On Olympic nights, Houhai lake has become like a carnival. Tourists and Beijinger mix on the sidewalks and fill the lakeside cafes. Stall set up along the road sell cotton candy, fruit, Beijing snacks, souvenirs and cigarettes.

Tourists and Beijingers


Communist souvenirs for sale

Adjacent bars pump competing music out into the night. Many places have live performances from local rock bands or sequined starlets.

A man stops to watch a singer performing inside a Houhai bar.

In the southernmost part of Houhai large stone courtyard. At night it is taken over for dancing. The older generation in Beijing gathers to ballroom dance. Older married couples are often experienced dancers, stepping through stately waltzes to a time signature they keep in their head. Women often partner with friends, taking turns leading each other. People come for the exercise and dance unselfconsciously.

Dancers on the south shore of Houhai Lake

In a darker corner of the lake, men strip down to bathing suits or underwear to swim in the lake. The night is hot and wet, and though we know the lake must be far from clean, we still watch the swimmers with a shadow of envy.

The darkness lends some privacy to the swimmers, though they do not seem concerned with the gazes of passerbys

Its been a long time since I last posted. I’ve been helping Danwei with their site redesign and populating Danwei TV. But once again I’ll be posting on fiferis, this time from Beijng. The Olympics have arrived and the city is chaotic, bizarre and exciting.

First: a few photos taken last Wednesday, two days before the long-awaited opening ceremony.

Outside The Workers Gymnasium

There are almost as many police men in the city now as bicycles. And thats saying something. In Chaoyang district they are stationed every 50 feet, standing by the side of the road looking both serious and bored.

Police stand under umbrellas guarding the populace

Police on a bike in front of Olympic signs

A police man talks on the phone.

The only thing more common than police man now are Olympic signs, especially the five fuwa.

Behind all the bicycles and the police car, the blue Olympic sign has the birds nest on “One World, One dream ” in English, French and Chinese.

There are also hundreds of volunteers all over the city, sitting on street corners or setting up informations booths sporting bring orange armbands. Many of the volunteers are retired men and woman eager to share in the excitement.

An elderly volunteer in front of a “one world, one dream” sign.

A man bikes with his dog in Chaoyang district, an Olympic sign in the background.

We were received warmly wherever we stopped. People’s first question was always “Where are you from?” “I’m American,” I told them “but my friends are from other countries.” Traveling in our relief trucks that day was an Australian, a Swede, an Irish expatriate, a German, and a number of Chinese. This diversity impressed people greatly.

Two girls ask to have their picture taken.

This woman was shelling beans when I found her. She thanked us for coming in thick Sichuanese.
I came across a survivor whose arm was broken in the earthquake. His arm rested in half a cast, held up by a sling. He said a doctor had set the arm a week after the earthquake and that it was healing fast. He lifted it a few inches out of the cast to show me.

Man with an arm broken in the earthquake
Outside the ruined temple, we can across a group of women and children writing out hundreds of slips of yellow paper. These papers were filled out in the name of those who died, wishing them peace and luck. The papers were being prepared for use at a ceremony that evening.

Writing out prayers for the dead

A girl wishes us well.
Little children and babies were generally fascinated and a little suspicious by the odd looking strangers who were attracting so much attention.

“Aiye,” she said, pointing me out to her two year old, ‘Auntie.’
There is an unusually intense and public intimacy between family members, between parents and children. I think people still feel lucky their loved ones survived.

Mother and her baby