I spent the past days in Beijing with my family and had a great time here. Most days I worked a couple of hours during daytime and did some sports, and later in the afternoon I went over to the city center, to the Holland Heineken House or to one of the stadiums to watch Olympic Events. So far the best event I went to was beach volleyball. Not only because of the sport itself, but especially because of the atmosphere around it. Great music and even better bikini-clad cheerleaders, the pictures of them are among my best viewed Flickr pictures over the past days!
I also like athletics a lot, especially because there is so much to see. At any single moment there are always at least two or three different sports going on, and it’s also fun to watch athletes prepare for their races. We were lucky because we saw several Olympic Records during our time in the stadium, and even a World Record (Men 200 meters). I am still amazed at what happens when a Chinese athlete participates in an event, the roof of the stadium would literally blow off because of the noise the audience makes (luckily the Bird’s Nest has no roof). Too bad Liu Xiang did not participate in the 110 meter hurdles anymore, otherwise I would have probably needed earplugs.

Tennis was cool as well, although you never know how long a match will last. We watched the women’s single and double semi-finals, and also had tickets for the men’s double final, but because it was quite late already I had to skip that. Men’s field hockey was a bit disappointing, especially because we watched Holland lose against Germany in the semi-finals. During overtime it even started to rain in the stadium, and we got soaking wet. Not a big deal, we dried up soon as well, but I had expected a better match. I still have tickets to baseball and the athletics finals on Saturday, and of course to the Closing Ceremony on Sunday night. I have never seen a Closing Ceremony before and I look forward to it.

Many of the nights I spent at the Holland Heineken House, THE place to party in Beijing at the moment. It becomes more crowded there every day, and a lot of the party people there are not from Holland anymore (like during the first days). It’s a great atmosphere to meet friends and business relations, and the only place where I can watch sports with Dutch comments. There is even a Dutch newspaper (De Telegraaf) that is printed in Beijing during the Olympics and distributed for free.

One highlight for me was to be invited to the recording of the NOS TV program Sportzomer on the roof of the Holland Heineken House. Very professional with an excellent presenter (Mart Smeets). It was also fun to meet some of Dutch medals winners in person there. Another highlight was to be able visit to the NOS (Dutch public broadcaster) studio in the IBC (International Broadcasting Center) on the Olympic Green. Amazing to see what is happening there, not only at the NOS but also at other broadcasters and at the facilitators. See some pictures here and here.
Two more days and then the Olympics will be over. I for sure had a fantastic time during the Games, meeting friends, going to parties and seeing top sports people live in action. I hope all athletes and tourists had as good a time as I had here, and that they have a bit more nuanced view of China after seeing the country for themselves.

Although the Games are not over yet, so far I feel Beijing did an excellent job organizing these games. Except for the first few days even the weather was good (man-made or by coincidence?), which was the only thing I was a bit concerned about. Traffic was quite smooth, and getting to and from the events was a lot easier than I imagined. I am glad things went well so far, because I personally feel China deserves it. People worked so hard to make it a success and were so proud of it, but in the months before the Games the foreign media only criticized the country. I hope at least the visitors to China (and especially the media people) will now have a less biased view of this country, and understand a little bit more of what is really happening here. If that is the case the Olympics have been a total success for me.

After already spending last weekend in Beijing at the Opening Ceremony, I will be back in the capital city tomorrow night for another dose of Olympics. One of the places that I will certainly frequent over the next couple of days is the Holland Heineken House (HHH). This is the center of Dutch partying (although there are also a lot of other nationalities that come just for the great atmosphere) and one of the hottest places to be at night in Beijing during the Summer Olympics. The HHH is located on East 3rd ring road in the Agricultural Exhibition Center, you’ll see the building from a distance because of all the spot lights around it.

The place is huge: not only is there a hall with a stage for partying, but there are also restaurants and shops, and even a Dutch bakery. Dutch TV broadcasts its Olympic programs from the roof of the HHH and a Dutch radio station put a complete radio studio on the premises. There are also some places to have a quiet talk outside in the garden, and if you’re into table tennis you can show off your ping pong skills on one of the many tables.

