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August 2008
I’ve been lost, then I was found
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I hope you never find yourself in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, somewhere in Beijing, with a cab driver who has no idea where he is going.
Trust me. I have been there. It is no fun.
On one of my final nights in China, I finished up late, far from the media village where I was staying. I could not hail a cab to save my life, but found a subway station and took it to the main station, figuring there would be plenty of cabs there and that someone could take me home.
Right on No. 1. Wrong on No. 2.
Maybe it was end-of-Olympics fatigue setting in but none of the cabbies seemed interested in my business. Finally, after some negotiation using my very limited Chinese vocabulary, and an agreed-upon-in-advance payment, I persuaded someone to take me.
Since it was very late after another 18-hour day I figured it would be alright to doze as my reluctant driver drove.
Wrong again.
When I woke up we were in a residential neighborhood, and the driver had clearly had enough. He stopped the cab. More negotiation. Nothing doing this time. Mercifully another cab driver showed up and finally got me to my destination.
Whew!
The very next day, by very happy coincidence, I took a Samsung Blackjack II phone out for a test drive. Samsung was a major Olympic sponsor, with a pavilion in prime real estate on the Olympic Green; Atlanta-based AT&T officials arranged a media tryout of the device.
It retails for $99, after mail-in rebate and discount for signing a two-year contract, according to the AT&T Wireless site
Sleek and lightweight, it came equipped with speedy Internet access and - glory be - a GPS navigator programmed with the streets of Beijing. The night after my impromptu moonlight tour of lesser-known Beijing, I found myself once in again in a cab with a driver who seemed a little puzzled as to where we were going.
It was different this time. Blackjack to the rescue.
The driver is a bit lost, but the Blackjack has the answers.
Because of the speed of the Internet connection, I was able to look up the restaurant where the party I was attending was being held, and quickly got help getting there.
Directions are spoken in English, or else I would have just handed the device over. I sat in the back seat and motioned to the driver before each turn.
(I wonder if a future model will offer directions spoken in Chinese?)
The Blackjack II and I team up as back seat driver. Luckily one of us knew where we were going
The Blackjack II is equipped with Windows Mobile. You can listen to music, watch videos or take pictures with it, answer e-mail, check your calendar, work puzzles and play games. (I suppose you could also make a phone call).
I should note, by the way, that I am no techno-expert, and do not usually review gadgets as part of my job. I was simply a reporter in a foreign place with a tendency to get lost a lot. (In other words, probably representative of the target audience for a GPS-equipped phone).
Knock-knock-knockin’ on the Temple of Heaven’s door, I was about to be lost, and then found
Its display screen is sized at almost two and a half inches - which came in handy on my next-to-last day in Beijing. I visited the Temple of Heaven, the early 1400s era complex of Taoist buildings, surrounded partially by wooded grounds.
Could the Blackjack help me on foot? I decided to give it a try, and got purposely lost in the trees. This time, I simply asked the device to spot my location and produce a map. It’s almost creepy how fast it found me.
Within a few minutes, I was out of the woods and on my way.
Alright Blackjack, get me out of here
I had hoped to be able to test out the device here at home before returning it to AT&T, to assess whether the routes it prescribes are the shortest and most efficient. But like many liaisons abroad, my fling with the Blackjack came to a sudden halt.
I’m hesitant to allege someone boosted it during my 23-hour journey home, since that wouldn’t be in keeping with the Olympic spirit of international goodwill. So I’ll just say that when I finally made it back to Atlanta, the Blackjack was nowhere to be found.
But we’ll always have Beijing.
Come back, Blackjack, come back
Ky Tanner entertains the crowds outside the Bird’s Nest.
Rather than take the 20 mph press bus back from women’s modern pentathlon tonight I decided to walk through the Olympic Green.
The crowds were streaming out, but there was still plenty of action as spectators lined up, camera in hand, to see if this nutty guy draped in an American flag and wearing a star-spangled hat would pose for pictures with them.
Ky Tanner, who lives here with wife Bev, was happy to oblige.
“He’s getting more attention than a middle-aged guy should be allowed,” joked pal Mark Dick, who lives here with wife Stacye. “If he keeps this up we’ll be here till 4 in the morning.”
The guys both work for oil companies and the two couples have been looking forward to the influx of global visitors.
“Mark and I have gone to two or three events a day,” said Stacye, whose brother lives in Dalton.
Between attending events and attracting fans with Ky’s festive get-up (complete with a pin from the Atlanta Games, which someone traded him), the Dicks and Tanners are determined to wring as much fun out of these Games as they can.
“We are going to be so depressed next week when this is over,” Bev said.
How about you? Are you sad to see the Olympics end?
