August 2008 - Posts
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
How remote is the former Soviet republic of Georgia to most Americans?
Here's one measure: I recently received an e-mail from a viewer wondering if this Georgia was where our Georgians (as in our Carolinans or our Virginians) originally came from.
Silly, perhaps, but the comment raises a serious concern. It's true that, as the six-day conflict in Georgia - followed by a week of shaky cease-fire - unfolded, each dateline became more exotic, and unfamiliar, than the last: Tbilisi, Gori, Poti, Tskhinvali.
Every day, our dispatches tried to answer the questions we all seemed to be asking: why had a phalanx of international reporters parachuted into Georgia to cover spiraling violence in a breakaway region? Why - at the very height of hype and excitement about the Beijing Olympic Games - had so many of us come to witness what started out as just another ethnic skirmish in the Caucasus?
Of course, there was the obvious, quick answer: This war, like previous proxy wars, was really about what you could not see - or report. What kept your adrenalin pumping in the wee hours of the morning: that primal fear of a military - even nuclear - confrontation between Russia and the United States.
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and reporter
As China and the United States battle to claim the most Olympic medals – with gold-medal and all-medal counts being frantically tallied and talked about – many other countries' athletes are overjoyed to take home their nations' first gold, or even bronze.
Kings and presidents make personal calls to congratulate the winners, and millions cheer on their tiny delegations with pride.
"It’s a great honor for us to win Afghanistan’s first medal for the Olympics," said Farhad Kheslat, President of Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee.
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| Behrouz Mehri / AFP - Getty Images |
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Rohullah Nikpai of Afghanistan celebrates his third-place win during the medal ceremony for the men's 58-kilogram taekwondo competition, in Beijing, on Wednesday. |
"We are quite happy, I can’t express it," Kheslat said after Rohullah Nikpai won a bronze medal for the men’s under 58-kilogram taekwondo competition.
President Hamid Karzai called the athlete to congratulate him for his contribution to the war torn country that's competed in 11 Olympic Games since 1936.
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By Stephanie Himango, NBC News Producer
"It's the first time for us to come to Beijing!" exclaimed sixteen-year-old Su Man Ye, eyes smiling through her tiny glasses.
Petite and energetic, she appeared younger than her years.
"Today we met so many new friends! People are so nice to us!"
Her exuberance was infectious, and defied comprehension when you learned a little bit about her past.
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| Stephanie Himango / NBC News |
| Fifteen-year-old Ding Yi Ru, left, of Beijing, and her new friend from Sichuan province, sixteen-year-old Su Man Ye, right, pose for a photo at the Summer Palace. |
Man Ye
traveled to Beijing during the Olympic Games with 49 other teens from Sichuan Province for a week-long camp sponsored by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games (BOCOG). For many of the children, including Man Ye, this trip was their first time on a plane, their first time to the capital, their first time away from home.
That home is a place the world came to know in May when a devastating earthquake killed nearly 70,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more.
For Man Ye, home is no longer the place she once knew. As a young girl, she lost her parents, and had been living with her grandmother. But in the aftermath of the earthquake, she lost her grandmother, too. Now she is looked after by a variety of teachers and distant relatives.
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By NBC News’ Producers A.J. Goodwin and John Cheang
Here’s the riddle: If you order out for Chinese food in the U.S., what do people in China go out for?
The answer: Sichuanese, Yunanese, Shanghainese, Xinjaing, Hakka, Cantonese, Hot Pot, and the list goes on.
Every region of China has its own style of cuisine featuring local ingredients and tastes. And it doesn’t all involve a wok or rice.
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| Maria Alcon / NBC News |
| A chef prepares Beijing's famous Peking Duck. |
In big cities like Beijing of course, all regions of the country are represented, and so is their food.
Here’s a breakdown on just a few of the varied foods of China’s 22 provinces that we had the opportunity to sample on assignment in Beijing. (And our apologies if this makes you hungry).
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| By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent |
GUANGDONG, China – Once the Olympic party is over, is China heading for an economic hangover?
Ben Schwall, for one, thinks the headache is already setting in for the country's seemingly unstoppable export machine.
"If you are a factory owner here, it’s not like you're being kicked around. Somebody has hit you over the head with a baseball bat," he said.
I met Schwall on a recent visit to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where he buys decorative lights for a string of U.S. retailers. "It's the perfect storm," he told me. "You've got a drop in demand. Business stinks. At the same time prices are going up."
