The run-up to the Olympics in Beijing also marks the start of a related spectator sport — celebrity spotting. 

Sightings of the famous and infamous have already begun with the opening of some Olympic venues where qualifying events have been held.

At a recent swimming event at the Water Cube, a group of Americans in the stands passed around a pair of binoculars to scan the spectator seats — and spotted who they were sure was Henry Kissinger.

A buzz quickly spread around the stands.

Kissinger, now 84, is a frequent visitor to Beijing and, while not the sort of high-calibre celebrity to be chased by paparazzi, is still well-known for his role in repairing relations between Washington and Beijing decades ago.

In 1971, the former U.S. Secretary of State’s secret meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai helped pave the way for a ground-breaking summit between U.S. President Richard Nixon, Zhou and Mao Zedong, and the eventual formalization of relations between the two countries.

Fast forward to 2008. Kissinger at the Water Cube?

The Nobel laureate serves in an honorary role as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). So is he also a swimming fan, or like everyone else, just curious to see the sleek new Olympics facilities? Or maybe he is once again playing the role of advance man, scoping out the best Olympics seats for a president, lawmaker or business executive.

Picture of Henry Kissinger at Davos earlier this year by Denis Balibouse/REUTERS

There are many roads to the Beijing Games, and I stumbled onto an unlikely pathway during a recent visit home to the small town of Kapa’au on the north shore of Hawaii’s Big Island.

There, against the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean and under towering Norfolk pines, the community’s sun-heated 25-yard pool is not the sort of place you’d expect Olympic ambitions to take root. 

But 18-year-old Daniel Coakley, a dual Philippine-US citizen from the North Kohala community, has defied the odds by qualifying for the Olympics. In doing so, he has sparked dreams among the town’s roughly 1,200 residents that a local boy might become a medal winner in an aquatic discipline — the first in nearly 40 years from the entire state of Hawaii.

In December Daniel set a record 22.80 seconds for the 50 meter freestyle at the Southeast Asian Games in Thailand, securing a berth to the Beijing Olympics as a member of the Philippine National Team.

“Who would have ever thought he could reach the Olympics by training in this pool, with no equipment and just his dad as a coach,” mused Daniel’s father Jeff, who was working as a life guard on the day I visited. “For nine years, we had to improvise and make our own training equipment. He’s never done any weight training. He just swam.”

Daniel Coakley’s story is not one of tireless effort and perseverance. In fact, Jeff says his relations with his son were more typical of a rebellious teen than of coach nurturing a star athlete.

“I remember so many times it was a struggle just to get him to the pool to practice. Then once he was in the pool, he’d duck underwater every time I tried to tell him what to swim. I’d be lucky to get 1,500 yards out of him in a practice.”

But Daniel had a knack for focusing and pouring it on when it counted.

“A week or so before a race, he’d say “Dad, I want to break the record. What is it? Then he’d work hard and sure enough, most often he’d go out there and break the record.”

Like many kids, Daniel dreamed of going to the Olympics when he first started swimming at the age of 8. Like many kids, it seemed just a dream until the age of 15 when he started winning and breaking records.

“If I’d known then that he could really do it, I would have worked him harder,” laughs Jeff Coakley.

After Daniel qualified for the Olympics, local residents raised money to help send him to Florida where he will be training for the Olympics with some of the top U.S. contenders and under the guidance of some of the best coaches.

“The other day he called and said, “Dad, what’s tapering?” referring to the training technique of slowly easing off hard workouts to allow the body to gain maximum strength in the lead-up to important races.

“I laughed and said, don’t worry, Daniel, you’ve been tapering you’re whole life.”

Picture of Jeff Coakley at the Kapa’au pool by Ken Wills

One of the many delights for foreigners arriving in China is the chance to read tortured English translations on Chinese menus and business signs.

As Reuters has reported in the run-up to the Olympics, central directives have been issued by image-obsessed officials seeking to stamp out these non-standard translations.

Apparently, Beijing authorities are worried that tourists will somehow go home with a tarnished image of China if they encounter an inexactly translated sign or menu.

And so such gems as “mixed elbow with garlic mud” and “hand-shredded ass meat” have been targeted to be replaced by something more acceptable, but undoubtedly more bland.

The bureaucrats’ gain is decidedly our loss.

But my hopes were restored this week when a new restaurant opened in my neighbourhood and spry, young staff members were out front, handing out business cards and brochures to attract customers.

Its dishes, the notices promised, were “to be induced with a tongue indulged in a neuturing Chinese cuisine from a fantastic mixture of preserved cooking skills and to induce with a charm endowed by fashion drinks and brand vintages.”

Ah, what charm indeed. I immediately went in and sampled the food, which was excellent.

Why, I wondered, are Beijing officials so thin-skinned on this issue?

Imagine, for a moment, if residents of English-speaking countries were to suddenly try to cater to Chinese tourists by translating their menus and signs into Chinese characters.

My Mandarin teacher chuckles, sometimes even guffaws, when she sees I’ve missed a stroke in one of the characters I’ve written, totally changing the meaning from what I’d intended.

I laugh at my mistake along with her, realizing it’s the equivalent of my neighbourhood convenience store that carries a fashionable English name, “The Dailg Shop”.

I thought it was just a printing error until I spotted the same mistake on a competitor’s store front down the street.

Even if officials can replace most of the existing translations deemed offensive or embarrassing, a quick calculation revived my confidence that tourists coming for the Olympics will still have a few encounters of the curious kind.

The rate of new restaurant openings in the half year remaining before the Games will probably outpace the bureaucrats’ ability to vet their menus and stamp out errant translations, much less to even locate all of the existing violations.

Just to test my theory, though, I rushed to another restaurant to check whether my all-time favourite sign was still standing.

“Explodes fries the lamb waist,” reads a posterboard on the restaurant wall featuring its best dishes. 

And at 22 yuan, or about $3, it’s a bargain.

Across the street, though, an outlet of the “Nine-headed Bird Chain Restaurant” was being torn down, presumably to make room for a new restaurant and another new menu.

Let the Games begin.

Pictures by Claro Cortes IV