Andelu’s Rants from Shenzhen

Sichuan is near and dear to my heart as my partner is from Sichuan and his parents live not far from Chengdu and I have visited his hometown several times. Thankfully, they are safe and their home only has a little damage.

On the upper right corner is a link to the blog Lost Laowei which has links to various ways to contribute to aid relief efforts and will be updated regularly.

The Beijing Olympic torch was in Shenzhen yesterday and passed within a few hundred meters of my office. I had thought about walking up to the main street to join the masses to see the torch go by but had a lot of work to do since I have been out of the office most of the past 3 weeks and am headed back to the States again on Sunday. And also because I missed out on the chance to carry the torch I had some mixed feelings about seeing it where I should have carried it!

First the Shenzhen relay was postponed because the flame reached the top of Mt. Everest and it can’t be in two places at once. The 208 Shenzhen torchbearers were told they only had 1 minute to cover 200 meters each rather then the originally planned 2 minutes which isn’t that big of a deal. Then apparently based on reports in the South China Morning Post , “The Olympic flame was extinguished briefly during the torch relay in Shenzhen yesterday, and witnesses reported that people tried to grab the torch and had to be wrestled to the ground.” And another story indicated that planned route was abandoned because there were too many people and the organizers wanted to take a safer route which angered the tens of thousands of people who had been waiting at the corner and led to some rioting. Mainland media reports, however, said the flame was extinguished because the crowds were too excited and that “normal precautionary measures” were taken to ensure public safety. And not surprisingly, Chinese television, which was filming the progress of the torch, hurriedly cut away. None of the Chinese media carried the story and the South China Mornng Post, in Hong Kong, concentrated on the triumph of the torch reaching Mount Everest.

Maybe the passage of the Olympic torch on the mainland may not be as smooth as expected…

Some Links with more stories and details:

Jesse Warren’s Flickr Site with Photos

Shenzhen: Local Chinese Extinguish Olympic Torch in Protest?

Shenzhen Olympic Torch Relay, The Corner The Relay Forgot

Unknown protesters in Shenzhen attack Olympic runners and extinguish the flame

While waiting for my US colleague and a client at the mecca of expat life in Shenzhen two foreigners approached me and asked ‘Do you speak English?’ Being the sarcastic guy, and sometimes jerk that I have been known to be, I wanted to reply in Chinese. But my nice side won out and replied yes and inquired on what they needed help with.

They were looking for the bus to the airport. Bus number they had but no clue where to get on. I pointed them in the right direction, even walking a hundred feet or so with them. Mind you my foot is killing my from a murderous weekend mountain trek. After walking back to my perch to wait for my dinner mates I saw th bus approaching and looked back to see if they had made it to the bus station. They hadn’t. They were also crossing the road to the wrong bus stop. Didn’t recall saying anything about crossing the road to the other bus stop. Anyway, ran down to them with my bum foot dragging behind and ensured they got on the bus.

Just hope they had money….