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Countdown to Phelps-fest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Staff photo by Johnny Crawford
I have a little time before an event starring Olympic golden boy Michael Phelps. It’s sure to be quite a bash so stay tuned.
Trudy Fowler’s son meets the press
For now, I caught up after last night’s USA-Chinese Taipei baseball game with Dexter Fowler. The East Cobb Baseball and Milton High School grad signed in 2004 with the Colorado Rockies organization.
Currently playing minor league ball in Tulsa, Fowler’s here playing outfield for Team USA.
Tuesday night’s win set the team up for semis against Japan, but Fowler’s thinking big. He wants a shot at gold in the finals on Aug. 23.
That’s his mom’s birthday.
“I’m not going to tell you how old she’ll be,” he said, “but I’m going to try to win the gold for her.”
Awwww.
In other news, here are a few scenes I’ve seen.
Guidelines to help you enjoy your visit to a local park.
I love how this guy’s waving a sign saying he needs baseball tickets in front of the sign saying no ticket scalping. Fight the power, my man.
This dude hooked him up. I’m sure he only charged face value.
Baseball, that most American of sports, is played in a stadium with these most un-American of amenities. Yikes!
Fans from Iowa celebrated our nation and the Olympic host country.
I’ve noticed that girls and women often walk arm-in-arm here. It’s sweet.
There are plenty of cabs in Beijing, but sometimes the drivers don’t want your business. (Or maybe just mine). That happened the other day. I couldn’t hail a cab to save my life. So I decided to talk a walk.
First I met this vegetable vendor, peddling produce in the shadow of one of Beijing’s busy, modern shopping emporiums.
Dining al fresco
Doing the dishes
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Yum, cicadas!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bug-kebabs at the Wangfujing Night Market
I had a busy day today, working on a few stories for next week while filing my daily dispatches. I didn’t have time for a proper meal but no fear. The cicadas at the Wangfujing Night Market are pre-cooked, ready to grab and go.
The creepy eats are a highlight of the market, a colorful and bustling street scene right next to a very modern mall that wouldn’t look out of place in Alpharetta.
Well, except for some of the menu items in the food court:
Anyway, back to the market. You can buy every conceivable Chinese knick-knack here, from decorative chopsticks to silk handbags to little Buddha statues. A vendor playing from an instrument that resembled an eggplant-shaped wooden added a soothing backdrop to the din of shoppers.
Although the Night Market is on every tourist map of Beijing, it seemed like a mostly local crowd when I went tonight. If there were 1,000 people on the street I’d guess 100 of them were Olympics visitors.
The food vendors do a brisk business selling grilled corn, coconut milk, baked goods and meat and chicken on wooden skewers, grilled to order. Then there are the rows of cooked cicadas and other items we might not think of eating in the United States. I bought a seahorse on a stick, which I thought it looked sort of cute.
As it turns out I wasn’t hungry after all so I offered it to a knick-knack vendor named Yi Ming Xie.
“It’s very good,” she said. “It’s salty. Crunchy.”
Then she looked at me like I was nuts for passing up perfectly good seahorse.
“You don’t eat it? Why?”
I told her I was on a diet.
Yi Ming Xie digs in. That’s her friend Wong Ya Liu to her left.
Incidentally if you’re interested in the nutritional content of cicadas (or other pertinent facts) the Cincinnati Enquirer devoted serious research time to them a few years ago. This article tells you all you need to know about cicadas, whether you plan to eat them or just listen to them sing at night. I think I’ll stick with the latter.
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Grits in Beijing!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Posing for grits pix was probably the strangest request Chef Sunny Song will get today, but he was a pretty good sport about it.
Ni hao from Starbucks, where wireless Internet access is fast and free, unlike in the giant press encampment where journalists work much of the time over here. Internet access there is pricey (although pretty unfettered for the moment at least; I was able to pull up the Human Rights Watch site, for example).
At Starbucks, just flip open your computer and you’re set; no password required, unlike the press center. Score one for American capitalism.
Anyway, I had a little time this morning before the events I’m covering today, so I figured I would perform a public service to any Southerners who happen to be in town, and go on a hunt for grits.
To my surprise, I found them.
Steak & Eggs is a restaurant owned by a Nova Scotia entrepreneur that serves breakfast all day and caters to Americans with menu items like country fried steak, club sandwiches and nachos. (Let me point out here that I hope you didn’t come to Beijing to eat nachos).
They’re clearly proud of their grits, though. When I spotted them on the menu and smiled, the manager lit up (I’m guessing he gets that look of delight a lot) and invited me into the kitchen.
Chef Sunny Song looked a little puzzled as I watched him scoop some into a bowl for me.
“Americans eat these,” he said.