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
At least twice a week, Wu Ying goes to a local gym in western Beijing to work out. She joins a group of girlfriends and the occasional guy, and for a couple of hours they train with a dance instructor in a glass-walled room surrounded by treadmills and step machines.
The whole scene – some 20-odd people working up a sweat to the insistent beat of hip hop, under dim fluorescent lights – would be unremarkable if not for the fact that Wu is 70 years old.
Wu, aka China’s pre-eminent Hip Hop Granny, is a nimble Beijing native with an expressive face and elastic body. She has been performing hip-hop routines since 2003 when she saw the first National Hip Hop Dancing Competition on Chinese television.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| A poster advertising a performance by the Hip Hop Grannies. |
"The competitors were all young people, wearing headscarves, headdresses, hats, and various clothes," recounted Wu, a retired accountant who was 66 at the time. "I thought that was very fresh."
Inspired by "the look they had in their eyes, the way they moved their fingers, heads and bodies," Wu thought hip-hop dancing would be perfect for herself and China’s aged and infirm.
"The elderly don’t like to move too much," she added. (She’s right. Even though legions of elderly Chinese can be seen exercising in city parks across the country at dawn and dusk, they tend to favor slower-tempo activities like Tai Chi or ballroom dances such as waltzing.)
Wu set out to learn hip hop dancing at a local gym and to study whatever she could about the activity. She also began looking to put together a five-member troupe to promote hip hop dancing by touring the country and by performing on Chinese TV.
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By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
It went down to the wire. Would he or wouldn't he resign?
When President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation mid-way into his one-hour address to the Pakistani nation today, the news came as a shock to many aides, pundits and journalists who were expecting him to resign only after fighting the charges against him. Musharraf had been under immense pressure from the newly elected coalition government to either resign or face impeachment charges for gross misconduct and violations of the constitution during his nine years of absolute military rule.
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| Anjum Naveed / AP |
| A Pakistani salesman listens to President Pervez Musharraf's resignation speech at an electronic shop in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Monday. |
Dressed in a dark gray suit and striped blue tie, the Pakistani leader began his speech in a defiant mood, reminding the nation of his accomplishments, but then abruptly changed to a more emotional tone. He said he had wanted reconciliation with his political opponents but they had opted for confrontation.
"It is not the time for more confrontation in Pakistan," Musharraf said, adding that he had always put the interests of the country over his own.
"In the interest of the nation, I resign from my post today," he said. "I do not want anything from anyone, nothing from anyone."
His speech was not scripted; there were no advance copies; Musharraf spoke extemporaneously from just a few notes.
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| By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent |
MIANZHU, Sichuan Province –I sat with Alex Qiang in a sunny square in his home town of Nanjing, a few days before the Olympics.
Wearing a cloth cap and ponytail, the twenty-seven-year-old was cradling an iced coffee, and looked every bit a child of the new China. His resume also looked the part, having studied urban planning in the Netherlands and worked in Hong Kong, he also has an apartment in the sought-after Mid-Levels area of Hong Kong Island.
But he told me he'd now quit the Hong Kong job, and had been visiting his old professors at the architecture department of Nanjing University to persuade them to get involved in re-building in the Sichuan earthquake zone, to which he was preparing to return.
"I am going to go back and see what else I can do to help. I'm keeping in touch with all the guys down there, all the volunteers," he told me.
Alex was one of any army of young volunteers who'd flocked to Sichuan soon after the May 12 quake struck, and he was part of a group I'd followed for Nightly News.
His generation, often called the Ba-Ling-Hou (the after-1980s generation), are frequently ridiculed by older Chinese. They are the one-child generation, born under China's one-child policy, often spoiled by their parents and sometimes called the "Little Emperors."
"People consider this generation to be self-centered, westernized and lacking a sense of responsibility," according to Fang Ning of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
But they seem to have found a voice and mission in the rubble of the quake, for many it was a sort of coming of age, tinged with nationalist sentiment.
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and reporter
As political rivals China and Chinese Taipei – the name Taiwan competes under in the Olympics – stepped up to the plate Friday, the Olympic gods must have smiled down on the contentious game. After causing havoc Thursday, thunderous storms subsided, giving way to a hot, sunny, blue skies summer day. The players seemed to enjoy the weather so much they didn't want to stop playing – all the way into extra innings.
Medals were not at stake during Friday’s matchup, but national pride was.
China considers Taiwan, a democratically governed island nation of 23 million, a breakaway province that must accept eventual reunification with the mainland. The issue of independence led China to boycott the Olympics for years, but the countries have enjoyed a recent thaw in relations amid a Beijing-led effort to act as "one big family" at the Games.
