The good and the bad of China on Olympic show

THE TERM “raucous” could not be applied to the crowd at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics—perhaps because many of them were officials, attending as a reward for good conduct. So on the few occasions that spectators at the Bird’s Nest stadium did show emotion on the cold, clear evening of February 4th, their reactions were worth studying. Chaguan was among dozens of Beijing-based foreign reporters invited to the ceremony. He sat in a section of the stadium separated by fences and guards from the “closed-loop”, a secure quarantine zone created for Olympic athletes, coaches and dignitaries newly arrived from an outside world that, in contrast with China, has resigned itself to living with covid-19. Most of the stadium’s seats were kept empty, as a pandemic precaution. Olympic tickets are not on sale to the public, and China’s borders are closed to foreign fans.