Universiade one year countdown - Shenzhen Universiade

Universiade one year countdown

Yesterday, Thursday the 12th of August 2010, marked the one-year countdown towards the Universiade of 2011 in Shenzhen , though the games actually will start the 8th of August 2011. The celebrations were attended by about 30.000 people including overseas students, consuls and athletes. I also found out that tickets will probably go on sale early next year. The organizers have also launched a totally renewed English website for the Universiade with new information and a better design. Glad to see some developments here as well!

Universiade logo with fireworks

As part of the Universiade preparations, Shenzhen has also organized a campaign to promote English. The newest campaign is called “Shenzhen Speaks Foreign Languages” and the mayor noted that a good English-speaking environment would promote Shenzhen as a world city. Taxi drivers, bus drivers, hotel and restaurant staff, tour guides and police all receive training to improve their English. This is definitely necessary, because contrary to Hong Kong, most people do not speak English in Shenzhen. Even when you speak Chinese (but with a heavy foreign accent), they will not be able to understand you.

During the past weeks I have tried to contact the organizers of the Universiade via email addresses on the official Universiade website . I wanted to ask when the tickets go on sale. Unfortunately you cannot reach the organizers by email, because apparently they don't use it at all. I received an error that all the email-boxes were "over the limit", which means it's never emptied. Anyway, I also contacted Shenzhen Daily and they were very helpful. No date for the ticket-sale has been announced, but it's most likely early next year and then the newspaper will also announce it.

I noticed today that the Universiade website has undergone a total overhaul and now shows a countdown as well. This was definitely needed, because the old website was very outdated (most news dated from 2007 on the English site). The new version looks much better and I hope the organizers can keep updating it, because I look forward to the games. Perhaps this will solve the email problems as well, I guess I have to just try again soon :)

Photos by Shenzhen Daily and Shenzhen News :