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Good manners needed for Games 2008
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-21 10:58
The success of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games rests as much on showing good
manners as on the quality of facilities and athletic performances, China's
senior delegate to the International Olympic Committee said.
"It's the
rude bus passenger or a witness to an accident who fails to lend a hand that
stands in our way of staging an impressive Olympiad," He Zhenliang said on
Monday in Shanghai.
"People are talking about showcasing our culture and
the country's economic power through the extravaganza, but I think good manners
should be put at the top of our agenda," He was quoted as saying by the Shanghai
Daily newspaper on Tuesday.
Beijing residents' brusque, sometimes crude,
manners are frequently noted by visitors, and the city hopes to counter such
impressions with a courtesy campaign aimed at discouraging widespread spitting,
jaywalking and line-jumping.
China has invested enormous national
prestige in holding a successful Games, with many Chinese seeing in that a
validation of their nation's rapid rise to global influence and acceptance.
Along with improving public manners, He, the honorary president of the
Chinese Olympic Committee, said holding the Games could help China raise its
generally low level of popular participation in sports, especially in schools.
"The Olympiad can't provide a solution for all these problems once and
for all, but at least it gives us an opportunity," he
said.
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