They arrived swimming in butter but unsalted. The salt shaker, probably owing to the extreme humidity, was clogged pretty good. I unscrewed the cap to pour some in, while waitress Hu Hai Feng watched, sort of bemused, like, can’t you figure out how to use a salt shaker without demolishing it? She called another waitress over to watch, too, so I felt good about providing some entertainment.
Out in the dining room, I met James and Maureen Martin of Tampa and their daughter Marissa, 14. They’re in town for the Games and were craving the taste of home.
“I was surprised to find they had them,” said James Martin. “It’d be even better if they had shrimp and grits.
I have to say, I wasn’t expecting to see a giant sign that said Mississippi in Beijing. As you’d guess it’s another restaurant with American menu items.
“My boss goes to America for a visit and comes back with good feelings,” manager Gue Yue told me. “When Americans walk by and see this, it’s like hometown.”
The name is meant to reference the Mississippi River, by the way, not the Magnolia State.
Man on the move
Jason Disharoon is here for the Games, visiting his fourth country in a year. He’s also hit London, Paris and Munich (not to mention trips to New York, Texas and Boston) in the past 12 months.
Global tycoon? Trust-fund kid? Flight attendant?
Nope. Disharoon, 24, of Douglasville, simply has chronic wanderlust. He travels the globe by racking up Delta SkyMiles any way he can: collecting special bottle caps that can be redeemed for miles, filing out online surveys that throw respondents some miles for their time, or travel, of course.
“I want to make sure I visit every continent,” said Disharoon, a meterologist at WGCL who works with weather hottie Dagmar Midcap.
He prefers to travel solo so he can hit as many sites as possible without worrying about a companion keeping up with him.
“I know it sounds selfish,” he laughs. He arrives by himself but doesn’t stay alone for long. The engaging 2006 Georgia Tech grad makes friends quickly (the other night he was out partying with Benjamin Boukpeti, the bronze medal kayaker from Togo) and leaves each country with a passel of new buddies.
His advice is simple: enjoy your trip.
“At work, you have deadlines, you have assignments, you have places to be,” he says. “If you turn your vacation into that you take all the fun out of it.”
The trip to Beijing has pretty well depleted his travel budget, so his next excursion will likely be a low-key trip to the beach. And no, he doesn’t want to turn travel into a business.
“I could never be a tour guide” he says. “I don’t have the patience to do the same thing twice.”
Dean Wang, David Qiao and Derek Xu celebrate both China and America on the Olympic Green.
I can be so dumb sometimes. I saw three Chinese youths wrapped in the U.S. flag walking through the Olympic Green and thought, wow, what a great picture. I pulled out my camera and made a picture-snapping motion to ask if it was alright.
“Atlanta, the Dirty South!” said David Qiao, who lives in Seattle, reading my press credential.
He was with buddies Derek Xu, who lives in Seattle, and Dean Wang, who lives in Los Angeles.
“I was born in Beijing, and moved to Texas when I was 6,” David said. “I feel like this is a really good reflection of the heritage and history of what China has to offer. In the end, this Games is about sports and friends coming together, rather than using this as a platform for political causes.”
David’s parents are from Beijing and he has friends in Atlanta. He sees parallels between China’s human rights issues and America’s Civil Rights era.
“It’s a good way to connect both sides together,” he said of America, China, and the Games. “Four or five years ago, no one wanted to come to China.”
He’s on the move, too
I walked through Tiananmen Square, which is a great place for people watching. This little guy below was a walking (or running I should say) tourist attraction.
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Made in the USA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlantan George Hirthler has made his mark on Beijing
Beijing has slapped its official Olympic slogan, “One World, One Dream,” all over town.
Did you know it was created in Atlanta? It’s true.
George Hirthler, the ebullient Atlanta communications strategist who worked ACOG and is now working with 2016 contender Chicago, submitted the slogan chosen several years ago to brand the 2008 Games.
He’d actually submitted it for consideration for the Atlanta Games, but says it’s the perfect catch-phrase for the Beijing Games. He was among the Atlantans and former ACOG officials who turned out for “Chicago Night.” Windy City Mayor Richard M. Daley and a slew of Olympic athletes including Bart Conner and Bob Ctvrtlik, who’s also an International Olympic Committee member.
Bob Ctvrtlik, left, and George Hirthler
There were tons of Atlantans there, including Hirthler’s fellow ACOGer Charlie Battle and Jessica and Andrew Rodbell, the cutest couple ever. She’s a Pace girl who went to UGA; he went to Westminster and the University of Pennsylvania. They met while working on MBAs at Emory.
