While only 100,000 volunteers are needed for the Beijing 2008 Games, about half a million Chinese have applied. Successful applicants will be selected over the coming months and will then undergo training. The city of Beijing is also employing another 400,000 “city volunteers” who will be placed around Beijing to offer assistance, including first-aid.
Meanwhile Beijing 2008 launched a workshop Wednesday to train the working team dealing with the volunteers. More than 110 team members from the venue working staff are attending a four-day training session to enhance their knowledge about the Olympic Games in General, the Beijing Olympics in particular, the venue operation and the guide and service for the spectators.
Municipal officials promised Wednesday to crack down on “awkward, Chinese-inflected English, known as ‘Chinglish’”, and asked the public for help. The Associated Press reports that with 500,000 foreigners expected for the Games, taxi drivers who can’t speak English, or signs that “mangle” the language, could be an embarrassment and distract from the $40 billion being poured into rebuilding the city for the Games. There are about 4.87 Beijing residents who can now speak English at different levels and English speakers now constitute 35.6 per cent of the city’s population.
Liu Yang, head of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program and the Office for Standardization of English Translation of Beijing Public Signs, told a press conference at the Beijing Olympic Media Centre that the municipal government has made a great effort to rectify misspelled or wrongly-translated English signs on roads, scenic areas, commercial areas, cultures establishments, subways, hospitals and other public places, and the work should be finished by the end of the year. He said, “we have enlisted the help of 35 Chinese and foreign specialists from the United States, Britain and Singapore”. He added a language hotline may be set up for the Games to encourage the public to report “nonsense” English, and China’s diplomatic missions abroad are also assisting.
By the end of this year and the beginning of 2008 several Olympic franchise stores will “sprout” up across China. There are now 63 franchise retailers in China with several based in Beijing. To expand the marketing network faster BOCOG has authorized those retailers to have their own distributors but the stores run by the franchise retailers must outnumber those run by the distributors. By the time the Games open there will be about 10,000 franchise stores.
Subway toilets will become more user-friendly to accommodate increased traffic during the 2008 Games. Free paper rolls will be available at the 64 toilets along subway lines one and two in Beijing by the end of this month and ventilation in the toilets will improve following renovations to be completed by this year or early next year. The ceiling, walls and surfaces of the toilets will be renovated to upgrade their flushes, lamps, drainage and ventilation systems; and add accessible flushes and other facilities for disabled people, reports the Beijing Daily.