The Taiwanese are wild about baseball – so much so that they consider it their national sport – and were heavily favored to win Friday’s game.
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| Petra Cahill/ msnbc.com |
| Zhou Yuchao, a Chinese Taipei fan, cheers for his team against China, at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, on Friday. |
Baseball is still a relatively new sport to China. The Chinese baseball team never competed in the Olympics before this year - it was automatically awarded a chance to compete because Beijing is hosting the games.
"Chinese Taipei is stronger than China in baseball, but in other ways in the future, we have no idea," Hou Yalin jokingly said. But her younger brother, Hou Chang Chung, dismissed any political rivalry spilling onto the baseball field, saying, "We are here just to enjoy the game. It’s just like a normal situation – Taiwan should win."
The Hous - sister Yalin, and brothers Chang Chung, and Cheng Lung -- all in their thirties -- came from Taiwan to Beijing specifically to cheer on their baseball team and were confident they'd handily beat China.
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By Titi Yu, NBC News
When Guo Jingjing and her diving partner Wu Minxia stepped on to the 3-meter diving board last Sunday, a jubilant audience watched with hushed anticipation. A breathless moment… then the two partners dove into the air with a perfect back dive to the thundering applause of their adoring fans.
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| AFP - Getty Images |
| Guo Jingjing of China dives during practice at the National Aquatics Center on Aug. 5. |
The score? Three perfect 10s and it was only the second dive of the competition. The pair went on to win the first gold in diving for China with an effortless 20 points lead.
But it wasn’t her graceful somersault or dazzling spins that had the public talking the next day. It was the tiny Tiffany necklace around her neck that had the Chinese blogs abuzz.
On Sina.com’s Olympic Blog, Chinese Netizens were busy dissecting the significance of wearing the necklace, apparently a gift from Hong Kong playboy and tycoon Kenneth Fok, who has been linked romantically with Guo.
"Does this mean she’ll be married after the gold?" wrote one enthusiastic Netizen. Another blog, in true PerezHilton fashion, posted a blow up picture of the necklace hours after the competition with speculation on the price tag.
The persistent interest in Guo’s personal life reflects the changing attitude the Chinese public has toward athletes.
Once seen as property of the country’s public collective, now athletes who rake in the gold are encouraged to pursue all the perks that come with stardom – money, fame, and corporate sponsorships. And with it, a new image for the Chinese athlete.
"Before the 1980’s people saw athletes as their own family," said China Daily Columnist Raymond Zhou, referring to China’s economic rise in the early ‘80s. "Now people see them as individuals."
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| By Kevin Tibbles, NBC News Correspondent |
It is a centuries old, elaborate tradition simply called "the Peking Opera."
Acting, singing (although to the western ear that is debatable), tumbling and all sorts of other sundry stuff makes it an enjoyable, if not incomprehensible, evening.
So, to be allowed to "suit up" and partake in a production of traditional Chinese theater in Beijing was both a privilege and honor.
My role? I was to be the "Ocean King" in a production of something no one bothered to tell me.
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and reporter
Eight bright blue pingpong tables lit with neon lights stood in the center of the Peking University Gymnasium as some of the world’s best table tennis players picked up their paddles from places as varied as Nigeria, Sweden, the Dominican Republic and the United States.
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| AFP - Getty Images |
| Chinese table tennis players Zhang Yining and Guo Yue practice at the Peking University gymnasium on Monday. |
But all eyes were on the China versus Croatia table as members of China’s women’s team kicked off their quest for gold in the Beijing Olympics.
In homage to what is considered China’s national sport, competition got under way in the first venue specifically built for world-class table tennis.
While Olympic organizers say the venue was built with all the peculiarities of pingpong in mind – a space free of wind and noise disturbances – none of the players at the seven other tables seemed to mind the chants of "Go Team China!" on Wednesday morning.
It’s no surprise that while many of the crowds watching events during the first week of the Olympic Games have been sparse, seats were packed for the first day of pingpong competition, four days before a medal match. Pingpong is wildly popular in China and is played by young and old at parks, schools and even in offices across the country.
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| By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent |
SICHUAN, China – It is easy to be seduced by the glitz of the new Beijing, the modern face and the charm offensive turned on for the Olympic Games. But travel 1,300 miles south west of Beijing, and a tragedy is being played out that shows how little some things have changed.
