Entries Tagged 'Beijing Review' ↓

Two old nations, one shared dream. A symbolic integration of Eastern and Western civilizations was realized when a dramatically dressed Greek priestess kindled a specially designed torch for the Beijing Olympics at the ancient stadium in Olympia, Greece. In a flawless ceremony amid sunrays on March 24, High Priestess Maria Nafpliotou lit the Olympic flame with a concave mirror in front of the Hera Temple in Olympia. The flame was then held in a replica of an ancient urn to ignite the first torch for the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing. The torch, shaped like a traditional paper scroll and featuring the lucky image of clouds, is a perfect blend of time-honored Chinese wisdom and modern technology.

“Today will lead to the opening of the first ever Olympic Games in China, where one fifth of the world’s population is longing for them,” said Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, at the ceremony.

During the next four months, the flame will travel to 21 cities throughout the world and more than 100 cities on the Chinese mainland in a relay that “prepares the way to Beijing,” Rogge said. “The messengers will be citizens, young or old, able or disabled, athletes and members of the Olympic Movement, who are all eager to promote what each one of us can contribute to a better world.”

As the Olympic flame started its “journey of harmony” under the slogan of “light the passion, share the dream,” former Olympians, politicians, scholars and laypeople alike expressed their best wishes for the relay and the hope that it would deliver the message of world peace throughout five continents.

“I feel it is a great honor to have the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization and the Greek civilization integrated in the Olympic flame,” said Luo Xuejuan after finishing her part of the relay in Olympia. The 24-year-old former Olympian is the first Chinese to bear the Olympic torch.

Four years ago, Luo won the only swimming title for China in Athens at the women’s 100-meter breaststroke competition. Known as the “Queen in the Pool,” she was crowned world champion of the women’s 50-meter and 100-meter breaststrokes in both 2001 and 2003. She announced her retirement in early 2007 due to health problems. Now a student of international relations at Peking University, Luo said she hopes the torch relay will spread the message of “world peace.”

Warm wishes

The day the flame was lit in Olympia, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the 29th Olympiad launched a “best wishes for the torch relay” program on its official website. Within the first two days, Internet users from more than 20 countries and regions, including China, the United States, Britain, Greece, France and Australia, posted more than 5,000 messages on the website.

“We wish all the athletes the best of luck and we hope that the Olympic Games will be peaceful and harmonious,” said a posting from Australia from Class 6N at Bankstown Public School in New South Wales.

A U.S. netizen who identified himself as Chris wrote: “I wish the Olympic flame a grand and safe journey around Greece, the world, and China. And I wish the Chinese to have the greatest Olympics ever. Good luck Beijing 2008!”

It will be a “great honor” as the Olympic flame travels to St. Petersburg, one of its five destinations on the European continent, on April 5, said Russian Olympic Committee spokesman Gennady Shvets. All the Olympic champions who reside in St. Petersburg, renowned athletes of the city and Olympic champions from other parts of Russia will take part in the four-hour torch relay there.

Days before the torch relay started, U.S. President George W. Bush reconfirmed that he would attend the Beijing Olympics. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush believes that the Olympics are a chance for athletes to compete at the top of their class.

Highly symbolic

Yang Dong, Deputy Director of the Olympic Cultural Research Center at Beijing Union University, said the torch-lighting ceremony was symbolic of a meeting of two ancient civilizations and highlighted Beijing’s determination to make the Olympics a diversified, people-oriented, international cultural event.

Yang said 293 ancient Olympic Games were held from 776 B.C. to A.D. 393. The same period witnessed the emergence of Chinese culture in ancient China. Sports, therefore, developed “along parallel lines” in the two countries, he said. Given their huge cultural gap, the two ancient countries practiced sports in different manners, he said. For example, while the Greeks stressed body proportions, the Chinese placed more emphasis on health and longevity, he said.

Sun Baoli, professor at Beijing Sport University, said China and Greece enjoyed distinctive sporting traditions that embody their respective agricultural and maritime civilizations. The differences, however, provide an opportunity for them to come together, she said.

Sun said she hoped the torch relay would better inform other countries of the Chinese people’s pursuit of world peace and commitment to building a harmonious world, while promoting Olympic values such as peace and friendship.

It has long been the wishes of many classical opera fans and sopranos alike that the heroine of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s classic Turandot,Princess Turandot, had her own aria. And now that wish has just come true. In the new edition of the opera presented by the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) of China in March, the princess sang a beautiful and moving aria, named The First Tears, transforming herself in the process from a cold-hearted woman with infinite power into an ordinary girl falling in love with Prince Calaf, the hero of the opera.

