Reflections on the Beijing Olympics

Edited book talk - Potts Point Bookshop

Here’s what you may have learned from the Beijing Games.

Buckteeth are bad; bad enough to get you banned from the opening ceremony.

You learned that when you don’t want to answer questions, park a tank outside the Press Centre and shut down the weekend conferences. You learned there’s nothing to complain about in. The Ethnic Minorities Park – known in pre-polish Beijing as Racist Park – was magically empty of protesters. And despite the best efforts of some British tourists and some abseiling gear, Tibet remained very not free.

And if you listened very closely, you may have heard the distant rumbles on China’s Western Frontier, where the death toll from ethnic separatist violence over the Olympic period stands now at 32.

You saw a China that can run an event. A China that can clear the streets, then import the enthusiasm. You saw 75,000 ecstatic volunteers – while you saw thousands of empty seats. That's if you saw your favourite sport at all -- thanks Channel 7.

The streets were swamped with guards. It was like a ghost town outside of the Olympic village. The whole thing cost more than $40-billion as compared to the 2004 Games in Athens that cost $16 billion. Some put that down to the massive amounts spent on security.

There was plenty to be seen. Smashed world records. Bad poolside interviews.

But I was more interested in this great gamble. An Olympics staged in Communist China, an Olympics given by the IOC (no stranger to corruption and its own patchy record on rights; it was until recently run by a man who made a name for himself in Franco's fascist Spain).

Would China open as a result? Would they improve human rights as the IOC and Beijing officials promised? It seems in the immediate term - no. And the list of offences is long.

Grannies were shipped off to reeducation camp. Water diverted from other provinces to green the games left thousands of farmers struggling to survive. Ordinary Beijingers were in lock down. Many traveled across the country to have their grievances heard at Beijing's historic petition offices. From reports, none did. 1.5 million cars were banned from the roads, hundreds of factories and construction sites were shut down and the economic life that launched the Olympic bid in the first place was frozen.

When it comes down to it, the Games were a fierce battle of perceptions.

I spoke with Jonathan Watts over two weeks ago, pre-Olympics. He's the president of the Foreign Correspondent's club in China. He's also the Guardian's correspondent. He said that with 20,000 journalists descending on the Olympic City, he was anticipating a massive clash of culture. On the one hand, journalists seeking out all the bits that don't work about China -- the shocking human rights record, the obsession with stability -- for editors hungry to fill an image of a totalitarian China. On the other hand, event organisers, galvanised into making this the most successful event ever staged in China, coming from a culture that treats the flow of information completely differently. Watts said sparks were going to fly. And they did.

The coverage hauled China over the human rights coals; and China reacted as it always does retracting into its well-worn tortoise shell of bureaucracy.

What Jonathan feared was what came true - a lack of nuance. No real Beijing. No real China.

There is another Beijing beyond the Bird's Nest. It's one of soaring towers and wind tunnels, sure. But in the dark of night, it's a drunken stumble into punk rock dens, multi-story night clubs and queer underground parties. From Beijing Blur:

I thought I would never fall in love with a city this ugly. I love it with something like lust: I need it and I want it to make sense to me so I can’t keep my hands off it. I stick around because the promise of Beijing – and China – is too big to give up.

My parents think my relationship with Beijing it’s a hotheaded teen romance. They wonder when I might find a nice city, instead of this unwashed hulk.

‘You don’t understand,’ I say. ‘If only you could see what I’m seeing, how good it can be some times’.

They point out that the city has a catalogue of offences the length of the Yangtze: It’s rude when it’s hot, and it’s unrelentingly needy when it’s cold. It never says sorry with a big parade or some free outdoor concerts. Instead the signs in the park read Keep off the Grass. It snores loudly at night.

‘Besides, it doesn’t love you,’ they say. And they are right. Beijing never smiles for me. We never have moments that are ours alone. I hate it so much sometimes, and I call my friends to bitch. They want me out of this relationship, too, but it’s too hot to leave right now, too many mysteries are still unsolved. I sign up for another month, wondering if I’ll ever, truly leave.

There is another appeal about coming back to Beijing, more honest, more visceral than any talk of politics and economics and change. Beijing is hedonistic. Beijing dirty-talks me into submission. It whispers in my ear, ‘You’re in your twenties, James. Let’s have fun, baby, let’s get wrecked. You know you want to.’

Sluts give good head, they say, and Beijing is no different. When I party with this city, it has me gagging for more. It will get me high or stoned cheaper than any other city, for twice as long, with twice the number of hot people. It will introduce me to DJs, artists, filmmakers, and drop me in a restaurant with five famous actors all buying me drinks. It will keep the clubs open till dawn for me, when it will force another half down my throat so I can forget about sleep. Just when I’m coming down and craving intimacy, it will push me onto the dance floor and offer sex instead of love and tell me – lie to me – that they’re the same thing.

Next Friday night I’ll be ready to be felt up by my city again. To be bent over for another round of Beijing blur.

It's impossible to reconcile the Beijing you saw on the television, with the Beijing in these passages, the Beijing I lived in. Beijingers themselves live with these contradictions. Of pride and pollution, of wealth and poverty. It's too much to fit into the scripts of television journalism, and too much for my short 12 months. It's a lifelong endeavour.