Time: At 13:48:00, Feb. 6, 2006
<Picture and writing: Just have a look – on the Chinese New Year’s Eve in the attics or by the side of the computers, those participants in the work of the Olympic Games were exchanging New Year greetings to each other!>
Feb. 5, the 8th day of the first lunar month which marked the end and the first working day of the Chinese spring Festival the reporter paid a visit to Jintai Art Museum in Chaoyang Park – the liaison office of the organizing committee of the Collection Competition of 2008 Olympic Landscape Sculptures Program. Streets and alleys were filled with festival atmosphere, but, however, things here were something entirely different: over ten staff members were concentrating on their work here and there.
As the reporter learned, these working personnel not only had no leave during the Spring Festival but instead they worked “in three shifts” by turns. The deadline for collecting the 2008 Olympic Landscape Sculptures Program was due on Mar. 1, 2006 but the Chinese Spring Festival was around the corner, more important, telegrams and sketches came in a continuous stream from abroad. At the very moment Mr. Yuan Xikun, head of the organizing committee, famous artist and member of the CPPCC resolutely decided to continue to work in Spring Festival. This was what the reporter saw for himself on the spot. Touched deeply by the Olympic spirit a veteran volunteer together with over 10 young volunteers began to work day and night.
An Xiaoping, a postgraduate student in China Foreign Affairs University from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region told the reporter that he had just worked for 14 hours without interruption and did not feel tired at all, for the Olympic Games was what the people of the country as a whole most cared about so he worked hard. Zheng Qiong, a postgraduate student from the Minzu University of China told the reporter soon after she got the news on the 3rd of the first lunar month, she went to buy a ticket in queue at the railway station and returned to the organizing committee in Beijing the very night. She said she felt very proud of being able to contribute to the Olympic Games with her knowledge. The longest time she ever worked was from 05:00 pm. till 06:00 am. Next morning she felt that the time elapsed very quickly. Other volunteer students from the first and second foreign languages institutes in Beijing also said that it was a good opportunity for them to put their knowledge into practice and it was worth doing it, vocation was less important compared with the Olympic Games. At the moment when the reporter was about to leave he came across Zhang Xuefei, a student from the French Faculty of the foreign Languages Department of China Foreign Affairs University she said merrily when others were here working how could I stay at home for with nothing to do with the Olympic games? As the reporter learned of several volunteers from other places away from Beijing worked here with their “comrades-in-arms” from the New Year’s Eve till the first day of the Spring Festival.
In holding the modern Olympic Games, the host nation is required to be eligible for all kinds of athletic events, in addition, demonstrate a unique style in the operation of the Games and embody the Olympic spirit of broad participation. Looking back at the history of the Olympic Games, it became the first example in the past 100 years or more for using the world wide collection of sculptures to publicize the Olympic spirit, and which beyond doubt constituted the Olympic Games with typical Chinese characteristics, entirely different from the conventional Olympic activities such as torch-relay, slogans and collection of mascots. So far as the scale of participation was concerned it was far beyond the collection of the calligraphic works. The sculpture collection and tour-show, presented in an exclusive way, played a role in highlighting the cultural theme of the Olympics, and rendering it possible for non-athletes to know more about the Olympics.
The Olympic Games would become more popular and vivid due to the sculptures while the sculptures would be more of the mainstream and top notch artworks. This was what the sculpture competition aimed at. As we know the competition organizing committee has received more than 300 letters of confirmation from the contestants for the competition coming from over 50 countries and regions the world over. The contestants were composed of sculptors specialized in the work, professors and students from some art schools. So far all the preparatory work is in full swing, carried out in an orderly way; and now we are in eager expectation of the forthcoming Olympic Games.
