Getting into the Niao Chao and Seeing the Para-Olympic Games

While I made it to the Wukesong Basketball Arena during the regular Olympic Games, I never viewed any of track and field events inside the so-called Bird’s Nest Stadium (鸟巢 falling and rising tone “niao” and rising tone “chao”). The above photo was taken by a Chinese friend who works at one of our Chinese company's sister companies. She spent the Olympic Games assisting VIP guests her company had invited to Beijing to watch the events.

However, I did make it into the Bird’s Nest to see those other Olympic Games, namely the Para-Olympics, or 残奥 (rising tone “can” and falling tone “ao”). If someone had told me before the Olympic Games started that I would be seeing not just one, but two events, I would have told them they were crazy. However, once again I have a laowai friend, in this case one who is also an excellent colleague at work, to thank for giving me the opportunity to see first-hand an Olympic event.

This particular laowai's name is Mike Watts. He's a native Londoner, but spent two decades living in the Middle East, in Bahrain, working for the Bahrain National Oil Company before moving to China two years ago. I took the photo of him and his Chinese girlfriend, Xu Mei (I'm not sure about the second character in her name) just before we entered the Niao Chao to watch the Para-Olympic track and field semi-finals and finals.

Mike and his girlfriend, Xu Mei had bought an extra ticket for one of Xu Mei's friends. This individual is a young fellow attending the Beijing Sports University, who was living with them at the time. He decided to go home during the Mid-Autumn Festival long weekend—the ticket was for September 14th—to visit his mother. He hadn't seen in a year and felt guilty about that.

So Mike offered to sell me ticket for 60 RMB, or less than $9 at the current exchange rate, which I thought was a steal. I had planned to visit the Niao Chao during the early October National Day Holiday, when the Government would open up the Olympic facilities for visitors. I feared ticket prices then would be just as much, if not more, and that the crowds would also be terrible. I thus didn't hesitate to take Mike up on his offer and go with him and Xu Mei to the Para-Olympic Games. I could add that the crowds jamming the Niao Chao during the National Day Holiday were indeed really terrible.

Our tickets were good for the whole day, but we decided to just go in the morning. We arrived at the Bird’s Nest at 9:00 am, before it really started filling up. The attendants told us we could sit wherever we wanted. We thus got good lower level seats at the west end of the stadium

Javelin throwing was being held at this end of the Niao Chao. The Mandarin word for this event is 标枪 (flat tone “biao” and “qiang”). The discus and shot put events were at the opposite end of the stadium. The Mandarin word for “discus” is 铁饼 (falling and rising tone “tie” and “bing”), or literally “iron cookie”, while shot put is 推铅球 (flat tone “tui” and "qian" and rising tone “qiu”).

The long jump took place at the middle of the Niao Chao’s long north side. “Long jump” in Mandarin is 跳远 (falling tone “tiao” and falling and rising tone “yuan”). The first character means “jump” and appears in the word for dance (跳舞; the second character is a falling and rising tone “wu”) and “dive” (跳水; the second character, which means “water” is a falling and rising tone “shui”).

I naturally brought my camera and clicked a few shots of the events, notably the track competitions. Alas, as I stated in the earlier post on Olympic Basketball, my digital camera doesn’t have a zoom lens. Thus the visually impaired athletes—they had to be guided around the track during the race—may be a little difficult to see in the photo below.

The next photo was shot while the during medal awards ceremony for one of the events. Of course the flags of the countries represented by the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners were raised as they medals were being awarded. I think a Chinese or Greek athlete took the gold medal for this particular event, but I can't remember what exactly that event was.

By 11:00 or 11:30, all of us had had our fill of watching track and field events. The three of us quickly popped up to the Niao Chao’s upper two decks. I took several photos of the stadium from this vantage point, one of which is posted below.

I was very happy to have had this opportunity to see the Para-Olympics and watch them within the Niao Chao's superb confines. It really is a magnificent facility and one which everyone in China can be very proud of.