Last week, I wrote for Slate about the struggle to get Olympics tickets--how the failures of the ticket-allocation system had left Beijing with a glut of empty seats and a baffling landscape of scalpers and scams. By August 20, when I went to the Peking University gymnasium for ping-pong, the authorities had apparently begun to address half the problem. But only half.
China's forces of law and order have added some new uniforms to the ones listed in the Slate Olympics preview: in and around the venues, cops are wearing pleated chinos and dress shirts with a "Beijing 2008 Security" logo silk-screened on the chest and back. Though the credential on the neck simply says "security coordination group," the tan shirt / olive slacks combination here apparently belongs to the paramilitary People's Armed Police (at least once, I've seen an officer in regular army-style P.A.P. uniform leading a dress-casual formation). A light-blue dress shirt with dark-blue chinos seems to be the municipal Public Security version. Both wear white ballcaps. This is part of the effort to make the cops inside the venue less intimidating. The guy assigned to our section might have come across as even friendlier if he hadn't spent an entire soccer game sitting bolt upright and staring back at the crowd, face stiff and eyes darting, like an agitated Doberman awaiting orders.
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China's forces of law and order have added some new uniforms to the ones listed in the Slate Olympics preview: in and around the venues, cops are wearing pleated chinos and dress shirts with a "Beijing 2008 Security" logo silk-screened on the chest and back. Though the credential on the neck simply says "security coordination group," the tan shirt / olive slacks combination here apparently belongs to the paramilitary People's Armed Police (at least once, I've seen an officer in regular army-style P.A.P. uniform leading a dress-casual formation). A light-blue dress shirt with dark-blue chinos seems to be the municipal Public Security version. Both wear white ballcaps. This is part of the effort to make the cops inside the venue less intimidating. The guy assigned to our section might have come across as even friendlier if he hadn't spent an entire soccer game sitting bolt upright and staring back at the crowd, face stiff and eyes darting, like an agitated Doberman awaiting orders.
