The hopes of 1.3 billion Chinese people rested on the shoulders of Liu Xiang, the golden boy of China’s Track and Field. Today, 90000 strong crowd cramped into the Bird’s Nest in anticipation. Many more had their eyes glued to the television. They expect him to breeze past the qualifying rounds and finally face Dayron Robles, the Cuban who broke Liu’s world record. Their hopes were dashed when Liu limped away into the tunnel, his hamstring apparently injured. It was not the ending everyone wanted. Watching him limping away reminded me of Britain’s Derek Redmond at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and Tanzania’s John Stephen Akhwari at the 1986 Olympic in Mexico City.

Sportsmanship and Fatherhood - Derek Redmond, 1992 Barcelona Olympic

Redmond was competing in the 400 meters semi-finals when he too, tore his hamstring. He fell to the ground in pain. When he saw stretcher bearers running towards him, he got up again and hobbled on one leg down his lane. He was determined to finish the race. His father barged his way past security to help him past the finishing line. It won a rousing ovation from the 65,000 crowd and the incident has become a well-remembered moment in Olympic history.

Finish the Race - John Stephen Akhwari, 1986 Mexico Olympic

Like Redmond, John Stephen Akhwari finished the marathon last. In fact, he finished the race one hour after the event had been won. He fell during the race, badly cutting his knee and dislocating the joint. Not deterred, the lone runner pressed on and completed the race to the standing ovation of the small crowd left in the stadium. When asked why he did not retire from the race and chose to continue running, he seemed confused but gave a simple answer:

“My country did not send me 5000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5000 miles to finish the race.”

His words inspired countless people.

Credit: Beijing2008

Recently, he appeared in Beijing as a goodwill ambassador in preparation for the Beijing 2008 summer games. During his visiting, Akhwari encouraged the students to be strong-minded, just like him.

Liu Xiang limping cross the finishing line would have showcased his mental strength and humanity’s strength of character…

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On Wednesday, I went to the Shanghai Visa Bureau in Pudong with Ron to extend his working Z-Visa & Resident Permit. In the past years, we never needed to go there in person to get an extension, but because of the new and tighter visa rules that you have probably read here, here, here and here, you now have to appear yourself for a computerized photo shooting.

We went there to apply for the visa extension by ourselves. Ron’s HR personnel was supposed to accompany him but she didn’t. Her reason: she did not want to spend the time waiting at the bureau and was afraid her superior would blame her for wasting company’s resources! But we thought that’s her job!?!?

In our car sleeping…

Ok, reached our destination!

Exit & Entry Administration Service center Public Security Bureau of Shanghai Municipality

It’s on the 3rd floor!

It’s queue number 302 when we reached, and ours is 337.

Camera in front of you.

Waited patiently at the waiting area, and everyone is looking at one direction…

YES! They are watching Olympic games…

Documents…

When it finally was our turn the procedure went “quite” fast. Ron’s HR had already filled out the forms and he had all required documents with him. The officer at the counter took a look at his documents and appeared surprised that he was applying for a 2 year visa. She also asked him to write an application form and acknowledge it.

We were a little surprised because Ron has been told by his HR that the documents he had should be the complete set. On top of that, he was supposed to draft the application form in chinese by himselves. We had no idea what to write and asked the officer.

She grumbled a bit and told us to copy the content in the application form the company had prepared. Now… here cames the most bizarre part. The only difference between the 2 application forms is that one is from the company (computer generated), and one is from us (handwritten). Both have the same content.

Ron drafted it, signed it and handed it to her together with his courier envelop. She took the forms, was satisfied… and folded it. Not just into half, but also diagonally and in all directions. She then insert the folded forms into the courier envelop, peel off the stickers, stick the receipt at the front…. and we can go now…

Photocopying, translating, faxing and courier service counter.

Name cards and advertisements distributing in a SHANGHAINESE WAY! You can find this scenario everywhere in Shanghai.

At the gate, there were quite a number of guys distributing small cards promoting air tickets. They are pretty active because lots of foreign expats come here to get their visa done. These guys can be very persistent and irritating. They shove the cards to you literally. They will place the cards in your bags, in your shopping carrier, throw it into cars with their windows winded down…. anywhere they can find. Before I knew it, they managed to slip 7 cards in my bag!

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Does Nokia E71 looks like a Blackberry Killer? This 2.36-inch, 320 x 240 QVGA display is only slightly smaller than the iPod Classic’s.

After much survey, I finally decided to purchase a smartphone, the Nokia E71. The reviews for this phone have been good and I really wanted to try out a Nokia product. I had used a Panasonic, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and a Motorola mobile before this. The later started to fall apart not too long after I bought it and it was time to replace it.

I was initially thinking about a Blackberry product or the iphone. The iphone’s touchscreen and functions looked out of this world while the Blackberry series have always being solid performers. However, in the end, I chose E71 because it had a really solid feel and professional look. Despite its obvious lack of an oversized touchscreen interface, the E71 had a metallic feel with chrome accents and a glossy screen. It can also protect sensitive corporate information with integrated security features such as device and memory card encryption, mobile VPN and more. Plus, it is one of the slimmest Nokia phone to date, at 10mm thick, and claims it’s the thinnest QWERTY smartphone on the market.

At 10mm thick, it’s the slimmest Nokia phone to date.

It has two separate customizable home screens. One is designed to house all of your work applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint while the other is geared more towards entertainment with programs for audio, video and gaming. Setting up the Nokia’s Mail for Exchange program required no IT help. QuickOffice lets you create, edit and send Word, Excel or PowerPoint files on the fly.

Battery life is basically a non-issue, with 20 days of standby and 10.5 hours of GSM talk, though the 4.5 hours of 3G talk might pose an issue.

Rear view of the phone - a magnet for fingerprints and smudges.

However, the metallic cover is a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. The key was pretty cramped and it took me some time to get used to it. This phone is really a business phone; hence it does not have stunning photo or music capabilities. For me the 3.2 megapixel camera was enough and the music playback was fine. I managed to use the phone to connect to our wireless network and surf the net, visiting my websites, checking my email, using Twitters and etc.

The unpacking.

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