The Rodbells
The Rodbells visited Beijing in 2000, before they were married, and talked about how neat it might be to live here during the Games. Two corporate transfers later (hers with Google, his with Coke), here they are.
Nancy Tao and Sean O’Keeffe also moved here from Atlanta, seeing an international experience. Her dad, Austin Tao, is from Shanghai and emigrated to the U.S. at age 10. Sean, you might guess, traces his heritage to Ireland.
Guess which one speaks Chinese? She’s learning.
Keith Williams, left, and Phil Morrison
Of all the bars in all the hotels in all the world…
I walked into theirs.
Phil Morrison and Keith Williams first started playing together years ago, in hotels and restaurants in Atlanta. After performing at the Atlanta Games they decided to hit the road, and landed gigs all over the globe, starting in Tokyo.
Right now they’re working for a few months in the gorgeous fifth-floor lounge at the new Beijing Hilton. When you get off the elevator, a hostess in a ball gown with dazzling rhinestone brooch greets you to lead you into the bar, called Flames.
The jazz duo’s song “Beijing Olympics, Hao Yuing” (“good luck”) has been honored by Beijing Olympics Song Selection Committee. You can listen to it here.
“We want to communicate love, unity, the oneness of our human family,” Williams said. “Music really is a unifying language.”
For their Hilton gig they have hooked up with L.A. songbird Viva Vinson, but are still missing a drummer (if you and your pair of sticks are looking for work in Beijing, you might head on over.)
Morrison and Williams love introducing international audiences to jazz. It’s often an educational process, and they say that sometimes after a set, their new fans rush up to ask, “was that jazz?”
They remember the pride they felt playing at the Atlanta Games, since they were Atlanta residents at the time. So they can relate to the pride residents of their temporary city feel at hosting the 2008 Games.
I got there late Tuesday night after hitting several other events. The place had thinned out some so the guys were up for a request: “Georgia on My Mind,” of course.
Here’s what I saw today
The great thing about spotty cell phone service is the unforeseen opportunities it can introduce. For example, if I’d known my scheduled interview had been called off, I wouldn’t have found myself knocking around with a couple of spare hours in a colorful Beijing neighborhood today. So, here’s how I spent my unexpected free time.
First, I stumbled onto an outdoor fitness center.
A future Olympian
This one looked really fun
You have to like this frank description. None of this “active senior” business here
Since dogs are off the menu I guess they’ve been put to work. This little guy was holding down the fort while the driver had a smoke. Thoroughly freaked out by the CDC warning about rabies in China I didn’t pet him (or her).
Translation by Yoda
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The gold medalists of serendipity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Evan, left, and Will Randall of Marietta and Rachel Cathy of Jonesboro are having MOR fun than you can imagine here in Beijing.
A guy and a girl are walking down a street in Beijing. She spots his UGA hat and goes, “Go Dawgs!”
“You’re from Georgia?” he asks.
“Atlanta,” she says.
“I am too!” he says, and they start talking about what they miss back home.
“Chick-fil-A,” he says. “Man, do I miss Chick-fil-A.:”
She smiles, reaches into her pocket and pulls out one of those little “Eat Mor Chickin” cows.
Evan Randall of Marietta has just run into Rachel Cathy of Jonesboro, granddaughter of Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy and niece of its president, Dan Cathy. He’s a 2006 UGA grad, now living in Beijing on a Fulbright scholarship. She’s a 2008 UGA grad just here for the Games and figured what better way to spread international goodwill than some free sandwich coupons and stuffed cows?
“I was like, maybe I’ll carry these around,” she said, never dreaming she’d run into folks from metro Atlanta.
Cathy and Evan and his brother Will, a Rice University student, were celebrating Will’s last night in Beijing when the chance meeting occurred. He’s got to head home to get ready for the school year.
“I am so sad to be leaving,” he said.
But at least he can hit Chick-fil-A soon.
International diplomat John Mion at his seat of power: a table at the Beijing Hooters.
Atlanta’s corporate community has exported much of itself abroad. You can’t take three steps without spotting a Coke logo. A giant General Electric sign is one of the first things you see upon landing at the airport. And when I ship my clothes home to make room in my suitcase for souvenirs, it won’t be hard to find a FedEx or UPS location.
But let’s not forget the Atlanta-based corporation famous waitresses in clingy orange shorts and tank tops. That’s right, there is a Hooters in Beijing.
That’s where we went to watch the U.S. team play China tonight, figuring we’d run into some Yanks in the crowd. And that’s where we met John Mion, who has lived in Beijing for two years. He works for a company that salvages materials, like the platinum in old carburetors.
He says he’s gotten many a deal going here over plates of chicken wings and that introducing Chinese to Hooters takes on something of a diplomatic air.
