't think I'd like watching the Olympics, but I did. It means a lot to a lot of people. And it was pretty awesome to see that even countries that were paid very little attention in international politics were paid a lot of attention in international sports competitions. It's amazing how much pride is in these games. And a decent amount of respect, too. Everyone gets cheered for, no matter the country.