Vision Beijing

Not a day goes by but I hear or see the ^O^ word. If the Games were a religion, I might have already been converted to Olympicism.

The other night I watched a program called Vision Beijing. 5 famous directors, 5 short films, yet none impressed me.

Under the lens of the Iranian director, the school kids are smiling radiantly, but don’t they have loads of homework to do?

In Lau’s film, the foods look enticing and the variety is eye-opening. But I suppose for the ordinary people, many of those elaborate dishes are extravagances.

It’s good the directors have captured these beautiful moments, but some faces shouldn’t be neglected. They are migrant workers jostling in the buses at 6am, compound security guards stamping their feet to keep out the cold, delivery boys cycling in the snow, listless subway commuters rushing to work… Without them, Beijing wouldn’t be what it is today.

Maybe I’ve outgrown the city, or the country. Sometimes feel suffocated in the smog, under the roaring flyover, at the swarming crossing, in the crowded supermarket, in the office without a view…