The aria comes in the last 18 minutes of the opera, and was written by young Chinese composer Hao Weiya, making him the third composer in the world to score the final part of Puccini’s unfinished masterpiece. Besides the aria, Hao also wrote a duet for Turandot and Calaf.

As the opera tells an orient story and Puccini weaved the Chinese folk song Jasmine into his score, Turandot is widely believed to be connected to China, which is rare among the classic opera works in the world. Turandot is also Puccini’s last work, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the master composer, which is why the NCPA decided to produce and stage Turandot in its opening season.

The new ending is an attempt by the NCPA to give more substance to the inner feelings of the characters, especially in the final scenes of the opera. In the former two endings staged after Puccini’s death in 1924, Hao said that while Princess Turandot was finally moved by the sincerity and bravery of Prince Calaf and the death of Liu, a servant girl of Calaf’s father, examining the inner emotions of the princess was not fully explored. Hao said for precisely this reason he had written the solo.

This idea has also aroused the interest of the Italy Foundation of Festival Puccini, which co-produced the NCPA’s rendition in China, and is also a major reason for the copyright owner of Puccini’s works to authorize Hao to write a new ending for the opera.

Hao once said that he would like to look at Turandot as an opera with a theme of love, despite the ancient fable, originating in Persia but set in China, telling the story of a cruel but beautiful princess who declares that any suitor must answer three riddles correctly, or be beheaded, in her quest to avoid marriage.

“Princess Turandot should not be too tough and merciless throughout the opera, and she should become gentle and enjoy the feeling of loving and being loved in the end,” said Hao.
Besides the final aria, Hao has also added the element of Liu, who actually plays an important role in softening the princess’ heart. “Turandot’s tears in the end are for love and also for the death of Liu, and they are tears that show the strength of the power of love,” Hao said.

In fact, the other two leading characters, Prince Calaf and servant girl Liu, both have their own classical aria-Nobody Shall Sleep for Calaf and Sir, Listen for Liu. Hao hopes that the aria he wrote for the princess will be liked and remembered by opera lovers.
Hao insists he has kept the soul of the opera and followed the style of Puccini.

“Our principle is to respect the original version of the master, but it is more difficult to adhere to the original work than to create a new piece,” Hao said.

Turandot was produced 80 years ago, so it is inevitable that modern elements are added to continue to attract the audiences of today, said Hao. And as most people participating in the creation of the NCPA edition are Chinese it is a challenge to well blend the Chinese and contemporary elements in the new version, he said.

“Opera is rooted in the West, and it is rather difficult for people in the East to enter the world of opera. We are all novices in terms of Western opera,” Hao said. “And we should learn from Western opera masters.”

According to Hao, who received the call to write a new ending from the NCPA in June 2006, he was influenced by three kinds of music sources. The first is Chinese music, as tradition says that an opera will use some elements of the country where it is performed. The second is the 23 pages of Puccini’s sketches and notes, with only minor changes made in choosing instruments. And the third source is his own music, which Hao hopes has merged so seamlessly into the original score that audiences will not be able to tell which part is his own creation.

After watching the NCPA edition of Turandot, Franco Moretti, General Manager of IFFP, said the last 18 minutes was beautiful, adding that he hoped Hao’s ending has created a new era. “The NCPA version is the most beautiful and moving Turandot that I have ever watched, ” said Moretti.

“Mr. Hao has not only respected the opera art of Italy but also gives a fresh translation of the opera Turandot,” Moretti said. He also hopes the cooperation of both Italian and Chinese artists will make more Chinese familiar with Puccini and his works.

Moretti also said that the NCPA version of Turandot made him realize that absorbing Eastern cultural elements may be the future direction of the development of opera.

Lu Jia, a Rome-based Chinese conductor who conducted the NCPA rendition in turn with an Italian conductor, also expressed his appreciation of Hao’s creation following the style of the original piece. He thinks the use of instruments in the last 18 minutes is good as it carries a strong Chinese style. He also thinks that the new ending is more mature and closer to Puccini’s conception compared with the former two endings in developing the plot and unfolding the inward change of the Princess.

Such recognition and positive comments have greatly encouraged Hao, who admitted he had put in endless hours of research in trying to get into Puccini’s head.

The new edition of the opera proved to be a big hit in Beijing and is the grandest performance that the city’s new state of the art theater has presented to date, attracting some 14,000 people during its six-day performance. Princess Turandot and Prince Calaf were played successively by Italian soprano Giovanna Casolla and tenor Nicola Martinucci and Chinese soprano Sun Xiuwei and tenors Dai Yuqiang and Wei Song.

