Andelu’s Rants from Shenzhen

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