Changing China

Long March to the Bird’s Nest

Watching athletics at the“Bird’s Nest” National Stadium is a dream for many Chinese people but it turned into nightmare for me last weekend.

We set off last Friday to see the titanic building and a relatively low-key athletics meeting mainly contested by young Chinese athletes.

There were, however, still tens of thousands of people at the showpiece venue for Beijing Olympics, most of whom were looking forward to a first glimpse inside the stadium and to watching their hero Liu Xiang in action.

But our passions gradually died long before we entered the Bird’s Nest.

It took us nearly one and a half hours from seeing the stadium from the road to actually getting anywhere near it.