At the debut of the NCPA edition of Turandot on March 21, representatives of the Italy Foundation of Festival Puccini granted the Puccini Achievement Award to Chen Ping, head of the NCPA, expressing the Foundation’s recognition of NCPA’s efforts in presenting a new version of Turandot.

There are some 7 million tickets on sale for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which can be applied for on the official ticket-booking website, via outlets of Bank of China and through the mail.

However, the appearance of the tickets remains a secret and lucky ticket holders will not get a chance to see them until June.

As the games grow closer, the value of Olympic tickets is rising. A 5,000-yuan A-type ticket for the opening ceremony was recently on sale for 190,000 yuan ($27,000) on the Internet, a newspaper from Shandong Province reported.

The fortunate ticket holder was one of just 26,000 members of the general public nationwide who has a seat for the opening ceremony.

“After I posted to sell my ticket I received many phone calls, but no one has actually bought it yet,” said the ticket holder.

Staff at the Olympic ticket center said there had been some cases of people transferring tickets at extraordinarily high prices.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) has developed policies to regulate the selling on of tickets. The regulation rules that normal tickets can be sold on after they have been paid for, but ticket sales for the opening and closing ceremonies must be approved by BOCOG. As these tickets are sold via a real name system, if the holder wants to sell their ticket, they must go to the ticket center to make the transaction. Each ticket can be transferred only once.

“Consumers have to be cautious about ticket transactions on the Internet as some might be fake,” warned one staff member at the ticket center.

Buying in tickets and selling them on at a profit is also forbidden. According to a spokesperson from the Beijing Public Security Bureau, the local police have already enhanced patrols around sports venues in an effort to catch scalpers.

RFID technology

Fake tickets are easy to identify as genuine tickets carry an anti-fake chip.
“It is just like an IC card used on the buses. You just put the ticket on the examining machine and the machine identifies it as real or fake in 0.1 of a second,” said Ren Hongzhou, who is in charge of the ticket technology, which is called Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

The RFID tech has already been used in China’s second-generation ID card, but this is the first time it has been applied to the ticket system of the Olympics. The technology was tried out at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, but was not fully implemented for a variety of reasons. It was not used at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games as the technology was not mature and the cost of using it was high.

It took about one year to develop the anti-fake chip, the average cost of which is around 5 yuan ($0.69), according to Ren.

The chip does not contain the personal information of the ticket holder but has a unique serial number that fits a “secret key” within the machine, which displays a photo, name and other information of the ticket holder. “It is like there’s key to the safe in the checkup machine. The serial number and the key have to be matched so that the audience can be admitted to the venues,” said Ren.

“Even the tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies don’t contain any personal information with them to prevent the leak of privacy,” explained Ren. The personal information is stored in remote servers. The information will be displayed on a screen behind the checkup machine, including a photo, name, sex, nationality, age and ID number.

“At the same time, a camera will scan the ticket holder’s face so that the checkup worker can compare the two faces without having to look at the face of the ticket owner. This saves time in the checkup process,” explained Ren, adding that personal information will be destroyed when the Olympic Games is over.

“The smaller we make the chip, the smaller the chance that it will be broken. So our team has made it just 1 mm squared and at the same time the cost has been reduced,” he noted.
Ren recalled how the technology officials of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tested the quality of the ticket. They were folding, tossing and pouring water over it. After all the “torture,” the ticket still worked.

In case a ticket cannot be recognized, a small keyboard is available by the side of the checkup machine. The serial number of the ticket can be typed via the keyboard to see the detailed information.

The checkup machine also has a unique serial number. If it is stolen the machine will automatically lose all its functions.

The RFID technology has undergone real tests during the Good Luck Beijing events. “I was so surprised to see there were fake tickets. How could it happen?” Ren recalled, before disclosing that the IOC had deliberately produced a batch of fake tickets to test the RFID system.

“Some of the fake tickets did not have chips at all and some had been installed with other chips. All of them were identified and the system worked 100 percent correctly,” noted Ren.

After nearly a decade of deliberation, the growth enterprise market (GEM) on the mainland will soon be opened, providing a boon to the country’s start-up companies.

Shang Fulin, Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Committee (CSRC), vowed to push forward the debut of China’s growth board to establish a multi-layer capital market.