“I don’t mean that in an arrogant way,” said Mion, whose brother lives in Alpharetta. “You’ve got to spread real Americana. They think everything is just McDonald’s and KFC.”
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Shop, then play
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Houston Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo had a few hours to kill this afternoon, what with tonight’s game against China not starting until 10:15 p.m.
So why not get a little shopping in?
I happened to be in the Pearl Market doing, um, research, when a swarm of people rushed past, all yanking cameras and cell phones out of their bags. Seems the former Atlanta Hawk had decided to drop by.
Sorry this photo’s so crummy. I fired off one shot, then security guards flooded the area where the crowd had gathered.
Afterward a fellow shopper came by to show me the picture he’d taken (it was much better, by the way) and asked, “Is he from the U.S.? Does he play basketball?”
Speaking of the Pearl Market
I must have good taste. Laura Bush and I shop at the same jewelry store here.
Just not at the same time.
The first lady’s visit was all the buzz today on the top floor of the Pearl Market. Unlike the boisterous lower floors, where grabby vendors shout and shove, the top floor is a a serene haven where genteel staffers ply you with bottled water or Diet Coke, invite you to sit down and compliment you lavishly, in the hopes you’ll buy something.
Mrs. Bush bought a strand for a friend, as a gift, the staff at one shop was all too eager to report.
“She said, ‘hello everyone,’ and was very nice,” shop owner Ru Pei Pei said. Her store didn’t make the sale, but has previously sold pearls to former President Carter. They must have hit it off because there’s a photo of Ru and President and Rosalynn Carter hanging in her shop.
“They bought pearls here before, and when I went to the U.S. I called his secretary,” Ru said. She visited Atlanta several years ago and met the Carters at the Carter Center.
They were so friendly,” she said.
Weather report
It’s raining here, which I’m hoping will clear the air a little. (My eyes look all bloodshot from the smog, like I’ve just come off a bender or something. Not really the ideal ‘Fly look, you know?)
The big news is that yesterday, for a time, the sun came out. Sort of. Enough to cast a shadow anyway. This brought out a lovely display of parasols, brightly colored and made of silky fabric, unlike the utilitarian umbrellas that popped open today.
Turn it up!
You’re going to think I’m making this up, but I’m not. Most of what I hear on the radio during cab rides is Chinese singers and talk shows. Yesterday, out of the blue, one local station’s repertoire expanded for a few minutes and played, I kid you not: Sweet Home Alabama.
He’s not just another tourist
A guy in shorts and a polo shirt walks into one of the buildings on the Olympic Green, to admire a collection of statues on display.
But this is not just another tourist. And these are not just any statues.
Michael Shapiro, director of the High Museum, is taking in the display of Terracotta Warriors being shown at the Johnson & Johnson pavilion. A major exhibition of warriors is headed to the High this November.
Given Beijing and Atlanta’s Olympic connection, Shapiro says, the timing couldn’t be better.
“It’s a harmonic convergence,” he said.
Five warriors, including a general, are on display here, along with some tools of their trade and several cases of fragments. It’s a cerebral addition to the Olympic Green (nearby, a group of street performers were juggling basketballs to the sounds of “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas).
Back at the exhibition, Shapiro was gracious enough to give us a brief but highly informed tour. Although he’s seen the warriors half a dozen times, both in their native Chian Province and on display at the British Museum, he retains a fresh sense of delight about them.
“A number of the pieces have clay stamps that indicate quality control, like when you buy a shirt and it says, ‘inspected by No. 7.’ No. 7 was working in 220 B.C,” he says.
Shapiro and his wife are here with Coca-Cola exec Tom Mattia, who is on the board of the High. Watching the opening ceremony, he was struck by similarities between the 2008 drummers who performed at the beginning of the event, and the ancient warriors.
“Our culture is based on the individual, this culture has been based on the group ethos, which is manifestly evident here,” he said.
He hopes that with the Games wrapping up so close to the opening of the High’s warriors exhibit, Atlanta’s interest in China will bring them to the museum.
“it’s the ideal way into Chinese history,” he said.
Song of the South
I packed a few things to keep from getting homesick, like a t-shirt that reminds me of a good friend and a candle (thanks to my gracious, tenacious, extraordinarily talented colleague Michelle Hiskey for that suggestion).
As it turns out, there’s Southern hospitality all around you here: cicadas. As in the South this time of year, the air is filled with the sound of their vibrating wings. Unlike the South, you can find cicadas on the menu here, and packaged for other uses. I’m not sure if the guys pictured above are pets or what, but they rang out a welcome in a little shop I ducked into yesterday.
Inside, the proprietor offered some for sale.