Last weekend I spent one night at the HHH and loved it. The atmosphere was fantastic inside the building, there were at least 1000 people partying the night away, drinking, dancing and singing to the music. On monitors you could watch a live broadcast of the Olympics while having a Heineken beer or a typical Dutch snack such as a kroket. The beer was quite expensive though: I feel that RMB 35 for a glass is a bit steep, but I assume the venue does not come cheap either.

Dutch sports people who win medals get to go on stage, the national anthem will be played and the audience cheers them. When we were there a Dutch judo player who had just won a bronze medal went on stage and the crowd was screaming and yelling to celebrate his medal. Actually, I felt a bit awkward about this: if someone wins gold of course he/she deserves this. But someone who ends up in third place? I can imagine the guy was happy (I would too with an Olympic medal), but the crowd overdid it a bit. In my opinion only gold is what counts, just like in real life where you also don’t get rewarded for losing, the winner takes it all! A Chinese friend with whom I discussed this later fully agreed, the Chinese team would never give bronze winners such an honor. But maybe the crowd had had too much beer already and was just using every opportunity to party even more!

But apart from this ceremony I had a great night. There was a Dutch singer on stage, Jan Smit, who is locally famous in Holland and the crowds loved him. He even had to do an encore at the end of his short show. Also a bunch of Dutch politicians and Royalty visited the HHH, I saw among others crown prince Willem-Alexander, princess Maxima, prime minister Balkenende, politician Ed Nijpels and the mayor of Amsterdam Job Cohen. They all seemed to enjoy the party and nobody worried too much about security (there were some body guards around, but nobody checked our bags or clothing when we entered)

I met a lot of friends at the HHH, some of them I had not seen in years. There was a group of Dutch expats that lived in Beijing 5-6 years ago (when I also still had an apartment there) and who had all come back to Beijing just for the Olympics. I also met friends that were in Beijing when I lived there and are still there, but as expected most of them left China in the mean time. For me it was a great night, and I look forward to spending several more nights there over the next days. If you want to meet me, I plan to be there again Friday night around 11 PM. Cheers!

A couple of weeks ago I was in Beijing for the recording of the Dutch TV program China TV. The program uses short clips of Chinese TV programs, and I comment on them and give my views on current Chinese society.

I have not seen the final program yet, but it will air Thursday night on Dutch TV. If you’re in the Netherlands and are interested to learn a bit more about the real China as I experience it, tune into the VPRO right after Nova.

China TV
Date: Thursday, August 14, 2008
Time: 22:40-23:30
Channel: Nederland 2

This morning I came across a Dutch story related to the Olympics that seemed to be a joke at first. But because I found it on several other international and even Dutch news sites as well, it may actually be true.

What happened is that the mayor of the city of Haarlem in Holland, Mr. Schneiders, was watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony on TV and saw that one of the themes was the invention of printing by the Chinese. That made him upset, because in his opinion printing was invented by a certain Mr. Costers who hailed from the city of Haarlem as well. So what does the man do? He decides to write a letter to the mayor of Beijing saying among others “It is a generally known fact that printing was discovered in Haarlem by our townsman Laurens Janszoon Coster. This happened about 1400 AC.”

A generally known fact? This vague kind of rhetoric you normally find in the Chinese press, but it seems some Dutch now also use it. But is it really so well known? I think I learned in school that Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press (and yes, I learned this in a Dutch school). And that happened a few hundred years after the Chinese seem to have invented it, so they may have very well been first. To me it’s not a big issue who invented it, but the fact that a Dutch politician is so stupid as to write a letter about it makes me a bit sad – sad for him. Is he so ignorant that he thinks he will be taken seriously?

To make things worse, in a related Dutch report I read that he also attached a picture of a statue of Mr. Costers and that he offered Beijing a replica – but only if they would put it on Tiananmen Square… Seriously, is this guy nuts? Or is he just trying to get his 15 minutes of fame by doing some China bashing?

