Things are pretty quiet here at the Bureau now that the Olympics have (mercifully) ended. Media organizations around the world have been closing their foreign bureaus and Deadspin is not immune to the epidemic; this will be our final post. We’ll be giving up the glamorous blogging life and returning to our janitorial day jobs.

A rained-out baseball game against the Netherlands notwithstanding, we didn’t get to see many Olympics events in Beijing… but that was never really our intention. Lingering around outside media hotels under the watchful eyes of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army was probably more fun — we heard the Olympic Green was boring anyway.

The palpable national mood - a weird combination of proud excitement and totalitarian nervousness and micromanaging – and the general strange happenings around here sort of drove our coverage. It was often rather heavy stuff – those Tibetan monk riots, the nationalism and the tumultuous torch relay that followed, racism, re-education camps for the elderly, etc…

The run-up to the Games and the frantic 16 days in which they occurred was a weird time here. Most Beijingers we met were extremely proud of their hometown, from the smiley volunteers to the elderly neighborhood watch patrols — one of the London Organizing Committee’s biggest drawbacks is that they won’t have a pool of thousands of eager volunteers (or potential hostesses, for that matter) from which to draw free labor. To some, the Olympics presented an opportunity to shed light on their causes, from the duped protest applicants to the permanent petitioners and political dissidents under house arrest in Beijing. To the people who organized this thing, BOCOG & the Chinese government, we bet they’re glad the thing is over, and that it passed without major incident. For the most part, we encountered little ambivalence about the Games.

These Olympics felt a bit like a climax here, having been reminded of the huge event for so long by advertisements and banners and security lockdowns. But the end of the Games doesn’t mean China as a news item is going away anytime soon; the microscope is going to stay. That’s for the better, we think. Life will keep rapidly changing in China and weird, fascinating things will continue to happen. The rest of the world will go on scrutinizing the government... and the government will probably change, gradually. We’re interested to see the coming response to the permanent attention.

We want to thank Will & AJ for letting us write, and especially you all for reading our ramblings – we had fun writing them. We’ll be sticking around for a while, so if you’re in town, look us up (deadspin.china@gmail.com). Take it easy, Spinheads; 慢 走.

The day after the Olympics officially ended, the Bureau found ourselves at Silk Street Market off of Jianguomen Wai in Beijing’s CBD. Silk Street is a massive 6-floor market filled with stalls of hawkers selling everything from baby clothes to fake Panerai watches to tailored suits.

We figured it would be a fun place to visit today; there were many people leaving the city, and they must need souvenirs, we thought. We were right. We saw Brazilian tourists haggling for teacups, Belarusian Rhythmic Gymnasts buying pearls; we got our picture taken with the women’s head basketball coach of Mali, of all places. In fact, we saw people from just about every country, from Croatia to Eritrea, all bemusedly bargaining for their last minute gifts at Silk Street. Because nothing says “Beijing: 2008” like a fake Paul Smith button-down.

We thought the scene going on inside Silk Street was a cool microcosm of an integral aspect of China’s relationship with the world: Foreigners from every continent colliding here to haggle for and buy cheap (often fake) goods.

But yeah, the Olympics are over. The ubiquitous, yellow accreditation-clad visitors begin their sweaty shuffle home, returning with new suits and stuffed Fuwas, all with stories to tell about how wonderfully exotic the last three weeks were. Soon, migrant workers and prostitutes will begin to poke their heads out of their suburban hiding spots and slowly return to the city center. Maggie’s will probably re-open. Our DVD store will restock (pirated) new releases; for some reason the only DVD’s available during the Olympics - in tourist areas, at least - were pre-1960 classics like Greta Garbo flicks, "Poseidon Adventure" and "Killer’s Kiss." We expect the normal pollution to return, like a warm, poisonous blanket you just can’t get to sleep without. Hopefully Beijing takes down the temporary walls it erected to (partially) conceal the city’s “grittier” neighborhoods.

We’re interested to see what happens to Beijing over the next few months. There are no more stadiums being built or anything, but skyscrapers and super-malls are still going up all over the place. Beijing, as opposed to, say, Athens or Sydney, is actually going to grow into the shell it’s built for itself during the Olympics. (Over the next four years, they’ll finish building four more subway lines.) The city will probably continue to have a use for the Bird’s Nest, Wukesong Arena, & the Water Cube (supposedly being turned into a mall) and that mysterious plaza of buildings near the Olympic Green. And by the time the Olympics roll around in 2016 (when the statute of limitations runs out on He Kexin, by the way), it’s not much of a stretch to think Beijing will have 25 million residents.

In a NY Times article about the handing over of the torch to London mayor Boris Johnson, we can begin to see the more relaxed approach to the next Olympics:

“Guo and Rogge were thin, erect and serious, encased in creased dark suits. Johnson shambled out, his middle button undone, a hand in his pocket. He waved, pointed, pumped his fist and grinned: a naughty schoolboy out with the grown-ups.”

We had a great time, but we’re ready to settle back into our normal, China-hued lives. And we’ll be happy to watch the next Games’ as outsiders, to see an Olympics that won’t take itself too seriously. One that won’t be a, gulp, “coming out party” but just… a party.

On the next post from the Deadspin Beijing Bureau: the Bureau searches for a new job as the Paralympics roll into town.

While we empathize with AJ’s angst about the pitfalls of access, we’re starting to wish we had a press pass out here if only to attend the IOC/BOCOG press conference (they’re back!).

Earlier today, BOCOG’s Wang Wei and IOC’s Giselle Davies were again grilled about Tibet, press freedom, and of course, the real age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin. In the tumultuous days since the humble hacker Stryde Hax re-exposed the documents in question (which the NY Times seemed to have actually uncovered back in July), the story has taken off, and a pair seems to finally be descending from the smooth pasty underbelly of the IOC.

Before yesterday, the IOC had been pathetically silent on the issue of China’s tween gymnasts. We mean, there is strong circumstantial and, if you count the cached Baidu pages, hard evidence that the host nation seriously cheated in arguably the marquee event of the Olympics. It didn’t seem like the IOC had the moxie or desire to pursue any recourse or conduct any type of investigation… and they still don’t, really.

Davies passively said today that the IOC has asked the international gymnastic federation (F.I.G.) “to look into it” and bring “full clarification to the topic”. When pressed by a reporter from NBC regarding “the IOC investigating an increasing body of evidence suggesting that Chinese gymnasts are under age and were ineligible to compete,” Davies reassured us that we “shouldn't regard this as some kind of formal investigation.” Have they asked the team to pinky swear?

While we at the Bureau think it’s actually more impressive that Lil’ He won her golds at such a young age – this isn’t a hairy-lipped 14 year-old playing Little League, after all – we understand the American team’s gripes about losing to a 5th grader, and it’s beginning to look like this forgery goes pretty high up the Communist Party totem pole. If these documents are real it means that He Kexin is holding a fake passport, residence card, and current ID card, all given to her by someone with the authority to give official documents. This could be huge.

