Front Page of the Day

Lunch at the Bird's Nest

JDM080505tbns.jpg
The Beijing News
May 5, 2008

It may not look like it from the cover, but The Beijing News got a makeover today. The paper's adding a number of new weekly features, including a weekly 8-page commentary section on Saturdays and "New Olympics" section on Mondays (see below). The book review moves to Saturdays, and for increased reading comfort, the paper's switched to a slightly larger type size.

Today's top headline announces that the central government has met with the envoys of the Dalai Lama, and reports that further meetings will be held at an appropriate time in the future.

In photographs, the top picture is naturally of the Olympic torch, this time at its departure from Sanya yesterday. That's Jackie Chan there with Pu Huifang, a local village leader. A fish pond is shown in the middle photo: a restaurant in Pinggu District lost more than 8,000 kg of fish, worth 300,000 yuan, in two of its fish ponds yesterday. Poisoning is suspected. At the bottom is a photo of Lu Hao, the former vice-mayor of Beijing who was just appointed head of the Communist Youth League.

JDM080505nests.jpg
"New Olympics" weekly insert

The first installment of the newspaper's new "New Olympics" weekly is titled "Lunch at the Bird's Nest," and features photos of landscapers taking a lunch break. The accompanying text by Fan Yao:

"We usually have cabbage and potatoes, but today's a holiday, so the food's a little better," Chang Xueliang, a migrant worker doing landscaping around the Bird's Nest on Labor Day, May 1, said between bites of steamed bun.

At 11:30 am, Mr. Wei the deliveryman came with a big bucket of food and a bamboo basket full of steamed buns. Because of the holiday, the food had improved: the usual egg-drop soup had become braised tofu. The workers set aside their worked and crowded round. Without washing their hands, they picked up two steamed buns apiece, and then filled their own lunchboxes with tofu before scattering among the trees, along the roadside, or simply beside the piles of rocks to eat their lunch.

Their wages are 50 yuan a day, and their contract with the landscaping company has just two articles: work time and wages. Reportedly, over the past four years, more than 100,000 migrant workers have participated in the construction of the Bird's Nest.

The complete report, which contains several additional photos, is titled Labor Day for the "Nest builders".

There are currently 0 Comments for Lunch at the Bird's Nest.

Post a comment

All comments are moderated and subject to review by Danwei contributors and editors, but well-grounded and articulate comments will be published regardless of which way they lean. Because comments published on any website ultimately contribute to the character of that website, we may decline to publish comments that are irrelevant, redundant, or that do not adhere to generally accepted standards of courtesy; if you are looking for a fight, there are plenty of other venues available online.


Some useful html: <b>bold</b>, <i>italic</i>,
<a href="http://www.danwei.org">link</a>

Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
laomo2008fpA.jpg
Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Diamond Hill by Feng Chi-shun: Feng's memoir Diamond Hill describes an era of gambling and gangsters, Suzie Wong and squatter villages, fires and food stalls, and the Kowloon Walled City and its white powder. "A time when people were poor, but life was rich," he says. The world that he grew up in no longer exists, but his book - the first ever on the Diamond Hill refugee settlement, in either Chinese or English - offers a candid picture of what life was like for most Hong Kong residents in the 1950s.
William A. Callahan's China: The Pessoptimist Nation: China: The Pessoptimist Nation shows how the heart of Chinese foreign policy is not a security dilemma, but an identity dilemma. Through a careful analysis of how Chinese people understand their new place in the world, the book charts how Chinese identity emerges through the interplay of positive and negative feelings in a dynamic that intertwines China's domestic and international politics.
The WTO ruling: a half victory at best: In August 2009, a World Trade Organization panel ruled against China's system of monopoly control over entertainment products. Was this the victory supporters hailed as the dawn of a new day for American and global entertainment companies in the China market?
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Street hawker cries of Beijing (2006.12): Yang Changhe demonstrates hawker's cries in a video shot by Muzimei.
+ New Weekly: Do Chinese kids know anything about traditonal Chinese culture? (2004.06): Q: Do you know what China's four great inventions are? Paper, printing, the compass and gunpowder 49.3% know all four, 37.3% get one or more wrong, 13.3% don't know at all (2004.06.12)
+ Some questions about SARFT's full-stop for Red Question Mark (2007.09): SARFT axes Red Question Mark (红问号). He Dong (何东) responds.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30