The no-more-algae Qingdao has witnessed the official opening of the Qingdao Olympic village on Sunday. 14 sailing teams including Japan, Brazil, Spain and China have checked in the Olympic village. Everyone is pleased with the services and facilities provided.

Decorated with Chinese paper cuts, water paintings and kites, the dwelling district for the Olympic sailors has special display room for folk culture, where craftsmen perform Chinese traditional arts like sugar painting, paper cutting and metal sculpting.

It also has a Chinese painting learning area where athletes and visitors can learn calligraphy. They can also taste a special Qingdao tea in the tea ceremony area and relax in the Chinese massage room.

“The service here is fantastic. Every detail is impressive. The volunteers are perfect,” said Lilian Fiedler, logistic official of Brazilian Olympic sailing team, whose 21 staff have checked in the Olympic village.

I want to learn calligraphy.

Via Xinhua

Mike of the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 blog recently posted this:

It could be a tough time for athletes who finish their competitions early or for those looking to get out for a bit of shopping or sightseeing. Access Asia reports that athletes will only be allowed to leave the village to attend venues of their competition. Anyone who has been in China can understand this happening. Everyone in China lives, works and studies in a 鈥渃ompound鈥� with surrounding fences and manned security round the clock.

As to the reasons for high security Access Asia says:

鈥淲orries that athletes may leave the Village to do impromptu reporting on human rights or other issues is one; keeping them all close to the people who are sponsoring the Village is another; but the major reason is that if they leave the Village they may be tempted to eat like the rest of us 鈥� i.e. not the specially prepared, reared and grown foods that are being made available in the Village (and in the Village only) 鈥� and that could mean plenty of athletes failing dope tests due to high levels of residual antibiotics and steroids commonly found in meat on sale in China.鈥�

I don’t know what’s most upsetting about this story. An Olympic lockdown seems that China is reverting to its old tourism policies of heavily supervised tours along arranged routes and foreigner-only hotels, which is quite a few steps backward and definitely not the image China wants to project.

It also worries me that getting a normal Chinese meal — the food I’ve been eating for just under 2 years now — has enough random antibiotics and steroids to make one fail a drug test!

Via Beijing Olympic Games 2008 blog and Access Asia