Another possibility that a few Chinese bloggers are beginning to throw around is that He’s age was actually lowered in the past in order to participate in certain age classes in local competitions. That could explain the shady documents found by Stryde Hax. Translated from a Chinese forum:

A greater possibility is, the local athletic bureau changed her age to younger, so she could participate in the Inter-City Competition. In truth, nearly all age-related alterations have happened in competitions internal to China. The goal is for the local sports officials, various levels of athletic schools, and parents to conspire and “rationally” exploit regulations to win more resources, honor, and — the biggest motivator of all — political achievements for the local sports officials and connected entities in the bureaucratic resource allocation game of the sports system.

So she is 16 but lied and said she was younger to compete in local competitions so her (original) fake document is what has everyone confused and appears on those cached Baidu docs and why she is having such a bitch of time getting her license at the Beijing DMV and why she can’t drive the team to Yang Helin’s Sweet Sixteen party.

We’re beginning to think that the IOC is just giving China face right now. Like, in private Jacques Rogge & Giselles Davies are actually mortified about everything that has gone on but understand that it would be monumentally embarrassing to BOCOG if the IOC demanded some sort of accountability for their many foibles during the Games. Understandable, if reprehensible.

The real question for us is: What will they do after the Games? Will they launch a “formal” investigation into the gymnastics scandal? Is their some sort of feisty review they publish down the road that will discuss the human rights, pollution, and censorship promises China made and disregarded? Or will the IOC just fade out and reappear in 4 years in London?

It took Jacques Rogge about 3 hours to complain about Usain Bolt not shaking enough hands and making playful poses after his race. How long will it take him to say anything critical about his hosts? Unfortunately, today was the last IOC/BOCOG press conference of the games – meaning Wang Wei and Giselle Davies will finally be allowed outside - but Rogge is scheduled to preside over a closing press conference this weekend. That event might be harder to get into than the Opening Ceremony.

While we hope someone, we’re not sure whom exactly, holds the IOC accountable for their brazen, bitch-like behavior during these Olympics, it may be more likely that the real repercussions end up being felt by the organizing committees of future applicants from developing countries. In 2012 the Olympics move to happily democratic and developed London, with Tokyo, Chicago and Madrid in the mix for 2016. Sorry Delhi, Istanbul and Baku, Azerbaijan and other budding megacities; Beijing may have stifled your coming out party.

In the next post from the Deadspin Beijing Bureau, the handsome trio uncovers cached documents suggesting Will Leitch is a 16-year old gymnast.

We check a number of Chinese publications and blogs each day from which we steal stories receive inspiration. China Daily is the official English-language publication in China and we usually flip through it each morning over breakfast. It’s a rather conservative rag, as far as they go here, but they’ve let their hair down a bit in their online coverage of the Games. In fact, we’re thinking about applying there after our Deadspin gig is up. We’re not sure who is the online editor of CD right now, but we’re pretty sure we met him at a Theta Ki party at Michigan.

Ah, the Chaoyang Park beach volleyball girls. A third of the bureau got up early today to watch the gold medal match between the US & Brazil and to bid farewell to the graceful maidens of the sand (and get horribly sunburned).

Interestingly, they seemed to be split up into two squads; one of Chinese girls and one of bubbly foreign heartbreakers.

We seriously doubt the foreign team was made up of international relations students studying in Beijing for the summer; that is to say, we don’t imagine the girls speak much Chinese. As fake journalists and amateur linguists, we would be interested in learning about the, um, nonverbal communication that must have gone on backstage.

A purty Paraguyan named Leryn Franco captured hearts and the silver medal at the 2006 Miss Paraguay competition (lasciviously linked to Wednesday on With Leather) though finished an out of the money 52nd place in the Javelin Throwing competition this week in Beijing. We don’t know much about throwing javelins, nor do we care to, but regardless we salute CD for their gallery Hot! A Sexy Javelin Thrower.

We mentioned in an earlier post that the eastern port of Qingdao would be holding the sailing events of this year’s Olympics. We haven’t yet made it to Qingdao, the capital of Shandong province, though it’s certainly on our list of destinations. We’re not quite sure how one would watch Olympic sailing events, but luckily CD put together a nice photo essay, a behind-the-scenes look, if you will, at the wild world of competitive sailing, thoughtfully entitled Sailing Girls Know How to Work It.

But amidst the bikinied cheerleaders and hot athletes, is there any room in Beijing for an elegant, old-fashioned girl? You know, the ones who are forced to go “charm boot camp”? China Daily addresses this very issue in “Perfect Hostesses Outclass Sexy Cheerleaders”, where they give the true heroes – the official Olympic hosts, who escort athletes during the medal ceremonies — their due.:

Not just anyone can be an Olympic hostess. Although the role looks simple these hostesses have been meticulously chosen and trained.

Hostess candidates have to be university educated, aged 18 to 24, between 1.68 and 1.78 metres in height (5 ft 5 ins and 5 ft 8 ins), with a "ruddy and shiny complexion", "elastic skin" and "a plump but not fat body".

Their faces needed to meet standards including the ratio between the "width of the nose and the length of the face" and "width of the mouth and width between the pupils", with eyes three-tenths the length of the face.

From about 5,000 applications, 297 candidates were chosen from a dozen Beijing colleges and 40 students from Shanghai to be "Olympic victory ceremony volunteers".

And you can bet that they weren’t born with their impeccable style and subtle elegance; they are the products of weeks of standing still and smiling:

The women have been through thorough training at a kind of charm boot camp, learning to stand for hours in high-heels and honing the perfect smile exposing eight teeth by spending hours before a mirror with a chopstick between their teeth.

"In the standing sessions, we have to stand still and smile for half an hour or more. We also run about a 1,000 metres every day for physical conditioning," one of the hostesses, Ma Sha, 20, told reporters ahead of the Games.

And finally, as Michael Phelps hookup speculation isn’t our forte, we’ll leave it again to the fine folks at China Daily:

American swimmer Michael Phelps, who has won seven golds in Beijing, became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history and received lots of love from female fans. But who is Phelps' girl?

Media reporters so far have pinpointed two girls as swimming prodigy Phelps' girlfriend. The first is Phelps' hot teammate Amanda Beard and the second is charming British model Lily Donaldson.

Together with Phelps, swimmer Amanda Beard also represented US participating in the Olympic Games held in Beijing, though so far this hot swimmer pocketed no gold.

21-year-old Lily Donaldson is even hotter and ranked as one of the top 8 models in the fashion world. Lily Donaldson even replaced British supermodel Kate Moss as the "younger face" speaking for Burberry in 2007.