Normally I try to avoid the China Daily as much as possible, but in Beijing it’s the only local English language paper. However, during the Olympics the quality of the paper has gone up considerably and today’s paper was actually quite readable. On the plane from Beijing to Shanghai this afternoon I read through most of the articles and came across some interesting or funny tidbits of information that you might not find in other newspapers. A couple of examples:

• During the Olympic Opening Ceremony it stayed dry the whole time, even though it rained in the south of Beijing. And according to a message on Twitter, immediately after the ceremony was over it also started to rain in the northern suburbs of Beijing. A coincidence? Probably not, considering what the China Daily writes on its front page: The chief of Beijing’s meteorological bureau said “We fired a total of 1104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 PM and 11:39 PM on Friday, which prevented a rain belt from moving towards the stadium”.

• The director of the Beijing Climate Center is good at forecasting the weather, on page 2 of the paper he mentions: ” The weather will further cool down after the closing ceremony on August 24″. Right, I could have predicted that as well. It always gets cooler when the summer is over!

• In an article about the free bike race (everybody can watch it for free as it is a road race through the city and the countryside) some volunteers tell something about their workload: “Every day, we have to get up before 6 AM and don’t finish until after 10 PM”, a volunteer says. “We don’t get weekends off and we don’t get paid, but I have never been happier.” Now that’s the Olympic spirit!

• During the Olympic Opening Ceremony the airport was closed. It only re-opened after the ceremony was over. The first plane to leave was that of Japanese prime minister Fukuda, he left right after midnight according to the article. According to my calculations that means that he missed the lighting of the Olympic flame, because that was around midnight. French president Sarkozy probably waited until the Olympic fire was burning, because his special plane was the second to take off. “17 minutes after Fukuda left”, according to person in charge of air traffic management at the Beijing airport.

• The paper also shows its readers how Chinese athletes chose their marriage partners and compares it to Westerners. The article starts by saying that Andy Roddick married a swimsuit model and that Ronaldo dates “Spanish hottie” Neireida Gallardo. Then the article continues: ” Based on the behavior of testeron-crazed Western athletes you would expect Zhang Jie (one of China’s most successful athletes to hook up with movie star Chow Yun-Fat or at least singer Andy Lau.” But no, the article continues, she chose a “small husband”. And she is very happy with him, saying “all Chinese girls should marry a man like Zhang. He supports me unselfishly.” Some more examples follow, and the article ends with a quote from the badminton head coach of China, who says: “These husbands are making a tremendous contribution to Chinese sports, they deserve gold medals as well.”

• Beach volleyball is a new sport for Chinese audiences, and some of them might not realize that women compete in just tiny bikinis. The paper quotes Ma Deshan, a 65-year old retired government employee that traveled to Beijing with his wife to watch a match. “There he found bikini-clad competitors, cheered on by dancing “beach babies” cheer leaders and a raucous crowd.” His surprised reaction: “This is really new for us. It’s noisy, but you see, everybody seems very happy.”

If you’re in Beijing pick up a copy of the paper during the Olympics, it covers the Games quite well and you can also get a bit of a feeling for Chinese couleur locale!

Last night I went to the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the Bird’s Nest with among others Gary, courtesy of Dell computers. It was an amazing event, probably the best show I have ever seen. I am very happy that I could be part of this: I was celebrating in Beijing the night in 2001 that China was awarded the Games and now 7 years later I was at the Opening Ceremony!

Getting to the Bird’s Nest was a bit of a hassle. Originally we were supposed to park next to the stadium, but at the last minute the whole parking situation was changed (for security reasons?), so we had to walk for about 30 minutes to get to the stadium. Worse, however, were the security checks. Especially check number 4 (out of 5) took ages to get through. It was hot and there was hardly wind, not the best weather to stand in line for an hour! But that’s the way it is, security is a top priority during these Games so it’s just part of the game. One thing was strange, however. Nobody checked our passports or ID cards, even though all the tickets were supposed to be in a person’s name and we were told numerous times we could not get in without proper ID. I assume this will be the same for the closing ceremony, for which I also had to hand in passport pictures and passport copies in order to get my ticket.

