(Cloud) Seeds of Change?

First and foremost, I must break the news that we did not, in fact, attend the Beijing Olympic Celebration in person. Time simply got away from us, and we ended up going to a nearby restaurant, watching it on TV there between bites of jiaozi (dumplings). The celebration looked quite spectacular, with all sorts of dancers, singers, MCs that ooze million-dollar charm (and even Yao Ming) praising the past and future glories of Chinese civilization in the forefront while, lurking behind, the portrait of Mao atop Tiananmen shining like the rising sun.

The good thing about watching the ceremony TV from a restaurant (which, by the way, never seems to happen in the States - everyone eating dinner glued to the tube) was that we got to see a children's song and dance performance that came on afterward. The disturbingly cute Friendlies, the official Olympic mascots, even came out and danced with everyone. For more information on these cuddly weapons of mass emotional manipulation, see this. They appear on T-shirts, hats, buses, car seats, subway stations, commercials, coffee mugs, and even giant propaganda posters which encourage Beijing residents to "talk about culture" and "sacrifice" and "be joyful."

In other words, we discovered, through a Dutch guy we met the other day, why it rained like clockwork at 8:00 for three days straight: cloud seeding. This is the process of shooting chemicals, like dry ice or silver iodide, into the air to make it rain or make it rain longer. The United States, apparently, used it in 1972 to extend North Vietnam's monsoon season by 30-45 days. Now, China uses it to clear the air of pollution and make the increasingly arid Beijing a little more fertile. Here's Wikipedia's blurb:

"The largest cloud seeding system in the world is that of the People's Republic of China, which believes that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions which accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding[5]. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally. China also plans to use cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution. [6] "

If this were the still the Cold War, I'd be frightened out of my mind right now.

Today, I planned a little excursion to the library of The Beijing Center, a study-abroad hub run by Jesuits. I took a Chinese Literature class there two years ago, and Lisa and I have both used it's library's extensive scholarly resources when researching our projects on the One-Child Policy and Internet Censorship. It's located a little bit out of the main area of the city, so I took two subways and walked quite a bit to get there. When I arrived, the gate through which I normally enter was closed, so I walked 15 minutes or so to the other side of the school. I entered and then backtracked a good ways and got to the right building. Of course, I took the elevator to the wrong floor, backtracked, and then, when I reached that wonderful library, it was closed for the day for maintenance. Aiya!

We promise to put up more pictures soon, but we haven't really gone anywhere exciting (with our camera) recently, so it would have been more of the same.

That's all for now. Ta-ta!