Yup, that's our morning post.

The Deadspin Beijing Bureau can be reached at deadspin.china@gmail.com

On Saturday and Sunday, the IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee cancelled their once-daily joint press conference with foreign and local media. This rather flippant decision (relayed to reporters via text message) comes after days of increasingly tense briefings between IOC & BOCOG officials and foreign reporters, who keep on pestering them about protests, human rights, restrictions on journalists, tween gymnasts and China’s general disregard of the promises it made to be awarded the Olympics. During Thursday’s meeting, a series of heated, often sarcastic exchanges left BOCOG Vice President Wang Wei noticeably flustered and defensive.

There are even rumors of a slap fight. Our go-to source for Olympic Press Conference gossip, Ireland’s Sunday Business Post, gives an account of the uncomfortable showdown:

One journalist questioned Wang about the detention of protesters. Another demanded to know why reporters were being harassed. A third accused the Chinese authorities of ‘‘lying through their teeth’’ and grilled a representative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about whether she was ashamed to be working with Wang and his colleagues, as volunteers attempted to wrest back the microphone.

Eventually, Wang lost patience. ‘‘There are a few people who have come here to peek, to be critical, to dig into the small details and find fault,” he said, a look of exasperation on his face. ‘‘You are supposed to be in China covering the games.”

Wang added:

‘‘China has stepped forward, the ordinary Chinese in the street will give the same answer. Do not underestimate the wisdom of the Chinese people,” he said to the hectoring foreign reporters as the press conference drew to an embarrassing close. ‘‘Do not think that you are smartest.’’

The cancellation of consecutive press briefings at the Olympics might not seem too newsworthy, that is, if newsworthy events weren’t happening every few minutes in this town. Over the weekend—but before China’s Liu Xiang withdrew from his race on Monday—Michael Phelps won his 8th Olympic Gold, Greek runner Fani Halkia failed a doping test in Japan and the IOC stripped Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler Ara Abrahamian’s Bronze medal – the same one he stripped from himself on Friday – and formally expelled him from the Olympic Village. Maybe journalists have questions about these stories?

It’s not terribly surprising that the public faces of the IOC & BOCOG don’t want to be continually embarrassed by hoards of screaming foreign correspondents. Don’t get us wrong; we support journalists pressing officials on touchy subjects. That’s their job and, when done well, it can be quite effective in influencing social change. The mere fact that these questions are being asked within China represents progress. That said, in the past week and a half a few protests were staged that, in our increasingly less humble opinion, did little to advance any causes.

Since the Olympics began we’ve seen our share of protests in Beijing… on the Internet. The Bureau has yet to bear first-hand witness of a protest here – those “protest parks” we mentioned in an earlier post are conspicuously empty – but we don’t seem to be missing out on much.

Take this protest on August 9: Five members from Students for a Free Tibet staged a “die-in” in Tiananmen Square in which three foreigners laid on the ground with Tibetan flags draped over them and played dead. A guy shouting chants for Tibetan freedom – in English – led them. Here’s an excerpt from a transcript of the protest:

With the world’s attention on China, we ask that you please, please free Tibet, that the time is now for a free Tibet, that with the world’s attention on China, that we speak out. And as people of conscience, we’ve traveled here to do so today.

The protesters drew a bit of attention, but seemed to confuse and annoy surrounding Chinese tourists, busy taking in the most iconic site of their homeland’s iconic city.

At another demonstration on August 13, John Ray, a British reporter from ITN (the British AP, sort of), was detained while trying to cover the story. As the police van drove away from the scene with Ray and all of the captured protesters aboard, the unlucky journalist hung his Olympic press pass outside the window, providing the kind of image to onlookers that we suspect the activists wanted in the first place: one that portrayed the Chinese government as the evil, freedom-hating Empire.

Regardless of whatever their aims were, we believe the only changes these demonstrators brought about were their own deportation and inability to ever return to China, which, all in all, is a pretty cool place.

It’s not their message that we’re critical of; it’s their means of expressing their message. No, we haven’t gone commie; we support the right to protest so please go on ahead and protest away if your heart desires.

However, in a country of 1.3 billion people – mostly proud citizens who are quite sensitive to and suspicious of outside criticism – can a small group of foreigners using nothing but awkward confrontation and vague, idealistic arguments be that productive?

Moreover, news of these protests will not be disseminated on Chinese airwaves, so spreading their message within China isn’t feasible. Western viewers and savvy Chinese netizens will find the stories but these groups are presumably already hip to the situation in Tibet. Perhaps more importantly, these activists distract people from the far more compelling stories that have taken place recently – stories with Chinese citizens at the center of them. However inefficient, protests staged by Chinese citizens are poignant because of the desperation they convey, especially given the certainty of repercussions from the state.

A Wall Street Journal video follows a patriotic Chinese youth who is touring Beijing during the Olympics when he comes across a fellow citizen throwing sheets of paper in the air. Though it’s unknown what this man is protesting, his desperation is clear. Police officers enter the scene and take the man away as the patriotic subject dismisses the man as a wrong doer.

Similarly, the New York Times looked into the stories behind those who attempted to apply for permits in order to demonstrate in what were supposed to be free protest zones during the Olympics. In a cruel turn of fate it turns out that one of our earlier, half-joking predictions were, according to this article, correct. No one has been granted permission to protest in any of the three protest zones, which may well have been set up as a cruel bait-and-catch tactic. One woman applied for protesting privileges and has since been taken away by police. Another man traveled to Beijing in August with bitter persistence and little hope (“I don’t care if I die,” he is reported as saying), only to have his pleas neglected and his life feared for. The local dissenters of these stories don’t go out with a bang – like a rebellious deportation – but with a whimper.

The truth is, embattled press secretary Wang Wei is right: China has come a long, long way. And it has a long way left to go. We hate the cliché, but the Olympics are pretty damn symbolic of China’s arrival on the world stage. And by putting the country under an international microscope – not subjecting it to foreigners’ objections – the Games should also hasten China’s social progress. 20 years ago people weren’t allowed to move to a new town, or pick their own job. Now they can organize a protest on Twitter to stop a toxic factory from being built.

China knew what it was getting into when it begrudgingly invited 20,000 journalists to cover the Olympics and allowed many more potential bloggers and loudmouths (like us!) to come hang out for a month this August. In a way we feel bad for Wang Wei, whose job it is to defend policies he has no say in shaping.

