When you talk to ordinary Chinese people, you find overwhelming support for the Beijing Olympics, and excitement about the results. But you also discover that many ordinary people have made big sacrifices for the Olympics – without even having a choice in the matter.
I'm not talking about the dissidents, the activists, the petitioners and the ethnic minorities and others who were arrested or evicted from Beijing. They are probably not the biggest fans of the Olympics any more.
I'm talking about the ordinary workers, farmers and small-business people who have lost a significant chunk of their modest income as a result of the Olympics. This is not a trivial matter for them – they are not wealthy people, and even a small loss of income is painful to them. Yet most of them still loyally support the Olympics. Or at least they are careful not to complain too much.
Mr. Wang, a 52-year-old coal miner from Yunnan province in southwestern China, has lost a third of his income this summer because his coal mine was shut down for the Olympics. “They told us that we had to shut down the mine because a coal disaster during the Olympics would have a very bad impact on China's image in the world,” he said.
Instead of sitting idle in Yunnan, he and his wife traveled to Beijing to take a look at the Olympic stadiums and absorb a little of the Olympic atmosphere.
“I have no complaint about the lost income,” he said. “I think the Olympics means a lot to China. It means that China is becoming stronger. I'm happy to see it.”
Mr. Wu, a 34-year-old migrant worker, is one of the few migrants who stayed in Beijing after the city's construction sites were shut down for the Olympics last month. He normally works on contacts to finish the interior of new apartments, but the price of his materials has skyrocketed because of the closure of many factories around Beijing in the pre-Olympic environmental cleanup.
“All of our contracts were suspended since the end of July because of the shortage of materials and the high costs,” he said. “We're not even allowed to enter some apartment compounds because of Olympic security measures. So we won't have any income in August, which is normally one of our busiest months.”
Some workers complained about the shutdown, but Mr. Wu says he doesn't mind the loss of income. “China spent so much time and effort to hold these Olympics,” he said. “I'll just think of this month as a break, and I'll take a rest. I don't have any Olympic tickets, but I'd like to watch it on television with my family.”
Many street vendors, who normally peddle fruit or grilled meat on the streets of Beijing, have been ordered to halt their businesses during the Olympics. But some of them don't object to their enforced unemployment. “The Olympics show that China is becoming stronger,” one hawker said. “To be the Olympic host is a glory for every Chinese person.”
Just outside the Olympic Green, two farmers from the outskirts of Beijing were eating their lunch on the sidewalk as they gazed at the Olympic stadiums in the distance. Mr. Zhao, 67, and his wife Mrs. Li, 65, grow watermelons on their farm in the southern suburbs of the city. But the Olympic security crackdown has made it impossible for farmers to drive into Beijing to sell their produce.
“Because of the Olympics, we weren't allowed to truck our watermelons into the city to sell them,” Mr. Zhao said. “So we had to leave them in the fields, and they went rotten. We've lost at least 100,000 yuan (about $15,000) this summer – about a quarter of our income.”
