"Mister, you is asking me for secrets, yes?". The lady at the reception of the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) looks a little bit in shock. I'm surprised and laugh. I've just entered this media compound with my Indonesian colleagues of Trans TV to make a story about the media circus around the Olympic Games. For this matter I wanted to know how many journalists are working in the IBC, how many broadcasters are there, etc. Before, at the Olympics in Athens and Torino they had factsheets available, because many journalists wanted to know. So nothing secretive, I was just curious.

I have to say this incident is exceptional. The Chinese are very cooperative, open and professional in the way they trea t jouralists. Ok, we know the media in China works in a totally different way then we are used to, some internet-sites we're blocked in the week before the opening ceremony, the rules are a bit more strict, but we can do our thing, so far. The exceptions are sometimes mostly akwardly funny..

Like the day we've asked our hotel manager for a tv. You know, we're journalists, working in an office in our hotel and would like to stay updated as much as possible. So seeing the news, or some sport footage now and then would be nice. The manager was disturbed and slightly annoyed by our request. She told us it was just not possible. Only five minutes later the phone rang. It was our contact at the BIMC (yet another media center) , she's responsible of all the arrangements between us and the hotel and other suppliers. "The hotel thinks you're setting up an illegal broadcast station", she told us. She believed us we just wanted to watch some tv, but still...

We're still trying to find out, how it's possible to set up a broadcast from our office with just a tv and a tv-cable.. Anyone, any suggestions?

winfried