Fun and The Games: Contrary to popular opinion…
On Sunday, I did my third and final interview with the BBC in which I served as contrarion to the media’s “no fun Olympics” angle. (I’ve taken a similar position in interviews with Newsweek, LA Times, CBS, and others, and done lighter pieces with The Today Show, AFP, Rocky Mountain News, and others. See the links listed below).
When you only have a minute or two to speak, you need to stick to key messages. Here were mine:
- Re Beijing’s nightlife: a few weeks ago people talked about all rooftop decks being closed, regular ID checks by police, a 2 AM curfew, the banning of blacks and Mongolians from bars, and so on. It didn’t happen.
- The bar scene has largely been “business as usual.” If you wanted to dance and drink beer all night, hang out on bar rooftops, or meet athletes, you could. I’d describe Beijing as more Harry Connick Jr. fun than Red Hot Chili Peppers fun, but fun nonetheless.
- For visitors, nightlife is only part of the experience. The city left strong impressions due to its scale, historical sites, and food, as well as its stadiums, volunteers, and five-kuai pints of beer at events. And as much as the government tried to sanitize the place, visitors got a sense of the less pleasant side of the city, including the air pollution, terrible driving etiquette, and often sloppy service.
- Finally, the government is often portrayed as exerted almost puppet master-like control of its population, but the Olympics showed how far that is from the truth, as evidenced by everything from drivers and pedestrians disregarding road rules and traffic police to people spitting on the ground and “recycling ladies” grabbing near-empty water bottles from tourists’ hands. This is not a judgment, but an observation that the government had hopes for certain etiquette and the population for the most part dashed them.
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In case anyone is interested, I have listed below eight (lucky number) articles in which I was quoted. This blog was also linked to by observers such as Wondering Mind (a fellow bar lover), James Fallows (Atlantic Monthly), and Sky Canaves (Wall Street Journal), by local foodie Diana Kuan, Dan Steinberg (Washington Post) and others in response to my scorpions-on-a-stick media monitoring project, and by The Peking Duck, Huffington Post, and the Time blog in response to my posts on the South China Morning Post story that claimed Beijing planned to ban blacks and Mongolians from bars.
The articles:
Fun may be a casualty of Beijing’s effort at perfect Olympic Games
- Mark Magnier, LA Times
Beijing Actually is Fun, Really
- Manuela Zoninsein, Newsweek
All games, no fun
- Simon Montlake, Christian Science Monitor
Blogging after dark
- Dan Oshinsky, Rocky Mountain News
No Fun Games? Not Exactly
- Mitch Moxley, The Walrus Magazine
Beijing’s busy nightlife
Lester Holt, NBC
A guide to Beijing’s secrets
Jennifer Pak, BBC
China Blogs to Read During the Olympics
Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service
7 Comments so far
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Hey, you looked great on NBC with that “no fun” look. I am kidding. I had a blast during the Olympics, and received a late night phone call from a friend claiming he got a Bronze. If you know what I mean. It seems pretty fun for me with all the parties and events around, and I hadn’t stayed out till 7 in the morning for a long time like the last 2 weeks.
Thanks Kevin,
I would need to practice having “no fun” to really make that look work, but it goes against my nature.
Two weeks of fun: with friends, with strangers, in bars, on rooftops, in stadiums, on streets. Hard to believe it is already over.
Cheers, Boyce
If they gave out Medals for Pessimism and Poor Prognostication, I’d give this guy the Gold in both:
from http://www.newsweek.com/id/147780:
The nightlife guide Time Out Beijing is planning a double issue for August and September: there’s not enough going on to fill two single issues. … “In the month of the Olympics, there’s less to write about than at any time in the last few years,” says the magazine’s editor, Tom Pattinson. “It’s either a private party, or it’s not happening.”
from http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-fun26-2008jul26,0,2...
“It’s really a shame,” said Tom Pattinson, editor of Time Out, an entertainment listings magazine, whose July issue for Beijing lists the best bars and nightspots. “Beijing had really bloomed in the past 18 months, but the next few months will be dull.”
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/28/olympicgames2008.china:
“Instead of showcasing Beijing as the great modern cultural city that actually it is, people are going to see something more likely to conform to the negative stereotype now … You’ve got beer gardens being told ‘No beer in the garden,’” said Tom Pattinson, editor of Time Out Beijing.
from http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/kinming_liu/2008/07/the_no...
Tom Pattinson, editor of English-language entertainment listings magazine Time Out Beijing, said the prospects for Games-time nightlife looked “very dull.” “All those athletes who want to let their hair down and get drunk for the first time in four years are going to have a hard time doing it,” he said.
What’s amazing is that a magazine like Time Out can’t find enough going on in August to justify a September issue. Beijing only held the Olympics, had a slew of bar and restaurant openings, saw a slew of celebs in town, etc. Yeah, nothing going on here…
Do you think HQ in London has a clue about what is going on with its magazine in China?
Cheers, Boyce
M-dawg: I wholeheartedly agree with you. The editor of Time Out was incorrect when he prognosticated that parties during the Games would either prove to be “private” or nonexistent.
While there certainly were a number of corporate parties and events during the Games (i.e. Adidas party, Speedo party, Club Bud, USA House)…the celeb watch on this blog has demonstrably shown that numerous celebs ventured out to places as diverse as Bling, Blok8, China Doll and mixed it up with the locals.
Beijing nightlife during the Games “very dull?” Did the Time Out Beijing editor see the rooftop terrace at Kokomo during the Games?
Ibiza it was not but Beijing nightlife certainly could not have been characterized as very dull.
I would have three words for any editor who said such things in my employ, just prior to the world’s largest sporting event, and said them not just once, but multiple times: you are fired.
Every other publication, Chinese or otherwise, was absolutely packed with Olympic content. What did TimeOut not know that everyone else did?
I wonder, did Song make much money during the Olympics, and if it did, did Mr. Pattinson have much to say about that?
“The nightlife guide Time Out Beijing is planning a double issue for August and September: there’s not enough going on to fill two single issues.”
I don’t know what’s more pitiful — that the editor would say that or the journalist that interviewed him actually published it.
I guess George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kanye West, Air, the Paralympics, the China Open, Turandot, a dozen new restaurant and bar openings and about 100 other events around town — all happening in September — doesn’t add up to much in Time Out’s books.