We don’t doubt that the deported demonstrators are sincere in their desire for the improvement of human rights in Tibet; they are probably nice people. But the way they decided to act smacks of narcissism. The problem is, people may confuse this confrontational approach with a direct way of addressing the issue of Tibetan independence, but when laid bare it’s just an attempt to make a sensationalist news peg. Spending three grand – less than the average Tibetan makes in a year – on airfare to come to Tiananmen Square and have water bottles thrown at them by Chinese citizens – who are very proud to have the Olympics, by the way – is insulting to the thousands of dissidents who put their lives on the line for noble causes. The brave kids in Tiananmen were sent home to their developed countries with a cool story: “I took on the Chinese government, man!” The people who actually take on the Chinese government and whose lives are affected by it, well, they often go to jail…

In the next post from the Deadspin Beijing Bureau: The Bureau attempts to stage a protest protesting the protest application process.

The Deadspin Beijing Bureau can be reached at deadspin.china@gmail.com

In late July, BOCOG proudly announced that all of the 6.8 million tickets for the Beijing Olympics were sold out. Though the Bureau arrived ticketless in Beijing, our scant connections and some random goodwill have gotten us into a few events. At the venues, after we’ve passed by the smiling army of blue and white clad volunteers, metal detectors, and x-ray baggage scanners, we’ve noticed that, once safely in our seats, quite a few others are still available.

It’s not news, exactly, that some Olympic events aren’t well attended; it’s admittedly hard to get jacked up for the kayak slalom. At the Athens Games in 2004, only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million tickets were sold, much to the Greek organizing committee’s embarrassment. To avoid a similar fiasco, Beijing organizers intentionally set ticket prices low making them affordable for average Chinese citizens and, to the chagrin of overseas sports fans, limited how many tickets would be available to foreign visitors. So, um, where is everyone?

Well, BOCOG offered about 40 percent of all event tickets available to the public - a low, though not unprecedented, amount. Knowledge of this might have annoyed the sweaty 50,000 who stormed ticket offices last month during the final round of sales. The other, publicly unavailable “piao” were given out as freebies to Communist Party officials, Olympic sponsors and IOC members.

Aside from the thousands of tickets never made available to the public, a number of overseas ticket-purchasers had their Olympic vacation plans thwarted by the slippery folks at China's visa office. Since most tickets have a face value between $4 and $100 USD, jilted ticketholders likely haven't bothered to claim refunds, and plenty of lonely tickets are waiting at will call in offices throughout Beijing.

Thousands of tickets were also scooped up by agencies that overestimated their demand, and are now stuck with them. We were recently tipped about an agent sitting on a vast reserve of unsold tickets. The agent, desperate to get rid of his stock, sells passes each night to the next day’s events at a local sports bar … for face value. This operation goes down in a sort of amazing multistory sports bar that can only be compared to a lo-fi ESPN Zone (except for the random Montreal Expos relics). On Tuesday night we went to the bar without knowing how to find the mythic salesman, but word of his arrival had spread fast; seemingly half the patrons were there to get them some Olympics tickets. Around the corner from a golf simulator, a miniature basketball court and a batting cage was a rotund fella bellied up to the bar, dripping in sweat from satisfying the mass of Westerners screaming for tickets. He was sick of everyone.
The other way to get tickets is to simply be scalped outside of venues, like one might at any sporting event. The Bureau decided to take in some boxing at Worker's Gymnasium the other day, and outside the arena there were plenty of shady-looking locals with tickets both real and blatantly fake for sale, but none would budge from their initial quote of 300 RMB (for a 30 RMB face value). Also running around with a handful of tickets was an irritatingly energetic man who must have been a professional scalper. He appeared to hail from greater Britain, spoke incredibly fast and sounded sort of like a Welsh carnival barker under a deluge of amphetamines.

DBB: How much for a ticket?
Scalper: 500local
DBB: That's way too high.
Scalper: Wellwhat'syourbudget?
DBB: Don't know, not 500.
Scalper: Tellmeyourbudget,son.
DBB: Around face value
Scalper: (Walking away) I'dratherrip’emupthansellthemtoyouforthat.

And so the man turned his back on the Bureau, flipped his arm up at us, and yelled, “I'DRATHERTEARTHEMAPART!”
The official word on scalping is that it’s against Chinese law and is strictly prohibited. But with eager buyers and conspicuously empty seats, enforcement is understandably lax. Scalpers and their potential customers congregate outside venues and Olympic subway stations in full view of police and Olympic volunteers.
While poorly attended events are not without precedent, at the Beijing Games even the Olympic Green, normally the flashpoint of activity in Olympic towns, is devoid of visitors… because they are locked out.

From the Wall Street Journal:

In past Olympics like Athens and Sydney, the Olympics Green was a gathering place for thousands of people, filled with restaurants and live music. In Beijing, thousands of people stand behind fences outside the venues and the Green with no way to get inside. Legions of people who swap pins, a popular Olympics tradition that is usually a fixture on the Olympics Green, are camped outside the Media Center next to waiting taxi cabs in the summer heat.

Sponsors who spent millions of dollars on massive ads and hospitality tents inside the village are understandably perturbed at overbearing Beijing, as their fun zones are empty, their ads unseen and their free crap uncollected.
To us, the poor attendance at events, the ghost town around the Olympic Green, and the pissed-off sponsors who spent millions creating shiny and now deserted crappy corporate areas boils down to a recurring theme in both the run-up to and now during the Beijing Games: for the organizers, security trumps all else.

Less than a third of Beijing’s predicted 500,000 visitors have swung by, due to visa restrictions and other hassles, costing the city millions of dollars in tourist revenue. BOCOG would rather a deserted but protest-free Olympic Green than a crowded and loose-lipped one… with satisfied sponsors happily watching over. Beijing, as always, wants to have their cake and eat it; they’d like their arenas filled to capacity with polite fans from around the globe, all disinclined to protest. And having shut out eager, legitimate ticket purchasers and having doled out hordes of tickets to disinterested corporate partners, they may have – in the words of the glistening, portly salesman at the bar – “fucked up.”

In the next post of the Deadspin Beijing Bureau, the Iowan contracts Olympic Fever.
Remember, you can reach the Deadspin Beijing Bureau at deadspin.china@gmail.com

The opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics starts tomorrow morning at 8:08 am (for you guys, that is). It seems undeniable that this moment, rather than any upcoming competition, is the glorious and controversial culmination of more than 7 years of planning and 40 billion dollars worth of infrastructure that has left indelible physical and social changes to the fabric of Beijing.

It’s going to be a stunning spectacle, for sure — no country does festive explosions quite like China. For instance, we become aware of our excruciating hangovers every Sunday morning around 9 am after being awaken by the crackle of fireworks exploding in the courtyard of our apartment complex (it’s just like an alarm clock)… Don’t ask us what’s being celebrated, exactly. The point is, the fireworks you’re going to see broadcast on NBC tomorrow morning will make the scene on the 4th of July in Manhattan look like electrified foil in the microwave. It’s going to be bizarre, fascinating, awkwardly over-the-top and presented on an unimaginable scale.

