At a vocational college in the Beijing suburbs, twelve hundred young women are in training to be Olympic Games volunteers. The competition is intense: successful applicants are required to be 'well-rounded individuals', youthful and pretty, and between 1.68 and 1.78 metres tall. Since the course began last year, the girls' parents have not been permitted to visit them. On the day that Justin Jin went to the college, the women were standing in line with books balanced on their heads and...
more »At a vocational college in the Beijing suburbs, twelve hundred young women are in training to be Olympic Games volunteers. The competition is intense: successful applicants are required to be 'well-rounded individuals', youthful and pretty, and between 1.68 and 1.78 metres tall. Since the course began last year, the girls' parents have not been permitted to visit them. On the day that Justin Jin went to the college, the women were standing in line with books balanced on their heads and chopsticks between their teeth, in order that they would learn to smile and stand up straight.
They are not the only ones being taught new skills. At metro stations, youth league activists are trying to inculcate a culture of orderly queuing. 'Stand in line with me', say the large signs they carry along the platform. A new arm of government, the Ministry for the Promotion of a Spiritual Civilisation, is in charge of the effort to spread Western-style 'good manners'; amongst their new sanctions is a 50 yuan fine for spitting on the street.
At a language class entitled 'Crazy English', Jin was introduced to six hundred petrochemical students eager to show off their grammar. "Your resistance gives me strength", they shouted as one, waving their red instruction pamphlets in the air. The teacher, Li Yang, was confident his students would show a welcoming face to Olympic competitors and spectators. "In the past, foreigners were seen as monsters or extraterrestrials," he explained. "But 2008 will be a turning point. Our country will become more open, more civilised and stronger."
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