Deep beneath the capital's streets and through the gloom, the muffled sounds made by one per cent of Beijing's huge underground Olympic workforce is distinct.
Women in hard hats call out instructions as they uncoil a thick cable and thread it along a widened stretched of the near-finished Line Five, one of the new underground metro tracks being builtfor the 2008 Games.
'The really dangerous and heavy work is over, so there are more women on the site now,' says Kong Baode, the managing director of the Tiantan East Gate Station construction site.
Kong can be forgiven for his throwaway sexist remark. Women construction workers wielding pickaxes and jackhammers are two-a-penny above ground. That there are only 600 females among the 60,000 subterranean navvies tunneling away is probably for safety reasons.
Besides, there are more pressing concerns, such as getting the track open on time and alleviating Beijing's horrendous and worsening traffic and pollution than fretting over PCism 25 metres below ground.
'We are due to open in July next year, and we'll have a big ceremony. We hope Liu Qi [head of Bocog and Beijing's mayor] will open the line,' adds Kong, who has overseen the building of the Tiantan station and about 2km of Line Five's track.