Olympic Torch Protests, originally uploaded by 88ZERO.

Last week I went and photographed the Olympic Torch protests in the city. It was a very surreal scene- a huge pro-Chinese presence that tried to confront and contain pro-Tibetan protesters. Many of the pro-Chinese protesters had been bussed in from outlying areas by the Chinese embassy; and the basic idea was to try and dilute or mask the Tibetan protesters. One tactic I noticed was the flanking of flags- a Tibetan flag would go up and soon two Chinese flags would be brought near it and would sandwich it so that it would be far less visible. As a result, most of the Tibetan protesters remained on the move, trying to maximize their impact. The pro-Chinese supporters also tried to neutralize the Tibet supporters in the auditory sense as well, carrying bullhorns and using them next to pro-Tibet protesters using bullhorns. The result was simply noise- this epitomized most of what I saw- just a lot of screaming at one another; often it would begin in a relatively civilized debate-like manner but in less than a minute would devolve into name-calling, pointing, and fury. Surprisingly with all the intentionally antagonizing (chanting “One dolla, one dolla” behind a group of Chinese supporters, or “Dalai Liar” next to Tibetan supporters) I never observed any violence; it always seemed to push as close to the edge as possible, but strangely never seemed in threat of going too far. Like most people there, I didn’t see the torch since they whisked it off to a random street to run along for a couple of bus before it hit the bus and went to the airport, but also I think like most people there, I didn’t really care- this was more about the protests than the torch.