“LET'S drink to the success of the Olympic Games! Cheers!

[pazu]

“LET'S drink to the success of the Olympic Games! Cheers!”

The road to Beijing

Sep 2nd 2004

From The Economist print edition

A phrasebook for the 2008 Olympics

“LET'S drink to the success of the Olympic Games! Cheers!” This, it seems, is what the Chinese government wants to hear from foreigners, and in flawless Chinese, too. To that end, it has drawn up a handy new phrasebook “Basic Chinese 100 for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games”, which will allow novice Chinese speakers to render such phrases, not to mention praises.

The phrasebook is China's latest propaganda tool: colourful, slick and heavily subsidised. The book, edited by the Beijing Organising Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, will be distributed globally to promote a conveniently stripped-down version of the Chinese language for visitors to the games.

Judging by the tone of the book, China is expecting to blow the world away with its Olympic extravaganza. After careful study of its pages, sentences like “the sports facilities are very good, everything is exceptionally well organised and the service is great” should simply roll off the tongue.

Phrasebook users will get up to speed on the lingo through the adventures of an American tourist called Mike. From simple greetings to room service, public transport to poetical observations (“The sky is bluer, the water is clearer and Beijing is becoming more and more beautiful”), millions of Mikes will be equipped to say just the right things. As with Orwell's Newspeak, dissent is impossible, since there are no words in which it could conceivably be expressed.

Beijing's city authorities have already started teaching English to taxi drivers, policemen, and ordinary citizens to ensure the communication effort goes both ways. With Athens now over, the world is turning its attention to Beijing, and there is no time to waste.

The next Olympics will crown 30 years of economic reform in China, and the government hopes they will be recognition of its pretentions to be a great power. By 2008, China aims to have spent $37 billion on the games, dwarfing the $8.7 billion spent by Greece. Small wonder that the organisers assume that Beijing 2008 will be a success, well worthy of a florid toast.

[xuechengfeng]

Any suggestions on the cheapest possibe stay there, and how to get tickets?

[wiz_oz]

I have been told that some residents of past host cities actually rent out their apartments for a month or two.

The rental was good enough for them to have a tour themselves.