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Our Man in China

NOW's Michael Hollett cuts through the smog and hype with on-the-scene reports from China's Olympics. Reports online and in print throughout the Games. Follow the journey.

NOW Magazine. Covering culture where it happens.
China 2008

Beijing’s night market
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 22, 2008 at 11:58 AM

Insects, kidneys, snakes and more from Beijing's nighttime food hawkers.

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Shanghai sights and sounds
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 21, 2008 at 12:04 AM

While the world's gaze is directed at the currently spotless Beijing, China's other major city remains gritty, chaotic and fun.

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Shanghai teems with raw energy while Beijing sinks under Olympics­ sanitization.
Michael Hollett
News Feature

Fired up on Shanghai sizzle
By Michael Hollett Posted on NOW | August 19-26, 2008 | VOL 27 NO 51

Beijing – Based on pre-Olympics reports in the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, CNN and more, I wouldn’t have been completely surprised to see children smoking in Beijing restaurants, red-arm-band-wearing grandmothers turning their grandkids over to the secret police, and green-uniformed People’s Liberation Army soldiers ripping the cameras off my tired shoulders.

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China 2008

Davids, Goliaths, and duds
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 15, 2008 at 12:13 AM

At the same time as Russian armed forces were pounding Georgian troops into submission in South Ossetia, bikini-clad warriors of a different kind are battling it out on a fake beach in gigantic Chaoyang Park in east Beijing with a very different result. 

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China 2008

Olympic gallery
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 15, 2008 at 12:03 AM

 The world's best athletes in motion. 

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China 2008

An Olympic halftime show
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 12, 2008 at 11:41 AM

Balloon-like mascots and hip-hop cheerleaders entertain Olympic spectators during a women's basketball game. 

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Photo By Michael Hollett
News Feature

A burning need to talk
By Michael Hollett Posted on NOW | August 12-19, 2008 | VOL 27 NO 50

Beijing – The idea of the blood-soaked hands of the Chinese ruling class somehow befouling the principles of the Olympic movement is as silly as the barely clad dance pack girls who run out onto the basketball courts while athletes grab water for relief from Beijing’s sweltering heat.

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China 2008

Graffiti Beijing
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 11, 2008 at 12:11 AM

The 798 art zone in north east Beijing is this city's version of King/Queen West.

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Outside the Bird’s Nest
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 9, 2008 at 12:29 AM

A late night tour of Beijing's Olympic stadium.

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China 2008

Viewing China’s boom
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 8, 2008 at 12:26 AM

A fellow passenger on the relatively small cruise ship, the Victoria Katrina, insists he saw a dead body floating among the filth in China’s legendary Yangtze River as we wind along this rapidly rising waterway that fuels the gigantic Three Gorges Dam.

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China 2008

Up the Yangtze
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 7, 2008 at 12:44 AM

Follow NOW Olympic correspondent Michael Hollett with this picture gallery of his journey up the Yangtze River to Beijing. 

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Chinese propaganda in a market in Fengshou, a village that has been submerged and rebuilt across the Yangztee river as part of the Three Gorges Dam project.
China 2008

Cutting across the Red sky
By Michael Hollett Posted on Aug 6, 2008 at 12:12 AM

As I head from my plane into Shanghai’s gleaming new airport terminal, amazingly built in one year, instead of being greeted by machine gun totting soldiers and intimidating stares I encounter the schmaltzy strains of muzak Moon River playing over the sound system and a sprinkling of unarmed military.

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