Make no mistake, China is taking the 2008 Olympic Games seriously. The Beijing organizing committee has already cracked down on spitting, smoking in public, the homeless, and much more. Now, it looks like the committee would like Beijing residents to have an overall attitude adjustment.

With most venues for the 2008 Summer Olympics near completion, organisers said Beijingers still had to work on improving their behaviour in order to hold a successful Games, state press said Monday.

"The Olympic Games is not simply a matter of competitive sports -- it is also a question of raising the quality of the people," the China Youth Daily quoted Zhang Faqiang, vice head of the Beijing Olympic organising committee as saying.

"You cannot deny it -- the difficult area in staging a civilised Olympics rests in the quality of the people," Zhang said.

"We are still a ways off from meeting the demands for a real civilised Olympic Games, so we will continue to do important work on this."

Zhang said China had only recently overcome basic issues like food shortages, and many people across the nation were only beginning to consider how to live healthier lives and be more civilised.

"We want to use the Olympics to get into the hearts of the people and get them to develop a new lifestyle," Zhang said, while noting that "hardware" infrastructure projects were on schedule, with many venues holding test events.
Source