We are sports fans and frankly, we’ve never cared too much about the Olympics. Vague excitement has always dissipated into fleeting interest of daily medal count graphics on SportsCenter amidst the distractions of summer. In our old lives in America, we’d watch basketball, maybe some diving or whatever, as background noise from our televisions. So we understand why one might be disinterested in the Games.

But the opening ceremony tomorrow night isn’t about sports; it’s world history. Soon, the rest of the world will refer to a pre- and post- Olympic China and the point between the two eras will be, definitively, 8/08/08 at 8:08 pm. This thing is as symbolic as an event can be. The way the world is going, seminal events in social history won’t be battles or speeches… but heavily produced, made-for-TV spectacles. Like this one. And if that interests you, well, you might want to tune in.

Remember, the Deadspin Beijing Bureau can be reached at deadspin.china@gmail.com

The Deadspin Beijing Bureau attended the USA/Russia basketball game on Sunday. They were spectators. They were spies. They were flmmakers. See the fruits of their labor after the jump.

The Dream Team stopped off in Macau and Shanghai recently for a few final Olympic tune-ups. For vague patriotic reasons, we decided to attend their game against Russia in the sweaty metropolis of Shanghai. On a dripping Sunday afternoon we made our way to the inconveniently located Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, a modern arena amidst the factories of Xinzhuang Industry Park in suburban Minhang district, which oddly reminded us of the Bureau of Iowa… except for all the scooters and pick-up trucks carrying crops of lotus root.

This weathered map just about sums up where we were, both literally and mentally.

This was the first basketball game we’ve attended in China and it was a starkly different experience from the MLB exhibition series we attended in Beijing in March. Unlike the ambivalent confusion we witnessed in Beijing, Chinese fans are more than familiar with basketball and the Shanghainese in the crowd appeared to enjoy themselves…not that we blame anyone for being bored at a Padres-Dodgers split-squad Spring Training game — during a dust storm, no less.

The game was competitive early on as the new Dream Team struggled a bit with Russia’s match-up zone. Andrei Kirilenko had his way down low at times — especially when Dwight Howard was on the bench — and J.R. Holden, of all people, had about 14 points

The crowd was decidedly pro-American, although Chinese fans tend to cheer politely for either team at sporting events when one executes a nice play ( which we think is pretty cool) . Kobe was clearly a fan-favorite (see above video) both during the game with raucous M-V-P chants and after, as handsy fans frantically surrounded the guy as he tried to exit the court.

China consulted with NBA officials in the hopes of creating, for better or worse, an NBA-like atmosphere for the Olympic basketball games. This meant the afternoon was replete with dancers seemingly plucked from the bar tops of Monmouth’s finest Ladies’ Nights, booming, dated pop music and, ruefully, thunder sticks for every last man, woman, and baby. There were a few kinks (be gentle with those squatter toilets!) but beer was accessible and plentiful and this was the closest the Bureau has ever felt to being at an American sporting event in China… whatever that means.

After the game, yapping vendors pushed everything from $1 Kobe posters to $12 “massages” in the arena parking lot, and, while VIPs boarded private cars and those literate in Chinese scrambled to packed buses, others (we) were left to walk over an hour to the subway. That part sucked.

On the next post of the Deadspin Beijing Bureau: The Bureau is banned from entering bars in Beijing.

Remember, you can contact the Beijing Bureau at deadspin.china@gmail.com

Monday at the Olympic Village, Team McDonalds China unveiled the largest Olympic team in history, 639 athletes strong. Sadly, Ronald McDonald (a naturalized citizen), after failing the new, more stringent gender test , has been banned from the Games and deported.

As of August 1, the always fashion-conscious drivers of the city’s 66,000 taxis will be sporting this handsome maize button-down and trouser ensemble, tastefully accentuated by a Bill Blass navy and gold striped tie.

Drivers are reportedly not pleased with the stifling blue stretch pants.

Over at the Olympic Village, cocky owners of J-visas have been bitching, as they are wont to do, about internet censorship. It seems that newly-arrived journalists are feeling some buyer's remorse as, after paying upwards of $2500 for a connection, they've found that, gasp, China's plucky internet censors have blocked access to the website of Amnesty International. Other sites, including BBC's Chinese-language site and Human Rights Watch also seem blocked. We're not sure why journalists covering the Olympics would need to log-on to AI, unless they are trying to write a story about whether or not it is blocked. Come on guys: lay off the softballs.

As semi-permanent “residents” of China, we are a bit jaded about the subject of Internet censorship; that is to say, we're used to it. During the course of our stay here Wikipedia, Flickr, Myspace, Blogspot, and innumerable pornographic mainstays have been blocked at one time or another. It isn't that hard, what with proxy servers and the like, to get around these blocks, but the story brings about an important point: the fact that China has broken one of it's most important promises it made in order to win their Olympic bid. The government pledged that, effective January 1, 2007 accredited journalists would have complete freedom to report on whatever and interview whomever they wish in the country. [DBB’s Note: Will was late filing our accreditation papers...]

Press freedom, air quality, and human rights were the biggest concerns of the IOC when mulling Beijing’s bid in 2001. Despite solemn promises and detailed plans, China’s delivery on these issues has been spotty. With a week until the opening ceremony the air pollution index has hovered north of 100 (50 is deemed safe internationally, though in China 100 is called a “blue sky day”), journalists are worried about their hard-drives being copied, and it’s impossible to access independent information on human rights issues. Dammit, China, you gave us your word.

Elsewhere, the Blacks & Mongolians bar story continues to leg it out with foreign papers beginning to get their two cents in. The Washington Post paraphrases echoesour recent sentiments in Wednesday’s article and notes black business owners are increasingly just as likely to be harassed as black patrons. Bar owners and many Beijingers, we presume, are eager for this whole Olympics mess to be over.

Fortunately for us, it is just getting started.

In the next post from The Deadspin Beijing Bureau: The crew attempts to enter its own Olympic Delegation to BOCOG.

The Deadspin Beijing Bureau can be reached at Deadspin.China@gmail.com

The South China Morning Post caused quite a commotion last week when they published a story citing anonymous bar owners who claimed that they had been instructed by officials to bar Blacks and Mongolians from entering their… bar. In case you missed it, the SCMP came back with a measured response to the public outcry and denials by the Public Security Bureau, this time citing an anonymous police officer. Some of our favorite China blogs (Shanghaiist, Danwei and Beijing Boyce) have been all over this, but we’ll offer you our humble opinion on the matter.

As you might have put together already, there has never been a host city so concerned with its public image and perception; so much so, Beijing has issued a novella-length handbook on how locals should converse with foreigners and the, um, handicapped. In a similar vein, Beijing is cracking down big-time on drug dealing and prostitution – things that go on in most cities and tend to escalate when as many as 500,000 people come to visit. It happens that around Sanlitun - the area mentioned in the articles - there are loads of Africans selling, often indiscreetly, hash and coke outside clubs. Last September there was a "raid" in Sanlitun where paramilitary police rolled out of vans and basically beat the crap out of every black person on the street — including the son of a Caribbean diplomat. Whoops. They arrested 20-30 people but didn't charge anyone with anything; it seems they just wanted to send a message: You can't sling here anymore, fellas.