The exciting news for growing enterprises was marked by the debut of the draft rules guiding GEM listing, published on March 24. The draft rules outline basic requirements for growth enterprises, allowing a more generous threshold for those companies that want to list.
The government expects the GEM to function like the U.S. NASDAQ, which has created many hi-tech miracles in its history. But how to turn goodwill into reality is a question for all.

SMEs applaud new channel

Currently, a large number of fast growing companies are thirsty for capital. The GEM has been greeted warmly by those with high growth potential.

Xing Ming, CEO of Tianya.com, said his company planned to launch IPO in the GEM in 2009, even though Tianya.com’s profitability has met the criteria to be listed on the main board. It was one of the 13 companies invited by Shenzhen Securities Exchange to discuss the CSRC’s GEM draft rules. “The pricing mechanism on the GEM is more flexible and this allows a higher price/earning ratio,” said Xing, “We eventually came to the decision that we should be listed on the GEM.”

Tianya.com was founded by Xing in 1999 and did not make a profit until 2005 when it received $5 million in venture capital, mostly from Legend Capital and Zero2ipo. The company’s business has soared since then. As a fast-growing online community, Tianya.com’s profits in 2007 were 18 million yuan ($2.56 million), nine times higher than its 2006 profit. Xing expected the website’s profits this year could triple or quadruple that of 2007.

Xing said he is confident about the GEM function to finance growth enterprises. “Currently, venture capital and private equity investments in China are very vibrant, and the country is filled with capital liquidity,” said Xing.

Traditionally, most of the small companies are funded by individuals who start the company. They will pitch investment proposals to venture capital firms or other investment agencies after their businesses are taking shape and starting to make money.

Yobo.com, set up in 2006, is a typical example showing how Chinese small companies are growing. Its director of technology Yu Tuo told Beijing Review that the company got angel investment (funding companies at an early stage), and later secured venture capital from several American companies. The company works to decode people’s music DNA and provide music products according to individual needs. The company has no timetable yet to list, as “we have to make profits first,” said Yu.

Timing is key

After the GEM draft rules were released in March, the market had a heated discussion on when the board would finally be put into practice. Clearly, the present bearish atmosphere on the mainland is not a good sign.

Zhou Yousu, professor with the Sichuan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, suggested the GEM be postponed, as “the sluggish stock market is not ideal.” From last October to the present, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost almost half, resulting in the shrinking of investors’ wealth. “The most urgent task is to rebuild investor confidence,” said Zhou. Many new individual investors have lost a significant amount of wealth due to the market turmoil, and are reluctant to start trading again.

The GEM is expected to divert large sums of capital from the main board, which will knock out the already listless market. It is estimated that each of the GEM-listed companies will raise 100 million yuan ($14.2 million) to 200 billion yuan ($28.4 billion). “Though the volume is not devastating for the main board, the volatile capital in the main board market will flow to the GEM for speculative trade,” said Zhou. Zhou contended the system and market supervision on the main board are not perfect yet. “If the government rushes to launch the GEM without considering the market capability, how to protect retail investors’ interests will be a great challenge to the authorities,” said Zhou.

The draft rules are a forerunner of the GEM, while the securities watchdog did not give a specific timetable for launching the market, only saying it could be “any time soon.”

[h4]Risk control paramount[7h4]

“The growth board is set to be an active market, producing numerous opportunities but risks as well,” cautioned Wang Hanqi, a financial lawyer in Shanghai.

The NASDAQ is an extreme case of successful growth boards, while similar boards in some foreign markets have run into problems. Last year, NASDAQ became the largest U.S. exchange by handling 29 percent of all equity trades, up from 27 percent in 2006. The United States has a deep-rooted tradition of supporting small tech-related companies with high growth potential. The favorable environment in the United States also attracts many emerging Chinese companies like Sina Corp., Baidu.com Inc. and Focus Media, which picked NASDAQ for initial public offerings (IPOs).

Other boards, such as the Alternative Investment Market in London stock exchange and the GEM in Hong Kong stock exchange, were more lackluster. The later did not attract a single new company to launch IPO in the market last year and only six companies chose it for IPOs in 2006.

Can China be luckier than those mediocre GEMs? Wang had as many doubts as other experts. Wang said the mainland stock market was still immature compared with those in developed countries. Institutional investors are not strong enough and the individual investors are not experienced, who only wish to gain trade margins instead of focusing on the long-term development of a company. Without sufficient supervision, GEM might be another playground for the speculators, many fear.

Wang argued that the guarantee institution must play a vital role. “The companies listed on GEM have high operational risks compared with those listed on the main board,” Wang said, “It poses a difficult task for guarantee institutions to discriminate the companies with real growth potential from the faked potential.”