Cup of Cha’s post Goodbye Foreign Visitors talks about how many expats feel about the new visa regulations.

Any foreigner living in China now will tell you that something weird is going on. Our fellow foreigners are disappearing in great numbers. It as if wild animals are picking them off on their smoggy bike rides to work. Increasingly we feel like Mexicans just inside the American border: looked upon suspicuously, regardless of the legitimacy of our legal status. Perhaps that overstating things, but a lot of people are moving away.

Visas are not being renewed for perpetual tourist and business folks. Some of these de-facto expulsions鈥漚re legitimate, like people who hang out in China, teaching in a semi-legal status. Others, like business people who are frequent visitors to China, are wrong-headed. The most peculiar trend, and a prominent one at that, is it appears anyone born 1984 or later gets an automatic rejection on new work visas.

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It’s really rough for teachers whose schools have promised to handle the visas. I’ve been on a round of goodbye dinners for friends who recently learned their jobs weren’t quite as legal or a stable as they’d been told. Vistors have also told me they’ve gotten only a 30-day tourist visa instead of the old 90-day one.

I don’t think these new regulations will keep the Olympics athletes out, but I fear that average people who want to see the Olympics and have a Beijing vacation, will be kept away.

Via Cup Of Cha

We’ve already written about the Coke Olympics song and the Beijing Olympics soda cans. Now you can visit MyCoke.com, enter, and check out the cute flash toys at Beijing 2008.

Thanks to How About Orange? for tipping me off.

The mutant seaweed which has formed along the coastlines of Qingdao, the sailing venue of the Beijing Olympics, may become obstacles to the competition’s windsurfers if it is not cleared by August. Instead of fishing, the fishermen of Eastern China fish on the seaweed now, before we have Seaweed Sailing.

The seaweed is another blow to the Chinese organisers, who boasted recently of the technological advances they were introducing to the sailing venue to combat the meteorological challenges at Qingdao. These include China’s first vehicle-borne 鈥渄oppler鈥� radar, used in police speed guns, which will provide information on wind speed and the direction of the tides.

I honestly think by August, everything will be as clear as the water.

Image & Via: Times Online

This acupuncturist shows his Olympic spirit in a creative way!

Wei, a 60 year-old Chinese acupuncturist from Guangxi province, showed his patriotism for the upcoming Olympics by piercing his head, face, chest, and arms with 2008 decorative needles in five different colors.

The event broke his previous Guinness Record of 1790 needles set in 2004. Wei also hopes to share more about the history of acupuncture to the world.

Initially inspired after reading about a Canadian who had set a record for inserting 420 needles in his arm, Wei felt that it was 鈥渘ot much compared to our centuries-old acupuncture,鈥� and began experimenting with piercing his own body with needles.

On January 13, 2007, Wei had also paraded through town with 800 needles in his forehead and even put on skates and skated around the streets to show he was not in pain and alright.

I wonder if he went out with the Olympics tattoo guy afterwards!

Via Weird Asia News, who got it from this Chinese language site.

Chinese President, Hu Jintao, rode a China Railways High-speed (CRH) train to test if the Beijing metro system is up to the mark for the Beijing Olympic Games on Wednesday.

The inter-city shuttle will transport Olympic spectators, athletes and other passengers during the Games. Some football preliminary matches will be held in Tianjin.

And at Beijing Capital International Airport, President Hu reminded waitresses in the spanking new, Norman Foster-designed terminal 3 to maintain the excellent service as the airport is “first gate of the country” that visitors and foreigners will gawk.

Via Xinhua

Coca-Cola has a Beijing Olympic theme song called 绾㈤亶鍏ㄧ悆 (can be translated to “Become Famous All Over the World”) and is performed by Taiwanese popular female group - S.H.E (Selina, Hebe, Ella), Wilber Pan (娼樼幃鏌�, Pan Wei Bo) and Hong Kong singing legend, Jacky Cheung (寮犲�﹀弸, Zhang Xue You).

This is rather a catchy tune with the Bird Nest being highlighted a few times and an easy-to-do action and cheering sequence.

A 5-star Chinese hotel in Beijing has been dishing out cold, hard cash or yuan to reporters in return for positive media coverage on the hotel. Gehua New Century Hotel, formerly known as the Huabei Hotel, may not be the only hotel doing this PR stunt.

The handout in Chinese on headed notepaper given by staff to the media after a Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) news conference at the hotel on Friday promised 100 yuan for a mention of the Gehua in reports.

Once verified by the public relations department, the document said, media can claim 500 yuan for a “positive” article on the hotel of 100 to 500 words in length and 1,000 yuan for an article of between 500 and 1,000 words.

Paying to write good stuff on you, what’s your view?

Via Reuters

22 hot air balloons have gathered at Chang Chun recently to show off their ballooning skills. Out of these flying giants, one was spotted with the Beijing 2008 logo and of course, became the attraction of the hot air balloon competition. Although hot air balloon flying is not an event in the official games, the competitors and spectators do have the feeling that they are cheering for the Beijing Olympics.

A while back, the translated English names of Chinese dishes in China may not reflect the intended meanings of the cuisine. Will you eat “Husband and wife’s slung slice”, “Chicken without sex life” or “Slobbering chicken”? These are famous Chinese dishes but the translated names may turn English-speaking diners away.

In order to improve the image of 3-star and above restuarants and for the sake of the coming Beijing Olympics, the Beijing Tourism Board have hired experts to translate more than 2000 Chinese dishes including desserts, tim sum and wine into proper English. For instance, the famous Sichuan dish - “Husband and wife’s slung slice” is actually “Beef and ox tripe in chilli sauce”.

Bao Zi (buns), Jiao Zi (dumplings) and Man Tou which are tightly connected to the Chinese culture are not translated but marked with hanyu pinyin instead.

The translated dish names are compiled into a booklet (with pictures) for easy reference but it is not compulsory for restuarants to implement the correct names.

So Sir what would you like to order now?

Earlier this year, we have reported that Tom Daley, now a 14-year-old diver, might be the youngest British Olympian. And we are glad he is finally confirmed by the British Olympic Association (BOA) to head for Beijing in coming August.

Daley said: “To know you’re going to an Olympics after all the hard work and speculation is unbelievable. I’m totally overwhelmed.”

I look forward to see the perfornance of this young chap in individual 10-metre platform and the synchronised diving in Beijing 2008.

Via Virgin Media