A week before the Olympics opened I travelled to Sichuan province with a Nightly News team, to revisit parents who had lost a child in the May 12 earthquake. It was my third visit there since the quake, which killed 70,000 people.
It was the deaths of so many children, an estimated 10,000 of them buried under the rubble of their schools, that had triggered scenes of raw grief in the days that followed, as devastated parents searched for their missing child. Their anguish so acute because for most this was the only child they were allowed under China's one child policy.
In the weeks that followed, anguish turned to anger, as parents demanded to know whether shoddy construction was to blame for the collapse of 7,000 classrooms. As I discovered this month, they are still waiting for answers.
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| By Mark Mullen, NBC News Beijing Correspondent |
Beijing's architectural feats -- most notably the Bird’s Nest, which has become the structural symbol of the Olympics -- have received a great deal of attention and praise.
But what is not seen in the television pictures, is the almost invisible army of 7,000 migrant workers who built the iconic structure, not to mention all the other spectacular venues. Their contribution is remarkable, although they are often paid little and receive even less recognition.
In our extensive travels around China, we were very impressed by the men who work with such dignity, and sacrifice so much to provide for their families, who they almost never see. So, more than a year ago, we decided to profile one of the Bird’s Nest’s migrant workers in the hope that at least one of the vast array of workers would remain nameless no more.
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
By day, Michael Pettis is a finance professor expounding on monetary matters at China's prestigious Beijing University (known here as Beida).
By night, he's chain-smoking and tending bar at D-22, a vanguard club on the capital's explosive rock music scene.
"Beijing is probably among the five or six most exciting cities in the world for music, and it’s all really happened in the last few years," said Pettis, who opened D-22 two years ago in the city’s northwestern Haidian district, a sprawling university enclave also home to China's Silicon Valley.
Seven years ago, the 50-year-old Pettis was an investment banker on vacation in China. A long-time specialist in emerging economies, he said he was immediately "blown away by the excitement here." So much so that he decided to move to China.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| AV Okubo undergo a sound check before a performance at D-22. |
Pettis quickly landed a teaching assignment with Tsinghua University, another top-rated university in Beijing. "The idea was to stay here two years, teaching and learning about China," said Pettis from his perch behind the bar at D-22 one afternoon as one of seven bands prepared sound checks ahead of their performances later that evening. "As you can see, that plan didn't quite work out."
Pettis wound up moving to Beida, where he now teaches twice a week. Then, "at 9 p.m., I come here every day," he grinned, gesturing around the club.
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com editor and report
Assisted by Jia Liming, NBC News translator
Zuo Fengxia considers herself among the lucky few in old Beijing.
She was forced out of her home once in 1968, when China’s Cultural Revolution sent her to the countryside for re-education. She returned in 1998 to rebuild her life, settling into a hutong, a narrow street lined with courtyard residences that traditionally characterized old Beijing and date more than 400 years to the Ming Dynasty.
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| Petra Cahill / msnbc.com |
| Zuo Fengxia watches the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in her home on Aug. 8. |
In the city’s zeal to remake itself in advance of the Olympics, about 70 percent of Beijing’s hutongs were demolished or partially destroyed. Today, only about 1,000 of the old alleyways remain, down from about 3,000 in 1950.
Zuo narrowly escaped the fate of 500,000 people who were displaced during the facelift for the Olympics.
Her home was spared. And on Friday, her pride was restored.
"I’m very excited. It’s so beautiful,” the 58-year-old woman said as she watched the Olympics opening ceremony, clapping and giving a thumbs-up sign to the TV. “It’s just unbelievable.”
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By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
KHOTAN, Xinjiang Autonomous Region – Across much of China, strangers upon being introduced will ask each other, "Where is your ancestral home?"
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| An Uighur couple in Khotan |
But in the far northwestern province of Xinjiang, they ask, "Are you Han Chinese?"
Xinjiang, which means "New Frontier" in Mandarin, is home to China’s restive minority Uighur population. It’s a remote and rugged region long known for its simmering ethnic tension, an historical antipathy towards the majority Han Chinese, and the occasional outbreak of separatist activism.
And with the Summer Olympics upon us -- an event which Beijing hopes to carry off seamlessly -- Xinjiang's unique population and the potential conflict they could create, have come under heightened scrutiny from central government authorities.
Officials in Kashgar, scene of a bomb attack that killed 16 Chinese policemen this week, have said they've tightened controls on potential troublemakers who might attack the Games.
