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One Night in Beijing

This is my Olympic story, and I think now is as good a time as any to tell it.

In 2000, when my slightly more than two-year stint with China Daily was coming to an end, a friend asked me to stand in for him in editing a couple of editions of Beijing This Month (BTM). I was honoured and pleased to do it.

My first introduction to “things Olympic” in Beijing that I can recall was a couple of short stories about an upcoming Olympic bid in BTM’s July 2000 issue. I hadn’t given the Olympics much thought, but we went much further in the August issue with stories from ordinary people explaining why they supported the Beijing Games. We also ran stories, such as “10 Reasons Why: Venue Beijing” and “10 Things Beijing Will Do,” which outlined Beijing’s plans for the Games of 2008.

But then my wife and I left, and we didn’t hear much more about the Olympics for a while; we were too busy adjusting and readjusting to life in the United States.

Then, on July 13, 2001, we heard the news that Beijing had won its bid to host the 2008 Games. We decided to call my wife’s brother, Wang Yuebei, who was in the town of Tiechangzhen, Tonghua Shi, in Jilin Province at the time. His joy was infectious, and I don’t think I ever heard him sound as happy as he was that night; in the background in Tiechangzhen we could hear fireworks exploding as if it were 15 minutes until midnight on Chinese New Year’s Eve. Even when we returned in 2004, when the subject of the Olympics came up in conversation or on TV, he seemed pleased. It seemed that for him, on a national level, the Olympics, as part of China's reform and opening, were a most important thing for the Chinese people: more important than daily politics, space exploration or any of the other big events.

But sadly, as we have once again seen with the recent loss of precious lives in Southwest China, Central China’s winter storms and the typhoon of Myanmar, real life does not wait for dreams. Dreams spring from life; only the living get to benefit from the hard work that has prepared the ground for our tomorrows. Wang Yuebei will not see the 2008 Olympic Games; he died unexpectedly a few years ago from a sudden illness. Still, it was from him that I learned how important the Beijing Games are to regular folks all across China, something that has been confirmed again and again in countless conversations I’ve had with ordinary people around the country—taxi drivers, students, artists and many others—over the last four years.

For millennia people have taken a break from their regular lives and difficulties to celebrate youth and life in their own ways: the Olympic Games is just one in a long line of similar celebrations that can be found in cultures around the world. But the Olympics are our break for our time, and I cannot think of a better time for the people of the world today to take a break and reflect on the lives they are living than in the summer of 2008.

My part in all of this is miniscule, but I am happy to be associated with people who are earnestly trying to make China’s Olympic dreams come true. Yuebei would have wanted it that way.