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Tapped for the Opening Ceremonies: “I must be living right.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s an emotional thing, seeing the American flag abroad. Particularly when it’s China. And the Olympics.
And especially when you’re tapped at the last minute to enter the stadium during Opening Ceremonies.
Harris Patel, a physicians assistant student at Emory University, is here working with U.S. athletes as part of the United States Olympic Committee’s 62-member medical staff - the only medical professional from Georgia on the USOC’s medical staff.
Just hours before the spectacular Opening Ceremony, Patel learned he’d be striding in along with the athletes he cares for.
“I must be living right,” said Patel, 34.
His Olympic experience had already been pretty memorable, what with former President Bush showing up at a track and field practice at Beijing Normal University. Bush Sr. told everyone a pole vaulting joke (Patel can’t remember the particulars but we’re sure it was G-rated) and chatted up Atlanta shot putter Adam Nelson for a while.
Patel and his cohorts sent the former prez off with some track and field gear, never imagining he’d get to meet the younger Bush. But through a stroke of luck, he was notified he’d be participating in tonight’s ceremony. Beforehand, his group met the president and posed for pictures (I’ll post them soon as he gets them to me. as you might guess the press doesn’t exactly enjoy unfettered access over here, so I wasn’t there for the meeting with W).
Patel, a 1992 Norcross High School graduate who went to UGA and Alabama before starting at Emory, started working as an athletic trainer in 1998 and first worked with the USOC in 2005, at the Youth World Championships in Athletics in Canada. He graduates this December and plans to stay in sports medicine.
When I talked to him a few minutes ago, he sounded too excited to sleep, even though it’s going on 2 a.m. Beijing time.
“It was awesome, indescribable to see all those American flags everywhere,” he said.
Potato salad diplomacy
Atlanta and Beijing have lots in common: terrible traffic, air quality problems and barbecue (although they serve it dry here). It’s Sam Williams and Hans Gant’s job to build upon the positive similarities, especially now that Beijing has joined the elite fraternity Atlanta pledged in 1996.
Williams, Atlanta Chamber of Commerce president, and Gant, its senior VP for economic development, are over here proudly wearing shirts from the Atlanta Games, pressing the flesh like nobody’s business.
Well, Atlanta’s business, actually. They’ll do what it takes to attract Chinese business to Atlanta and Georgia.
“Over time I could see tens of billions of dollars spent in Atlanta by Chinese investors,” Gant said.
A couple of years ago they cruised down the Yangtze River to cultivate relationships with potential Chinese business associates. No one talked business for hours. More recently they worked with U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss to help Sany, a heavy machinery manufacturer that’s establishing a presence in Peachtree City, expedite visas for Chinese workers.
But sometimes it’s more simple. Sometimes a bowl of potato salad will do the trick. One of the Chamber’s staffers once made dinner for the head of Chinese manufacturer General Protecht, which has bought 200 acres in Lamar County. The executive had never had this Southern staple, and raved about it so much the staffer made him a large bowl to go.
“He still talks about it,” said Williams. “Whether it’s potato salad or local zoning, you’ve got to stay with them and assist them with whatever their needs are.”
He and Gant are frequent visitors to China and during the Olympics are among the fleet of Atlanta business types here to enjoy the Games and stoke economic opportunity. They rattled off a host of Atlanta businesses with a foothold in China: corporate giants like Coke, Home Depot, Newell Rubermaid and UPS of course, but also law firms Jones Day, Troutman Sanders, Paul Hastings, and accounting and consulting firms McKenzie, Deloitte and KPMG.
They’re hopeful a Delta-Northwest merger could mean a direct flight to Beijing to complement Delta’s newly launched direct flight to Shanghai, and run seminars for business types eager to court China.
“Doing business in China is done extremely different than doing business in the United States,” Williams said. “In America, they want to get down to it and make money. In China, they want to know who you are. They want to have a feeling of comfort that they know as a whole the community and state will be there for them long-term.”
Or, as Gant put it, “In the West, once you sign a contract, the deal is done. In China, when you sign the contract, that’s the beginning.”
Here’s what I saw today
I set out for an interview today only to learn that the venue was closed to the media, and although I took a cab there, I couldn’t get one back, because the venue was closed to the media. If that makes sense to you, that makes one of us.
But, my little mishap gave me time, about 45 minutes or so, to walk back to my original location (where I’d hailed a cab in the first place). Here’s what I saw on the way back.
A Beijing parking lot
And one form of mass transit
And two sets of young people
My husband once broke our TV after hauling it in his SUV. I should have called these guys.
This lady’s job is sweeping the street with a broom made of twigs. When she saw me watching her she hopped on her bike here and motioned for me to take her picture.
