beauty show ----- china olympic 2008, olympic, beijing olympic,china culture: 2008-04

Thousands of Chinese students waving red flags and signs such as "One World, One Dream, One China" gathered in Nagano outside the setting-off site.
Supporters holding Chinese flags, mixed with some Japanese and Olympic emblems, lined the relay route. Eighty torch bearers took part in the 18.7 km (12 mile) relay through the city, including passing the Olympic stadium M-Wave.
The relay was started by Senichi Hoshino, the manager of Japan's national baseball team.
Senichi Hoshino is a former Japanese professional baseball player and manager.
In 2003, he led the Tigers to their first Central League pennant in 18 years before retiring for health reasons. On January25, 2007, it was announced that he would manage the Japanese national team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The 61-year-old Hoshino is popular in Japan. As a baseball player, he helped his team win two league championships. He coached two teams to three trophies in national league championship.
Kosuke Kitajima, gold medalist in the Athens Games, was in the 72th place bearing the torch.
Kitajima first made history by being the first swimmer to set anew world record at the Asian Games when he did so in the 200m breast stroke in 2002 at Busan.
He won gold medals for the men's 100m and 200m breaststroke in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Mizuki Noguchi, a long-distance athlete, was credited to run the last leg and lit the cauldron in the celebration ceremony.
Noguchi was born in Kanagawa, but grew up in Ise in Ise city in Mie. She started competing in track and field during her first year of middle school. While attending Ujiyamada Commercial High School, she entered the national high school track meet and competed in the 3000m and the long-distance relay.
After winning the Inuyama half-marathon in 1999, she was inspired to concentrate her efforts on that event. She was ranked second in the world that year, and in 2001 she won in the all-Japan corporate league.
With a string of victories, she became known as "Queen of the Half Marathon". Continuing through the Miyazaki Women's Road Race competition in January 2004, she competed in 24 half marathons, and won 14 of them. Only twice was she beaten by another Japanese athlete.
In March 2002 she entered her first full marathon, the Nagoya International Women's Marathon, and won. In January 2003 she won the Osaka International Women's Marathon with a time of 2 hours 21minutes 18 seconds, the second-fastest on record for Japan.

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[+/-] : Perfectly infused with Olympic spirit, sample ticket unveiled

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[+/-] : Olympic flame arrives in Japan

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The flame arrived in Tokyo at 6am local time on Friday from its last stop in Australia's capital of Canberra. It was carried off the plane by the vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, or BOCOG, Li Binghua. China's ambassador to Japan, Cui Tiankai, and Chiharu Igaya, vice president of the IOC, were at the airport to welcome the Chinese delegation. There was also enormous support from the overseas Chinese community in Japan.
In preparation for the torch relay on Saturday, the flame will be transferred to Nagano, where the Winter Olympic Games were hosted in 1998.
Japan's Olympic officials held a press conference two days ago to formally announce the list of selected torchbearers for the Nagano leg of the relay. 80 people including former Olympic champions, sports celebrities, government officials and representatives from the public sector are set to carry the torch.

This is Ai Fukuhara, a well-known table tennis player. She started playing pingpong at the age of three and has won many Japanese national championships. She also spent a long time in China where she received training and has many Chinese fans. Many people see her as a sort of ambassador between the two countries.

Torchbearer Ai Fukuhara said, "I made so many Chinese friends through playing pingpong. I also studied the Chinese language and culture and so I learnt a lot in China."
In addition to preparing for the torch relay, Fukuhara is also practicing for the Olympics.
Torchbearer Ai Fukuhara said, "I grew up with the guidance and help of Chinese coaches. I'm excited to take part in this year's Olympics and I hope the Beijing Games will be a great success."
Some Chinese students studying in Japan have also been selected to be torchbearers.
Torchbearer Zhang Bi said, "I'll have a big smile on my face when I run. I want to show the whole world that Chinese youths are energetic, healthy and have a positive spirit."
As a modern Olympic city, Nagano's torch relay route is intended to reflect the passion and spirit for the Olympics. The flame's journey on this leg will begin at the historic site of the city's Labor and Social Security Center and pass through many stadiums of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games. Organizers say the 18.5-kilometer journey was designed to reflect the annual Marathon commemorating the Olympic movement.
The city of Nagano is also called "the roof of Japan" due to its high altitude. The city is a tourism hotspot in Japan - for its coolness in summer and mountains blanketed in snow for winter ski. Many local residents say the arrival of the Beijing Olympic flame will rekindle memories of the Winter Olympics ten years ago.