Now, Mongolian girls – along with Russians & Chinese – make up a certain percentage of the prostitutes and bar girls in Beijing, especially at Maggie's, which is like the Yankee Stadium of whore mongering and john-in-action voyeurism in the capital. Maggie's has been around for a while and supposedly had some Public Security Bureau protection, which is why people were surprised when it was recently shut down.

Beijing is serious about street-level enforcement of trafficking and prostitution (if you don’t see it on the street it doesn’t happen!) and this affects some Africans and Mongolians who, accurately or not, are profiled by police as perpetrators of these two vices.

That said, if there was indeed a directive issued concerning blacks and Mongolians it was probably more like: “Don't let African drug dealers or Mongolian prostitutes into your bar,” a statement echoed by some interviews done by our man Beijing Boyce. We’re not sure what this would mean for blacks or reputable Mongolians in Beijing, many of whom already deal with some not-so-subtle racism from the locals. So it’s not that we question a disregard for racial sensitivity; there’s certainly that. After all, there is enough information available that leads us to believe enforcement figures approached bars and told the owners to monitor their black and Mongolian patrons. We just don’t think that any secret, official ban was issued.

Pending the latest revelations of the SCMP’s anonymous sources, there are a few other noteworthy Chinese news items:

China has designated special protest zones in the city where hippies freedom crusaders can bravely advocate their causes and completely blow their cover.

And smoking is totally ok (from the Times):

“Smoking with one hand and wielding a pair of chopsticks with the other, Li Na, 26, a secretary, was unapologetic as her 2-year-old son sat next to her at a restaurant here enveloped in a bluish haze. "If you overprotect your children, they don't build their immunity," she explained. "Breathing a little smoke when they are small makes them stronger."

Remember, you can email the Deadspin Beijing Bureau at Deadspin.China@gmail.com

Deadspin's Beijing Bureau is manned by three college buddies who "studied" abroad together in Shanghai — one of whom is from Iowa — and now shadily classify themselves as freelance writers. The country has foolishly allowed them to return, and while they work and travel around China during the next year they'll be checking in periodically with dispatches about the Middle Kingdom's utter ridiculousness, hopefully preparing you all for the epic spectacle that will be the Beijing Olympics. When the Games come around they will be there — without tickets and with minimal language skills — ready to document world history for Deadspin. Due to healthy fear of deportation (and an outside chance of imprisonment), the Bureau must remain anonymous. Today, they give us a rundown of Olympic co-host cities...after the jump

The Olympics are less than a month away and despite pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure and security Beijing isn’t taking any chances. The government is offering rewards of up to $70k USD for credible terrorism leads and reportedly stationing anti-aircraft missiles outside some Olympic venues. Beijing’s air is still a bit of an issue and the city is about to enter the shit-I-need-to-cram-for-the-final phase of its air cleanup plan. In a week factories around the city will close and new traffic regulations will allow only odd or even numbered license plates on the road on a given day and blah, blah, blah. We are sooo tired of hearing about this Beijing place (OVERRATED!). Sure, nearly all of the Games’ events will take place in the capital, but six other Chinese cities will also have them some Olympics this summer. Some are massive, world cities (Shanghai, Hong Kong) and others are massive, rather obscure cities (Shenyang, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin). So, without further adieu, here are your 2008 Olympic co-hosts.

City: Hong Kong

Event: Equestrian (!)

Population: 6.96 million

Hong Kong has been a Special Administrative Region of China since its handover from the British in 1997 and will retain self-governance until 2047. HK will host the Olympics’ equestrian events, namely Dressage, Jumping & the always dramatic Eventing. If you were wondering, below is BOCOG’s description of “Dressage” (pronounced dress-ahhzh):

Dressage is often called "equestrian ballet". The horse is required to perform set movements, or freestyle to music, demonstrating close partnership with its rider. The scores are evaluated by a panel of judges based on the precision and elegance of the movements

We’re not sure how we feel about horses as Olympians but at least we know what Dee Mirich will be watching…

City: Qingdao

Translation: Lush Island

Event: Sailing

Population: 3.2 million (8 million metro)

The beer connoisseurs and drunks among you might recognize this city’s eponymous export: Tsing Tao beer, a crisp, refreshing leftover of the city’s former German occupants. Recently, Qingdao has had some algae issues – reportedly unrelated to alcohol. It seems like they have it under control now, but a week ago the bay was so overcome by slimy green blooms that diminutive crime-fighter Weng Weng wouldn’t have needed a rocket pack to cross it, he would’ve just scampered right over.

City: Shenyang

Translation: City North of the Shen River

Event: Soccer prelims

Population: 4.5 million (7.3 million metro)

Shenyang is the capital of Liaoning Province, a massive industrial city and the largest in China’s Dongbei (Northeast) region… sort of like the Pittsburgh of Northeast China’s rustbelt region. The Bureau has spent some time in this Soviet-style ‘burg and found it to be much more pleasant than its rather grimy reputation would lead you to believe. Shenyangers are notoriously rabid soccer fans and their new Olympic Stadium will host preliminary soccer games.

City: Qinghuangdao

Translation: Yellow Emperor Island

Event: Soccer

Population: 2.8 million

This breezy seaside hamlet with a population a shade below 3 million strikes the Bureau as an odd choice for a co-host city, but, hey, it is the only place where the Great Wall reaches the ocean. Qinhuangdao is probably most famous for neighboring Beidaihe, a sort of seaside Camp David for party leaders of the past, though the current brass has kept away. The city is now, we’ve been told, a haven for vacationing and, ahem, working Russians.

City: Tianjin

Translation: Heavenly Ford

Event: Soccer

Population: 5.2 million (10.24 million metro)

About 200km east of Beijing, Tianjin is – depending on whom you ask – the 3rd largest city in China and one of four cities directly controlled by the central government (Beijing, Shanghai, & Chongqing are the others). That said, Tianjin’s development has lagged behind the other megacities of China and by most accounts is a bit of a hole… but a charming hole.

City: Shanghai

Translation: Above the Sea

Event: Soccer

Population: 14.5 million (like 20 million)

Known at different times as The Paris of the East, The Pearl of the Orient, and The Whore of Asia, Shanghai is China’s largest city and a paradigm of globalization. It shares a cute rivalry with Beijing and locals from both cities love to talk shit. Shanghai is looking to steal back the international spotlight from Beijing in 2010 when it hosts the World Expo.