Beijing’s air is terrible, although people who live here say it’s gotten quite a bit better. So what to do but find a multi-task mask, one that blocks the air and looks cute. This little girl posing with her family outside the Bird’s Nest stadium, was wearing one with yellow polka dots.
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The Great Y’all of China
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sada Jacobson meets the press.
Given the 12-hour time difference, my Thursday’s winding down. I spent it in search of Atlantans in Beijing, and let me tell you: I found some.
I started out the day visiting with Westminster Schools grad Sada Jacobson, a U.S. fencing team member who competes Aug. 9 and Aug. 14.
With her family on the way over from Dunwoody, Jacobson shared a funny story. Years ago, someone asked her dad, David Jacobson whether he and his wife, the parents of three girls, would keep trying for a boy. He responded that they loved their family just as it was.
Too bad, the friend consoled. With three daughters he was sure that David Jacobson, who fenced at Yale and was a member of the 1974 U.S. Men’s Saber National Team, wouldn’t be able to share his love of sports with a child.
Ha!
Sada’s younger sister Emily competed in the Athens games and youngest sister Jackie has picked up the sport as well.
“I think he sees a lot of himself in us,” she said.
While the Games are providing the Jacobsons a most unique family trip, they won’t linger long. Sada has to hustle home and get ready to begin law school this fall. She’ll enroll at the University of Michigan.
“I’ll get home, have a couple of days to do laundry,” and then she’s off. Jacobson isn’t sure what kind of law she’ll want to practice, but laughs that her proficiency with the saber might give her an advantage one day in court.
“There are a lot of elements of my athletic career that will come in handy in my future career,” she said.
Dr. Fred Fritsch in the Olympic Village, where the flags of his native and adopted countries fly.
My next stop visit Thursday was the Olympic Village, where the athletes are staying and where Marietta’s Fred Fritsch is here for his fifth Olympics, including two as a competitor and three as a team chiropractor. The former Navy Seal competed in the 1976 and 1984 Winter Olympics on the bobsledding team. A powerfully built man, he has enjoyed robust hobbies over the years like diving, sailing and parachuting, but wracked himself up pretty good in the process.
“I literally destroyed my body,” said Fritsch, 55.
In 1995, the Ohio native headed south to study at Life University, finishing in 1998. Shortly thereafter, on a trip to Central America to work with sports clinics, he struck up what would become a lasting relationship with the national athletes of Guatemala. This marks his third Games with the Guatemalan team.
“Guatemala is like my second country,” said Fritsch, who operates a clinic in Woodstock. There are nine men and three women competing from Guatemala this year and the small group is a close one, he said.
By the way we almost weren’t allowed to take the picture above, since there was a ceremony going on in the background and the guard stationed along the periphery told us “only very important persons” could pass. We were somehow granted brief dispensation.
On my way out of the village I engaged in a little international diplomacy in a little office billed as the Chinese Learning Center, where Xu Dan is eager to teach anyone who will stop by a few key phrases.
She’s a tough teacher, too. She taught me some basics and then ran me through a set of drills to make sure the lesson took.
To return the favor I taught her how to say “y’all.” I told her it’s the favored translation of nimen hao, which means “hello everybody.”
Strangely, she’d never heard the term and was just delighted when she got it right.
Kendra White is happy to be on the press bus, since it hasn’t come under fire like her church bus once did in Atlanta.
I’ve noticed that a Southern accent over here will attract a fellow Southerner, even a fellow American, like a fly to honey. Sweet little Kendra White hopped on a media bus this afternoon and said hello to everyone, which is not exactly common.
“Hey,” I replied, and in that one syllable (well, two), we were BFF. A Kentucky native who’s a rising senior at Asbury College, she’s volunteering here, having landed an internship through her school. She says several years of competing in the Atlanta Open, an annual Bible quiz game, prepared her for the work she’s doing.
“It definitely improved my diligence and my ability to focus,” she said, adding that her church group always returned from Atlanta with stories to tell the folks back home.
“One year our bus got shot at,” she said. “It was crazy.”
Maybe that explains her chipper demeanor. The press buses here are crowded and slow, but at least no one’s firing on them.
If you speak French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese or English, Andrea Feuer can help.
I wrapped up with a visit to National Aquatics Center, where Atlanta International School grad Andrea Feuer is something like a one-woman U.N. She was born in her mother’s native Venezuela and the family moved with her Atlanta native dad’s job to Shanghai and Puerto Rico before settling in Atlanta in 2001.
Feuer, 20 and a rising Yale junior, is fluent in Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese. As you’d guess, her volunteer gig involves a lot of translating.
