Grin and bear the training

Athletes aren't the only ones in training for this year's Olympics. Beijing locals are getting smiling lessons to prepare them for their part in the Games pageant.

For 16-year-old Li Miaomiao, sore feet from wearing high heels for hours at a time and an achy jaw from constant smiling are worth the chance of hanging a medal around an athlete's neck come the Beijing Olympics.
The willow-thin high school student is one of 34 Chinese girls "training" to be an Olympic medal presenter at the Beijing Foreign Affairs School, one of several state-run colleges charged with producing camera-friendly girls for awards ceremonies.
When not balancing books on her head to improve posture during medal presentation rehearsal sessions, Li and her classmates study English, cultural training and look at pictures of past medal presenters and their uniforms. Most important for Li, though, is the smile.
"I practise at home, and smile to the mirror for an hour every day," Li said, beaming radiantly in a red waistcoat and high heels on the sidelines of a class.
"I want to present my smile to the world, and let them know that the Chinese smile is the warmest."
Beijing has earmarked about $40billion to put on its best face for the Games, with Olympic venues accounting for only a small percentage.
Along with big-ticket items such as subways and roads, Beijing has spent billions more on a beautification campaign that has seen whole neighbourhoods razed and thousands of residents displaced.
But even as the paint dries on Olympic venues completed months ahead of schedule, officials remain concerned that Beijingers' manners may spoil the party. The fears have triggered a massive public relations campaign to eradicate rougher Chinese habits such as spitting, and have mobilised hundreds of "civilisation" volunteers to teach people to queue when boarding buses and subway carriages.
"Building the software for the Olympics is much harder than building the hardware," said Beijing Foreign Affairs School director Li Zhiqi.
"Personal qualities and mentality are firmly ingrained and therefore hard to change."
Li says her school, which will also produce staff to wait on International Olympic Committee officials at their hotel, is doing its bit to mould well-mannered, natural communicators to deal with foreign guests. "This is a huge opportunity for them. The Olympics will put them in front of the world's audience and lead to a lifetime of fortune," Li said.
That is, if they make the grade. Not unlike the more than 800,000 Chinese who have applied for only 100,000 Olympic volunteer positions on offer, the competition to become one of the coveted 380-odd medal presenters is cutthroat.