Not in Alphabetical Order-A New Practice at Beijing Olympics
7Aug2008 Filed under: news, observing Author: Jenny Zhu 
How to promote the Chinese language? By setting up a cultural corner in the Olympic village where volunteers teach athletes 你好 or making delegations enter the stadium not in alphabetical order, but according to the order of the simplified Chinese characters. The organisers announced this yesterday. I’m not exactly sure what it means. But I assume it refers to the number of strokes in a character and delegatios will enter in ascending order. So the first country to grace the Bird’s Nest should be 日本. Who is the last besides China? On this topic, I really like the logo of the Beijing games. It resembles a person in running motion but also the character 京.
For a complete list of countries in both alphabetical and simplified Chinese character oder (and much more), check the ChinesePod Olympics site.
9 Responses to “Not in Alphabetical Order-A New Practice at Beijing Olympics”
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About this blog
Hi, I am Jenny Zhu from ChinesePod.com. I bring you a slice of the Chinese language and culture in the daily podcast. But there is so much more than what a podcast has time for, so jennyzhu.com is a space of observation and reflection on the big, small and everything in between about China.
Brendan
August 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I’d thought that the logo was supposed to be derived from the seal script (篆文) form of 京 — you can see some examples of historical forms of the character here.
Jenny Zhu
August 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Brendan,
You are exactly right. The biggest blooper in Olympic history on my part.
Are you going to any events? I so envy those in Beijing.
Joanna
August 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I know australia is very close to last which has been quite an unpopular decision especially with TV broadcasters because the time zone difference means the australian team won’t come out until at least after midnight eastern australian time.
art
August 7th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
That is fascinating. I googled and found this entry in Wikipedia:
“Between the national team of Greece, who traditionally enter first, and the host country, in this case the People’s Republic of China, who traditionally march last, the other national teams will enter not in alphabetical order, but by stroke count with the Simplified Chinese characters.[4] For example, this will place Australia (澳大利亚) in 203rd position, just ahead of Zambia (赞比亚) because the character 澳 is written in 15 strokes and 赞 is in 16 strokes,[5] while Italy will enter as 191st nation.[6] Stroke count order is a traditional method to order names and other things.”
I am wearing my official 京-logo t-shirt this Friday. I bought it in Xiamen 2 years ago and kept it in good condition for this next two weeks!
Brendan
August 7th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I wish! I’ll be working with some reporters here, and I might manage to get tickets to an event from a friend, but right now I don’t have anything planned. I’ve never been a huge fan of sports, but the atmosphere here is pretty exciting. I spent part of this evening walking around Tian’anmen Square and eavesdropping on people, and the excitement really is contagious.
Jenny Zhu
August 8th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Joanna,
Yes, it’s quite a turn arounf for Australia. You are normally among the first to enter the stadium. But as Art has thoughtfully pointed out, with 15 strokes in 澳. Time zones can be really annoying. But TGIF!
Brenda,
Up to this week, I think Shanghai has remained quite calm. But it’s finally gone viral now. The feeling is peculiar: intense excitement and pride mixed with still some disbelief. Too good to be true.
art
August 8th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Here’s something to think about, if the stroke-count is based on traditional characters, then the order of the country-delegations entering the stadium would be different. Perhaps the Beijing planners should do this for the closing ceremonies, that would give the world an understanding of the difference between the simplified and traditional characters.
John B
August 8th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I’m surprised they’re not doing dictionary-style radical + stroke count order. How are they breaking ties?
Brendan
August 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
@JohnB: I think they should totally do it by 四角号码. Because I taught myself the Four Corners system once and have had no use for it ever since I lost my trusty old c. 1970s Xinhua character dictionary. A shame, because it’s an awesome, awesome system.