The show itself was fantastic, it lasted for about one hour and had Chinese history as a theme. Zhang Yimou spent over 2 years to design and direct the show, and it paid off. It reminded me a bit of the North-Korean mass games, but this was much more high-tech and had a much better art direction. I think China can be very proud of pulling off such a show.

After the show all 204 countries (>11000 athletes) walked around the stadium with their flags. On TV that’s always quite boring, but being in the stadium I enjoyed every minute of the 2 hour parade. The best for me was of course the Dutch team, wearing an orange shirt and sitting in one of the first rows they all waved at me 🙂 Interesting was the mystery man in the Dutch delegation, I happened to take a picture of him before he was taken away. Also Team China led by Yao Ming was impressive, and the stadium was screaming from excitement when they entered.

The finale were the speeches of the IOC and the BOGOC (Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee), the Olympic Flag and the Olympic fire. Li Ning was chosen to light the fire and he literally walked around the inside of the roof of the stadium to get to the Olympic Torch. Very well done.

During the Ceremony I followed what was happening in the stadium on Twitter. I sent a lot of messages out myself as well, and got many many replies. The Twitter backchannel was very useful for me, I got a lot of information about what was happening by checking Twitter every now and then. I think backchannels will become more and more important during big events like the Olympics. We also looked at Wikipedia, to find out which country would be next to enter the stadium and who was carrying each flag.

While the show was in progress I did two live radio interviews with Dutch radio. I hope I sounded OK, because I could hardly hear what the presenters were saying and I probably talked a bit louder than usual as well. I was thinking that next time I’ll probably just turn off my phone, but then I cannot Twitter either (solution: buy a phone just for Twitter). I also tried to stream live footage on Qik, but that did not work… I could not get the special Qik phone (a Nokia N82 that the people from Qik.com gave me) to connect to the internet. A pity, but I’ll try again over the next days and try to show some other events here.

All in all it was a great night for everybody in the stadium. Some minor negative things were that it was quite hot inside, but that did not matter too much (beer was cheap anyway at just RMB 5 per Tsingtao!). Getting back to the bus afterwards was a hassle, it took a lot of time because roads were sealed off, but I guess that’s unavoidable when you organize a show with an audience of over 90,000. I very much enjoyed the night at the Bird’s Nest!

For some of the pictures that I took during the opening ceremony see here.

Later today I will be flying to Beijing with Gary for the Olympic Games. I am quite excited about it, and I look especially forward to the Opening Ceremony tomorrow night. I will cover my Beijing activities as usual on Twitter, Friendfeed and Flickr. And possibly also on Qik, if I am able to get my iPhone to work with it (someone from Qik will meet me in Beijing to help me set it up).

Saturday night I plan to go to the Holland Heineken House, traditionally THE place to party during every Olympics (and it’s not only for Dutch nationals, as some people think). It’s located just south of the Great Wall Sheraton on the 3rd Ring Road in the Agricultural Exhibition Center. If you also would like to go you can download an invitation here.

For a while I did not write about the Spil Games sites in China, and now this is already the second post in a week. Reason is that we keep on breaking all our records. On Monday game.com.cn broke through the 1 million unique visitors per day for the first time, a big milestone for the company. For people who are not familiar with internet terms, 1 million unique visitors means that 1 million different people (or to be more precise, IP addresses) have visited our site yesterday. If somebody comes to the site twice or three times per day, he/she will only be counted once.

To put the growth in perspective, on August 4, 2006 we had 20,000 unique IP’s (the site had just launched), and on August 4, 2007 we were at 240,000 unique IP’s for game.com.cn. Next to that our other main site xiaoyouxi.com registered about 800,000 uniques on Monday, for a daily total of 1.8 million on our Chinese sites. All our statistical data comes from Google Analytics.

Over the course of the next few months, we plan to make our sites even more attractive with among others additional community features. I wonder how big our sites will be one year from now!

This afternoon I plan to treat everybody at Spil Games Asia and Zlong Games ice cream to celebrate their big achievement.