That’s it for now, we’ll be back soon with a breakdown of potential US – China medal match-ups. Oh, and if you hear about any developing terrorist plots, do let us know; we could use the cash.

You can contact Deadspin’s Beijing Bureau at deadspin.china@gmail.com

Deadspin's Beijing Bureau is manned by three college buddies who "studied" abroad together in Shanghai — one of whom is from Iowa — and now shadily classify themselves as freelance writers. The country has foolishly allowed them to return, and while they work and travel around China during the next year they'll be checking in periodically with dispatches about the Middle Kingdom's utter ridiculousness, hopefully preparing you all for the epic spectacle that will be the Beijing Olympics. When the Games come around they will be there — without tickets and with minimal language skills — ready to document world history for Deadspin. Due to healthy fear of deportation (and an outside chance of imprisonment), the Bureau must remain anonymous. Say "ni hao," after the jump...

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It’s good to be back, people; we’ve got a lot to cover here.

In the week following the devastating earthquake that rocked China’s Sichuan province, government censors, in a move of solemnity, put a three-day moratorium on all entertainment programming on China’s state-controlled airwaves. It was part of a powerfully moving demonstration of national solidarity, the highlight of which was a countrywide three-minute moment of silence (note: only in China are moments of silence punctuated by car horns and air-raid sirens) that was touching in its sincerity and remarkable in its scale.

Curiously, though, as the New York Times’ Olympic blog points out, the Chinese government seemed to extend its entertainment ban to the NBA Conference Finals, which they deemed “too entertaining” for such a serious time. This claim was met with some skepticism, however, with many people linking the ban to recent statements made by NBA stars that were critical of China’s involvement in the situation in Darfur (see Kobe’s Darfur PSA & LeBron’s statements about China’s human rights responsibilities). Whatever the reason for the stifled broadcasts, the games were back on in time for game 4 of the Finals. Two-thirds of the Bureau watched the Celtics’ comeback at a sports bar via a Filipino satellite link. During its commercial breaks the provider Ben Sports ran the following confusing and eerie “letter” to China, written by its CEO:

Mother,
The world laughed at you for being backward;
The world was full of envy and anxiety when you opened up and progressed into a financial powerhouse;
The world condemned you when you put law and order into the upheaval and lawlessness created by followers of a self proclaimed Robin Hood in t¡bet but failed to applaud when you used your influence to save the lives of Burmese monks;
The world threatened to boycott and disrupt the August Olympics on ground of your violations of human rights standards set by the West who by apartheid policies and discrimination of coloured people blatantly violated for ages the same standards set.
Let me tell you Mother as a dragon seed brought up outside China;
They fear you Mother as you out compete them;
They fear you Mother as you are set to replace them at the healm of world order faster than they can accept;
They fear you Mother as you refused to take sides in every international dispute as you believe that to each his own and from each his best;
They fear you Mother as you have by hardwork hastened the failure and decadence of self assumed western supremecy system;
And finally for the period 12th May to eternity, you have shown the world the tenderness, love and care of the best guardian government and leaders the Chinese People can ever have contrasting greatly with the aftermath of the Florida and Burmese cyclone.
Mother, words of praises and admiration will never come from the West as they have painted you falsely as a hardcore monster with no feelings for your own for too long and the Western World is watching with total disbelief on CNN, BBC, Fox Media, live, the search, rescue, care and rebuilding operations to restore life and normalcy into the millions of displaced victims led by brothers Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao demonstrating love care and simplicity with no political agenda whatsoever.
Mother, we whether in or out of the Great Wall are lucky and proud to be descendants of the ever Supreme Dragon.

Amen
Mr. Ben Chairman/CEO Bensports Satellite TV May 2008

The way things are going on the broadcast front, all international networks may consider following Ben Sports’ example by issuing an awkwardly poignant ode to BOCOG. As Rick mentioned here, the major broadcast groups are starting to get kind of nervous they won’t be able to deliver the usual standard of Olympic coverage. BBC’s executives are saying that preparation for these Olympics has been more logistically and politically confusing than the 1980 Moscow Games. To put this in perspective, one of the biggest sporting events in world history is happening in less than two months, and no one knows whether they’ll be able to get their equipment and personnel in the country, provide aerial shots, or even broadcast live feed of the Games.

Some of these difficulties stem from China’s new visa policies that have, incidentally, nudged many of the Bureau’s friends out of the country. To apply for a tourist visa to visit China one now needs to provide the following:

- A bank statement
- A letter from one’s employer stating that he or she knows the applicant is going to China
- A receipt for a round-trip airfare
- Proof of a hotel reservation for the duration of one’s stay
- A letter of invitation from someone in China
- An AIDS test…

Contrast this with the old policy that, as recently as three months ago, required only that one fill out a form and bring one’s passport to the nearest consulate. For some extra cash the whole thing could be taken care of in one day.

If one is able to get a visa to visit China to respectfully and quietly cheer for his or her home country this August, one would do well to become acquainted with a new document released by BOCOG succinctly titled: “A guide to Chinese law for Foreigners coming to, leaving or staying in China during the Olympics.” The nine-page document (curiously issued only in Chinese) contains the official policies on 57 wide-ranging topics including, but not limited to:

- People with “mental diseases” as well as drug smugglers, prostitutes and terrorists are not permitted into the Country
- Religious or political banners that may “disturb public order” are forbidden at any Olympic venue
- Foreigners may not bring to China any ammunition, poisons, or materials “that are harmful to China’s politics, economics, culture and morals”
- Sleeping outside is forbidden

And in a final, strange development, Beijing’s People’s Daily, the official English-language mouthpiece of the Communist Party — a fascinating publication, by the way — just released a skeptical assessment of presumptive Dem. nominee (and gold medalist in hope!) Barack Obama that criticizes his political experience and questions the significance of his perceived racial breakthrough. It’s an interesting, if at times poorly worded critique of “Change We Can Believe In”:

The skin color of Senator Barack Obama poses the greatest focus of attention in he ongoing U.S. presidential election campaign this year. This Democratic nominee with half of the blood from the African stock in his veins has been commended as the "star of change", who now seems to look especially dazzling and splendid with his victory in the recent primaries.

He goes on:

His success, nevertheless, is because he does not underscore his racial features, and has even intentionally drawn a clear line with those radical blacks. So, it can be said that Obama triumphs either because of his skin color or not because of it.

And further:

So his rise has not done away with privileges for the white Americans but reinforces their privileges on the contrary.

The author Ding Gang — who according to an article in The Washington Post may actually be a pen name for the paper’s editors — seems to be saying that Obama’s political ascension is merely a case of racial assimilation, undermining the notion of radical change felt by many starry-eyed Americans.

Something to consider in all of this is that both Obama and Hillary Clinton urged George Bush to boycott the Olympics this summer, and said they would do the same if they were in office. To us, it’s all related: If you publicly criticize Mother China, expect a response from her. Which, um, makes us all a little nervous.

