Olympics: Dark Drum Tower Deaths
There has been a murder-suicide at the the "dark drum" tower in Beijing, on the first day after the opening of the 2008 Olympics.
A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide.
(The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.)
Drum Tower
The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ground for two hours before it was removed by an ambulance, witnesses said.
A Chinese tour guide, a woman, was also wounded in the attack, which happened at the historic Drum Tower monument, a popular tourist site, just after noon, around 12:20 pm (local time).
The attacker was identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old man from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, He jumped to his death from the second level of the Drum Tower, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government Information Office said. The official said both U.S. citizens had entered China with tourist visas.
A White House spokesman informed the media that President Bush, who is attending Olympic events Saturday, was told about the attack against the U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy and the White House have offered the victims' families whatever assistance is needed, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua and the international news agency, CNN.
The Drum Tower is in the historic heart of Beijing. Together with the Bell Tower, the sites were once used for banging of drums and bells to tell time. Now the Drum and Bell towers are tourist sites, with visitors able to stroll from them to the city's famed old lakes and other historic areas.
Police closed off the Drum Tower following the incident.
The Drum Tower is located northwest of the Bell Tower, across the Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Both of them are called the "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum." In ancient China, especially from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the drums were used to signal the running of time and on occasion were used as an alarm in emergency situations.
Dark, indeed.
In lexilinking, the name game, and the twilight language, one of the most significant monikers is Bell (e.g. Brotherhood of the Bell, Bell Witch, Art Bell, Nazi Bell, Confederate spy John Yates Beall hanged at Fort Lafayette).
"Words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy....I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H. P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants...." ~ Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan, 1983: 185.
A relative of the US men's volleyball coach has been killed, another family member seriously injured, and their Chinese guide also wounded, all in a knife attack in Beijing, the US Olympic Committee said. Those attacked included Todd Bachman, his wife Barbara, their daughter Elisabeth and a Chinese guide.
(The U.S. head volleyball coach is Hugh McCutcheon and his assistants are Ron Larsen and John Speraw, who is also the UC-Irvine head coach. They all live in Orange County, California. McCutcheon, a native of New Zealand, is married to former U.S. national team player Elisabeth Bachman.)
Drum Tower
The American man was killed and his American woman companion wounded, on Saturday, August 9, 2008, by a Chinese man who then leapt to his own death, falling approximately 130 feet. The body of the attacker, who was wearing a red shirt, lay on the ground for two hours before it was removed by an ambulance, witnesses said.
A Chinese tour guide, a woman, was also wounded in the attack, which happened at the historic Drum Tower monument, a popular tourist site, just after noon, around 12:20 pm (local time).
The attacker was identified as Tang Yongming, a 47-year-old man from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, He jumped to his death from the second level of the Drum Tower, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government Information Office said. The official said both U.S. citizens had entered China with tourist visas.
A White House spokesman informed the media that President Bush, who is attending Olympic events Saturday, was told about the attack against the U.S. citizens. The U.S. Embassy and the White House have offered the victims' families whatever assistance is needed, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua and the international news agency, CNN.
The Drum Tower is in the historic heart of Beijing. Together with the Bell Tower, the sites were once used for banging of drums and bells to tell time. Now the Drum and Bell towers are tourist sites, with visitors able to stroll from them to the city's famed old lakes and other historic areas.
Police closed off the Drum Tower following the incident.
The Drum Tower is located northwest of the Bell Tower, across the Bell Tower and Drum Tower Square. Both of them are called the "sister buildings" or "morning bell and dark drum." In ancient China, especially from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), the drums were used to signal the running of time and on occasion were used as an alarm in emergency situations.
Dark, indeed.
In lexilinking, the name game, and the twilight language, one of the most significant monikers is Bell (e.g. Brotherhood of the Bell, Bell Witch, Art Bell, Nazi Bell, Confederate spy John Yates Beall hanged at Fort Lafayette).
"Words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy....I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H. P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants...." ~ Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan, 1983: 185.
