It still baffles me why taxi drivers here refuse to wear a seatbelt – opting instead to “pretend” to fasten it. Is it any less comfortable to have the belt dangling on your waist? Besides, comfort is not the point anyway.
They are for safety, and with the way most Beijing taxi drivers drive, they should be more concerned!
Yet again I ride a taxi in Beijing and find the taxi driver without sufficient change to break a ¥100 note; the fare was ¥20.
80RMB in this day and age is not a lot of money, even for a taxi driver, and it annoys me that in Beijing they carry around such little change. In Hong Kong should that happen (which it rarely does, even if you present a $500 bill) the driver would be most apologetic and you might even find yourself riding for free. It’s their responsibility to give change. Over here, lots of people in retail / services can’t even break a note. Yet with ¥100 being the largest note in China – meanwhile businessmen and the middle class are walking around with bags full of cash just to buy a car or make that down payment on a flat. It’s pathetic.
The good news is that Beijing taxi’s now accept payment with the transport smartcard (北京一卡通). This is a good starting point… now they just need to make it easier for you to topup.
Side note: All these pre-Olympic reports that Beijing taxi drivers are being forced to wear uniforms are somewhat misleading : I have yet to see a single one wearing a tie, most not even wearing a collared shirt. This may have been true, but the enforcement has just been dismal.
More on China’s (questionable) media freedom during the Olympic period – BBC’s Panorama have aired a program a couple of weeks ago titled “China’s Olympic Promise“, presented by John Sweeney and showing that media openness is still somewhat lacking despite the assurances of the central government. Yet again, this instead merely portrays the authorities making complete twits out of themselves, in particular the young minder who surely should be doing something more useful to society like driving a bus. Panorama will air again on BBC World this weekend.
On other news, ITN’s John Ray is bundled into a police van for merely doing his job and reporting protests – something he is entitled to do under the new rules stipulating press freedom. Clearly the police did not get the memo, and instead were being typically intrusive – yet another embarrassing scene for international television. But did it stop us from seeing the protests? No.
As for the local media? Obviously there has not been much change there, with the news being as orchestrated as ever during the Olympics period. Change is taking pace, slowly, but so far it doesn’t look like the Olympics has had much immediate impact on the local media.
The Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony has passed without a noticeable glitch – unfortunately I did not get a ticket to attend at the birds nest, but enjoyed it nonetheless watching big screen TV’s erected inside DiTan Park (地坛公园) with the locals. The atmosphere was great : extremely hot, but well organised. It was nice to hear the cheers and support from the crowd, and to note the countries that got cheered into the stadium.
China obviously got the largest – and longest – cheer, followed by Cuba and possibly North Korea and Pakistan. Iraq got its sympathy support, and of course Taiwan (entered as Chinese Taipei) and ‘compatriots’ Hong Kong also got recognition. Surprisingly the French team were cheered on by the local crowds (meanwhile Britain got but a squeak) as did the USA entering to quite a rapturous welcome – until the cameras panned to Bush when amusingly boos became apparent!
As for everyone else, most people here probably hadn’t heard of those countries but in any case it was an excellent well choreographed event, something London may find hard to beat.
(Note: Apologies for the crap quality of photo)
Was watching a clip on BBC World by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reporting from Petitioners Village in Beijing, an area of run-down now demolished housing that used to house people from all provinces heading to the capital to have their voice heard. As the viewer I thought ‘how nice’, and that it’s great to see the media now being able to roam around China reporting such issues freely and speaking openly to locals on such topics – despite the report citing that these people are often arrested and sent back to their home provinces.
But then the police arrive – and yet again the government, as the accompanying article mentions, never fails to shoot themselves in the foot: the police arrive and reporters get shooed away.
Likewise Rupert’s visit to TaiShi in Guandgong province, where residents were given unfair compensation for the sale of their land not long ago, attracted similar attention.
When will the Chinese authorities learn that the foreign media will obtain their desired reports regardless – the only issue is whether the authorities end up making an ass out of themselves in the process. Particularly during this Olympic period, where the police now will not confiscate videos, the image they will then portray to the world is footage of interference, lack of tolerance, and blatant failure to ensure open reporting throughout the games.
In the case of TaiShi the BBC were free to report – but clearly the locals did not want to talk. I suppose this is free media Chinese style: “record what you want, but we’ll just persecute your subjects”.
It this really the image China wishes to portray to the outside world?
As i’ve mentioned time and time again I do support China for most of its policies, and the fair contrast is that it’s development (in terms of openness and freedoms) have come a huge way already. But the foreign media are biased too, not always objective, and the government needs to learn how to optimise its PR methods to improve its image towards this media, and ultimately the international community.
Suppression of international media during the Games is not the answer.