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By John Yang, NBC News White House Correspondent
BEIJING--It's not often that the President of the United States finds himself on the periphery of events. But that's where President Bush seems to be at the Beijing Olympics.
With his wife by his side, Bush was just one of about 80 world leaders lining up like so many airline passengers waiting to go through security -- sandwiched in between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and an anonymous-looking leader -- to shake hands with Chinese President Hu Jin-tao before the welcoming luncheon for the Beijing Olympics in the Great Hall of the People.
Later, as the leaders walked up a grand staircase to lunch, CCTV caught the remarkable shot of a Chinese aide literally steering Bush from a spot slightly behind Hu to the position directly to the Chinese president's left. Bush, already holding Laura Bush’s right hand with his left, immediately took Hu's left hand in his right. With his free hand, Hu reached over and affectionately patted the U.S. president's hand.
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| Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images |
| President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush greet Chinese President Hu Jintao and his wife Liu Yongqing before a reception at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, on Friday. |
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By Petra Cahill, msnbc.com Editor and Reporter
Beijing is in bloom. Tree saplings line highways leaving the airport. Roses and irises burst from busy rings roads. At Tiananmen Square, hundreds of thousands of flowers make up an elaborate, terraced display of Olympic proportions.
After reading dozens of stories about the stifling levels of smog in Beijing, visitors may be surprised at just how green, and floral, this city is. In fact, more than 40 million flowers have been planted across the city in preparation for the Games set to begin on Friday.
The ancient city’s fresh new landscape is intended to "create a harmonious and friendly environment," Wang Sumei, vice director of Beijing Landscape Forestation Bureau, told a press conference at the end of July.
With over 100 gardens and parks, the capital city has long had a tradition of green space, which has been greatly augmented in the build-up to the games. According to Wang, since Beijing was chosen to host the Olympics in 2001, 24,000 acres of new plants have upped the city’s "green coverage" from 36 to 43 percent of the urban center.
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By John Cheang, NBC News Producer
Assisted by Assisted by Val Wang, NBC News Assistant Producer
"Are you a Protestant?" the fresh-faced church member, dressed in a blue blouse and crisp pants, greeted me as I walked into the foyer of Beijing's Kuanjie Church, which President Bush will visit on Sunday. Around her, dozens of other members, dressed in identical uniforms, directed incoming churchgoers - many dressed in white baptismal robes - into the main chapel.
After years of reading about China's suppression of religious freedoms, I must admit that I honestly didn't' know what to expect. Bowed heads and hushed tones maybe. But what I encountered was exuberance.
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| NBC News |
| Kuanjie Church members watch as fellow worshippers are baptized at the government sanctioned church in Beijing on Aug.3. |
It was Baptism Day, which only occurs twice a year. Chinese men, women and children jammed the pews of the main chapel. Everywhere I looked, beaming faces were mouthing the Chinese verses to "All things bright and beautiful". One by one, white-robed parishioners were led into a small wading pool and tipped backwards to a chorus of prayer and religious songs.
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| By Peter Alexander, NBC News Correspondent |
XIAN, China – We walked right into the Terracotta Army exhibit, standing side-by-side with 2,000-year-old relics. Imagine visiting the Constitution and being invited inside the glass.
We filmed, uninterrupted, for three hours. For my on-camera element, what we call the "stand-up," I was given permission to walk among the warriors. The security guard begged, "Very be careful!"
The tour was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But, the road to get there was a study in Chinese bureaucracy. Here's how it happened:
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| Dreamstime |
| Thousands of terra-cotta warriors watch over Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum, in Xian, China. |
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| By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent |
HANWANG, Sichuan Province –
I was standing in the middle of a muddy path, lined by row and after row of prefabricated buildings, when a little girl caught my eye. She was sitting on a motorized cart, on top of a pile of boxes and blankets, waving a small Olympic flag.
Her parents were among scores of homeless moving into their new makeshift homes, and her gesture was another sign of the enormous passion and pride the Olympics are generating here.
The resettlement of 4.5 million families made homeless by the May 12 Sichuan earthquake is being driven by Olympic deadlines. Chinese authorities had hoped to have them in temporary homes by the time the torch goes through the area Monday, but are now aiming to complete the task by the time the Games open on Aug. 8.
Prefabricated "towns" are rising from the fields, together with makeshift hospitals, schools and shops – even a tented Internet café. Each family of three – mom, dad, and their single child – are being allocated a 200-square-foot room. They're pretty basic, but at least it is a home for those who have spent almost three months in tents or other rudimentary shelters.
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