“I made the conscious decision to come before the Olympics because I wanted to see Beijing transform,” said Feuer, who completed her sophomore year at Beijing University. She has no air conditioning, and even her fan quits working from midnight to 6 a.m. weekdays, when the power is turned off. She does have a luxury not available to many of her fellow students, though: showers located in her building.
She says the experience has made her independent and resilient - not to mention marketable.
“These are going to be my future colleagues,” she says of the friends she’s made at Beijing University to be her future colleagues. “They’re the new face of China.”
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Good morning from Beijing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another beautiful day in Beijing
You thought Atlanta’s air quality was bad? This was the view outside my window this morning.
We’ve spent some time with Beijing residents, who all say the air’s actually quite a bit better than it was years ago, and somewhat improved from just a few weeks ago.
I’m thinking of getting a MARTA card when I get back.
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Johnson & Johnson? We’ve never heard of it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Johnson & Johnson got into Olympic sponsorship in a big way. The health care giant linked up not only with the Beijing Olympic Committee but the International Olympic Committee.
The worldwide sponsor and NBC launched a Web site earlier this year telling compelling stories of eight Olympic hopefuls, including shot putter Reese Hoffa of Athens. It stuck little first aid kits in the press kits handed out to journalists here and even put bottles of baby shampoo in the press village showers. Its logo is everywhere, and its corporate pavilion just off the Olympic Green features an exhibition of China’s famed Terracotta Warriors (The High Museum’s warriors exhibition starts in November.)
We wanted to drop by J&J’s warriors preview this afternoon. Since we just got here we weren’t familiar with the lay of the land yet. But no problem, we figured. Surely the phalanx of volunteers would quickly be able to point us toward such a major international sponsor.
Wrong.
“Johnson and Johnson?” wondered a volunteer, one of maybe 30 we asked for help. “We’ve never heard of it.”
Another asked if Johnson and Johnson were people, while a third asked if it was a biological company. Flummoxed, we called the official Olympics help line, where a succession of volunteers, each speaking English a little more proficiently than the last, tried valiantly to help.
“Are you looking for a specific Johnson & Johnson location in Bejing?” one pleasant young man asked, perhaps thinking we were seeking a drugstore.
After wandering around for an hour in weather that made Wall-E seem like a documentary, a Midwestern accent caught my ear. Finally, someone who had A. heard of Johnson & Johnson and B. could point us in their direction.
Maybe the blank stares were an aberration.
“We have seen very nice results here in China,” J&J exec Brian Perkins was saying when we finally made it. “We are very pleased with the result of our Olympic sponsorship so far.”
Tons of ATL companies are represented here, Coca-Cola chief among them of course. We’re also seeing hometown labels like FedEx and UPS and, one you might not have heard: Gerflor Taraflex, which is supplying flooring for volleyball and table tennis.
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The Butterfly’s in Beijing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ni hao, y’all.
The AJC’s Olympics coverage team landed last night after about 18 hours in the air, and we’re gearing up for the Games. (Unfortunately Delta hasn’t yet unrolled its in-air WiFi service).
My role here is a hybrid of sports, business and society coverage. I’ll be catching up with Atlantans who are in Beijing for fun, business or both. Thanks to all of you who have e-mailed to let me know you’re here! I’m looking forward to meeting you. If you’re here and I haven’t heard from you give me a shout.
(If you’re here and plan to demonstrate, good luck. There seems to be a pair of uniformed guards on every corner.)
Despite the city’s efforts to curb pollution by keeping cars off the road and halting construction and factory work to lessen dust in the air, the sky’s hazy today and I could see neither stars last night nor the sun, really, today. But you can tell Beijing’s spruced up. There are flower boxes perched on the side of the expressways and newly installed flora everywhere.
The ATL gets a little shout-out in a botanical montage at one intersection, as one of several recent Olympics host cities to have its name spelled out in blooming tribute.
I just had lunch with Atlantan Sheila Hula, who with husband Ed runs the all-Olympics-all-the-time publication Around the Rings, and I’m heading over shortly for a preview of the Terracotta Warriors exhibit, coming to the High Museum of Art this fall. (High Museum Director Michael E. Shapiro is in town, as you’d expect. I’ll tell you what he says when I see him).
In his Atlanta home studio the other day, Steve Allen puts the final touches on a painting to be unveiled here in Beijing.
I’ll also be attending Atlanta Legacy Night, where a delegation from Atlanta will unveil a painting by Steve R. Allen, artist-in-residence for the DeKalb International Training Center. Allen has presented paintings at the Athens, Sydney, Turino and Salt Lake City Olympic Games.
Dr. Marc Daniel Gutekunst, co-founder with Prince Albert of Monaco of the Atlanta DITC, expects a colorful and prominent crowd for that event.
More later,