Deadspin's Beijing Bureau is manned by three college buddies who "studied" abroad together in Shanghai — one of whom is from Iowa — and now shadily classify themselves as freelance writers. The country has foolishly allowed them to return, and while they work and travel around China during the next year they'll be checking in periodically with dispatches about the Middle Kingdom's utter ridiculousness, hopefully preparing you all for the epic spectacle that will be the Beijing Olympics. When the Games come around they will be there — without tickets and with minimal language skills — ready to document world history for Deadspin. Due to healthy fear of deportation (and an outside chance of imprisonment), the Bureau must remain anonymous. Say "ni hao," after the jump...

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Our second post was going to be about last month's MLB exhibition games in
Beijing — the first MLB games to ever be played on Chinese soil. But, as it turns out, there's some other stuff going on right now. A lot, actually. Let us sneak this in anyway:

This was the skip giving his post-game press talk from the dugout. He was about five feet away from us, and to get to where we were was surprisingly easy...a little too easy. And they say freedom of the press is hard to come by in China.

Meanwhile in Lhasa — and this is a big meanwhile — Tibetan protestors wreaked havoc on authorities and Han Chinese citizens alike in the streets and were subsequently cracked down upon. Foreign media outlets jumped on the story and ran with it, in some cases with healthy doses of truthiness. Government censors here did what they are wont to do, blocking various news sources and even blacking out broadcasts of BBC and CNN International. Here's a reenactment:

Western media reports have made their way onto the screens of local netizens, though, and the responses in China's blogosphere have been pretty fascinating to observe. We've read many posts rooted in the nationalist camp, defending China's sovereignty over Tibet, and expressing indignation over the protests and Western media coverage of the unrest there, with particular vitriol for CNN. A common sentiment seems to be that all of this is really no one's business: Tibet is part of China, and this is an internal thing.

Though not everyone feels that way. Chang Ping of the Southern Metropolis Daily wrote an essay titled "How to Find the Truth in Lhasa," which questioned the nationalist responses from Chinese bloggers without defending the Western media. Ping writes, "If we use nationalism as the weapon to resist the westerners, then how can we persuade the ethnic minorities to abandon their nationalism and join the mainstream nation-building." Since the release of his essay, Ping has been labeled a traitor by some internet forum contributors who feel that the media coverage and protests abroad are an affront to China's dignity."

Stuck literally in the middle of all this hubbub is a 72-centimeter long aluminum torch surrounded by a roving posse of large men in blue and white tracksuits — members of the Beijing Olympic Games Sacred Flame Protection Unit — who are charged with guarding the flame on its tumultuous, misguided, and increasingly bizarre journey around the world. Recently, these graduates of China's Armed Police Academy, whose training allegedly includes daily runs of 25 miles, have been doing more crowd control than flame-sitting. But after the increasingly volatile protests in London, Paris and San Francisco, their jurisdiction and enforcement capabilities are being challenged. Japan and Australia have suggested that the guards will have a significantly reduced role in torch security during their respective legs of the relay.

Hundreds of protesters were arrested at the torch's latest stop in Delhi — by a security force of over 16,000 police officers — and another 46 were arrested in Mumbai as they tried to storm the Chinese consulate. Despite that, however, the relay itself went pretty smoothly, albeit on a heavily fortified and truncated route, and Delhi may have set the template for undisruptive torch runs. This doesn't mean the fun is going to stop anytime soon, though, with cheeky democracies in Canberra, Nagano, & Seoul, as well as wild card Hong Kong set to welcome the torch on its remaining international route. And we can't begin to imagine what the relay is going to look like in Pyongyang.

The thing finally gets back to China on May 4 and will traverse the country, passing through Lhasa and other ethnic Tibetan areas, before settling finally in Beijing on August 6. We will be there for as many stops of Torch Tour 2008 as we can, with full video reports. Settle in, everyone; this is going to be interesting.

Deadspin's Beijing Bureau is manned by three college buddies who "studied" abroad together in Shanghai — one of whom is from Iowa — and now shadily classify themselves as freelance writers. The country has foolishly allowed them to return, and while they work and travel around China during the next year they'll be checking in periodically with dispatches about the Middle Kingdom's utter ridiculousness, hopefully preparing you all for the epic spectacle that will be the Beijing Olympics. When the Games come around they will be there — without tickets and with minimal language skills — ready to document world history for Deadspin. Due to healthy fear of deportation (and an outside chance of imprisonment), the Bureau must remain anonymous. Say "ni hao," after the jump...

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We've noticed that the sun sets a little differently here. On a "clear" day there is a line in the sky well above the horizon - the smog line - that separates blue sky above from the grey haze that hovers over the city. When the sun goes down, it never makes it to the natural horizon. Instead, it drops behind a toxic blanket of pollution.

Welcome to China — perhaps the most appropriate place ever for sports reporting without access, favor, or discretion— where we're proud to file the first post of Deadspin's Beijing Bureau.

Let us reiterate a sentiment repeatedly expressed on this site: The Beijing Olympics are going to rock. China is a place where over 350 million people smoke, and everyone else might as well, as smoking is legal in elevators, restaurants and would be in churches...if they were legal. Where supermarket chicken is pumped so full of steroids, athletes could legitimately worry they'd fail a post-consumption drug test. Where the Miao minority in Guizhou Province put on a show for which Barbaro was truly sired: stallion fighting. Where people still brush their teeth with Darlie (formerly Darkie) toothpaste. Where in Anhui province, they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people*. Throw in billion-dollar ant-farming pyramid schemes, toxic red rivers, the world's only lunar embassy and 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, and you have the proud host of the 2008 Olympics.

We'll be here the next year or so to bring you "coverage" of all these fascinating quirks and, when the time comes, to be your men on the ground during the Beijing Olympics. But most importantly, Deadspin readers — who value "clean air" and "free speech" too much to visit China during this bizarre period — we want to be here for you. We formally invite your input and suggestions as we try to give you a picture of modern China as seen through Deadspin's cracked lens - its cities' underbellies, inhabited caves and underground fighting clubs.

Would you like us to eat a cobra and drink its blood? Done. Are you curious as to how Shanghainese girls in leather respond to "Ni gen wo, niu pi"? We're on it. Do you want to see how many dumplings we can eat in 12 minutes? We tried last year; the answer is 54, and it sucked. Within reason the Deadspin budget, we will go anywhere and eat anything that won't get us killed, eaten ourselves or deported.

We're here to help you navigate this massive, sprawling, fascinating mess, so send questions, thoughts, and blistering criticism to Deadspin.China@gmail.com. Let us have it in the comments, to be sure, but understand this: the Great Firewall of China will almost certainly block Deadspin in the next few hours.

* unverified