With the Beijing Olympic Games 239 days away, BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad) celebrates its sixth birthday.

Liu Jingmin, BOCOG executive vice-president, said, ‘In the beginning, BOCOG had less than 100 staff members, but with the growing workload, we had to move twice, first from Xinqiao Hotel to a more spacious place — Qinglan Plaza in September 2002.’

On July 13, 2002, the first anniversary of Beijing’s bid victory,BOCOG officially published the Beijing Olympic Action Plan, which outlined the promises made in the bid document.

The plan covered such areas as general strategy, the construction of competition venues and related facilities, an ecological environment and city infrastructure, the social environment, and logistics.

In the first three years, BOCOG drew up and implemented a series of plans, unveiled the Olympic emblem of a ‘Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing,’ dislosed the theme slogan of ‘One World One Dream,’ and revealed the five Fuwa mascots.

From 2003 to 2005, extensive work was done to draw up the competition schedule of the Beijing Olympics. The opening and closing ceremonies, ticket sales, the torch relay and other matters were also put on BOCOG’s agenda.

During this period, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) increased guidance regarding Olympic preparations.

In January of 2006, BOCOG moved again to a new but this time permanent place — the Olympic Tower, designated as the command center of the Olympics in 2008. The body of BOCOG expanded to over 20 departments.

2006 saw attention focused on the core of the Olympics, namely the sport competitions.

BOCOG oversaw the progress of the Olympic venues, the finalization of the sports schedule, ticket sales, recruitment of volunteers, and the staging of Good Luck Beijing sport events to test the venues’ functions and the organizers’ capabilities.
Source: Beijing 2008

A survey has shown next year’s Beijing Olympics have improved employment expectations in the media, public relations and advertising sectors in Shanghai and beyond.

Hudson, an international recruitment and human resources services provider, said some tow thirds of the companies interviewed that worked in these fields in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan interviewed, said they would increase their hiring because of the Games.

Angie Eagan, general manager of Hudson Shanghai, told China Daily that the closer Olympics Games come to happening, the higher the expectations.

She said, ‘Much of this growth is driven by the demand for Olympics-related marketing and publicity projects, which are now moving into the implementation phase.’

Kellie Grimsley, managing consultant in advertising and communications at the company, said that with the Games approaching, sponsors, both international and local, are looking to get the most out of their sponsorship dollars.

The growth in these sectors is mainly in China. But as many companies in these fields are headquartered in Japan and Singapore, the recruitment push has moved beyond national borders.

New media, such as digital and interactive advertising, which have been expanding rapidly, have the strongest demand for experienced candidates.

Kellie Grimsley said, ‘Brands are now looking to leverage their marketing campaigns through multiple channels, such as online, digital and mobile platforms. But there is still a shortage of qualified talents who can understand the new marketing platforms.’

Our illustration is of a person who has apparently had his body tattooed with Olympic pictograms. It is not clearly known what area of employment he currently seeks.

Zhu Qingyang, secretary general of the Shanghai Human Resources Consulting Association, said the Olympics is not the only major event reflecting the city’s economic strength and creating job opportunities.

He said, with great truth, ‘The World Expo Shanghai 2010 is also bringing more and more job opportunities too.’ At the moment the Olympics over-shadow the World Expo but shortly after the Olympics finish, interest in the World Expo will boom.
Source: China Daily View

WC stands for water closet. But not at the Olympic Games. There same device will be called a toilet.

The Beijing Morning Post said, ‘In many Western countries they don’t use the term W.C. at all. Because in English, it’s equivalent to what we would call in China an outhouse, and is a rather crude slang term.’

Where it got this idea from no one knows. That it is demonstrably false does not change the situation. WC is out.

Considering the wonderful pictograms that have been created for the rest of the games coming up with something for the toilet of each sex would not be over difficult. After all, there is almost a universal standard for these.

Road signs are also getting a make-over. Use of the romanized form of Chinese, known as ‘pinyin’, will be replaced by the actual English word, except for proper names. Out will go Dong Changan Jie and in will come East Changan Avenue.

All restaurants and hotels rated three star and above will have to use the standard names for Chinese dishes once they come out.

One would not like to be on the committee working out what to call popular dishes like ‘ants climbing the tree’ — spicy fried vermicelli with finely chopped pork — into English.

Mark you, China is not the only nation to suffer from this sort of translation. When Charles became Prince of Wales he was crowned in Caernarvon Castle. A committee decided that the Welsh word for toilet — twt — was too vulgar. And tŷ bach, literally ‘little house’, although widely used was considered unacceptable.

They decided, instead, on ‘ystafell ymolchi’. By the time you pronounced it, it was too late.
Source: Reuters

A most marvelous set of designs for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. First came the main logo which is to be seen everywhere. It is derived from the Chinese character for ‘jing,’ which is part of the two-character name for Beijing.

Now come these wonderful pictograms for various sports. They are stylish, distinctive and, as a judgment, better than those used in previous games. Promoters of the Games say the pictograms were developed from, or incorporate ideas from, early Chinese writings on bones, known as the oracle bones. They also reflect the Chinese characters used in seals, or chops, that go on documents.

They are distinctive, elegant, easy to reproduce. What more could anyone want? They are produced here in a larger size that other illustrations on this site.
Source: China Rises