China expressed early Friday morning strong indignation and opposition over a resolution on Tibet adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The resolution proposed by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "flagrantly distorted the history and reality of Tibet", said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu in a statement.

Jiang said the resolution, which condemned for no reason at all the legal measures taken by the government of Tibet Autonomous Region to deal with the violent crimes in Lhasa last month, was "a rude interference into China's internal affairs and seriously hurt the feelings of the Chinese people."

"China is strongly indignant and opposed to this resolution," she said.

There was sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa riots were masterminded by the Dalai Lama clique, and staged by "Tibet independence" forces in and out of China, she said.

What happened in Lhasa on March 14 was not at all "peaceful demonstration" or "non-violence" activities as labeled by the Dalai clique, but naked serious crimes of violence, Jiang said.

Some U.S. Congress members utterly confounded right and wrong by turning a blind eye to the mobs who conducted assaulting, looting and arson in Lhasa and leaving the Dalai clique, who masterminded the violent crimes, free from condemnations, but instead blaming the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Jiang said. She said those U.S. lawmakers also harbored hidden motives. "Here we sternly warn those U.S. Congress members: The more youdo to shield the Dalai clique and disrupt the Beijing Olympics, the more thoroughly the true colors of them will be exposed, and the more Chinese people are determined to safeguard stability and ethnic unity in Tibet and host a successful Olympic Games," Jiang said.

"We demand the U.S. Congress see clearly the Dalai Lama's true color of engaging in activities of splitting China in the cloak of religion, realize the Dalai clique's nature of real antagonism and violence under the disguise of seeking dialogue and peace...and immediately stop wrongful remarks and deeds that interfere into China's internal affairs, hurt the Chinese people's feeling and harm the China-U.S. relations," said Jiang.

[+/-] : chinese side with government over riots for "Tibet independence"

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Common citizens in China's capital have sided with the central government's handling of the riots seeking "Tibet independence". Riots in Tibet and neighboring Sichuan and Gansu provinces with big Tibetan populations have been heated topics for Chinese, in conversation and online. "Most Tibetan people wish to live a peaceful life and I believe only a very small portion of the Tibetan people participated in the riots," said Ngapoi Rinqen Puncog, a Beijing-born Tibetan who worked in Tibet for more than five years. "I do not understand why they seek the secession of Tibet, which could only disturb peace on the holy plateau and bring no benefit to the people there," he said, adding that lawbreakers should face punishment.
Riots broke out in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, on March 14, resulting in beating, smashing, looting and arson that killed 18 civilians and injured 382. The government has been restrained in its actions, resulting in injuries among many policemen. Even fire engines were burnt down by the rioters. "I think the government's involvement is essential to ease the unrest," said Fan Jingjing, an employee of a state-owned bank in Beijing. "The government is doing its job." According to the government, 120 homes were burned and 908 shops, seven schools and five hospitals were destroyed, causing losses of nearly 250 million yuan (about 34.7 million U.S. dollars). Nearly 200 of those involved in the riots have surrendered to police. News about the riots distracted Chen Junqing from her bustling business over the past week. She managed to squeeze in time for reading newspapers and watching TV, although her sliding door business in one of Beijing's busiest construction material markets is in its busy season. "I learned from the TV news that several assistants at a clothing store in Lhasa, so young and pretty, were burned to death during the incident. This broke my heart," said Chen, a 40-something mother. "
The mobs are so brutal; I have never imagined it. They must be punished by law." Lhasa has been frequently discussed among local businessmen, Chen said. "We are relieved to see that the city is calm again and people returned to their normal lives. The government has done a good job in helping local people, especially those suffering the attacks." Xiao Hong, working for the multinational consulting firm Mckinsey & Company's office in Beijing, has been planning a trip to Tibet for years, although she's been too busy to go because of work. "Tibet attracts me, I think, and many others as well, because of its breathtaking landscape and well-preserved Buddhist culture," she said. "I always find it a serene place, physically and spiritually.
So I was very much shocked to learn about the violence there." Xiao said she did not have much of an idea about "Tibet independence" activities before. "But, this time, what they did was organized violence. Leaving them be would mean the whole country including Tibet itself will be harmed." "I hope such things will never happen again. All Chinese, in every corner of this country, should live in peace and safety," said Shi Jianhua, a retiree in Beijing who was also struck by the innocent lives lost in the riots....
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