08.08.08

Tomorrow the Beijing Summer Games kick off. I’m not as excited for the Games as I used to be when I was a kid. I remember sitting down to watch gymnastics and ice skating like it was my job when I was in elementary school. Of course, back then I watched TV, and back then everyone from Fremont had to represent for our own hometown hero, Kristi Yamaguchi. (We went to the same orthodontist. I have gold medal teeth.)

This year, I know Bai Ling is excited.

I am the winner……
And you are the winner……
For the Olympic 20080808……

But as for the rest of us… China is handling this whole F in Human Rights thing very poorly, because they just revoked speed skater Joey Cheek’s visa for the Games. He is a co-founder of Team Darfur. Says The Washington Post, “China is a major customer of the oil produced in the war-torn region of Sudan.” – Fucking oil, man! Brings out the worst in countries and the people who lead them. Add that to the whole China-Tibet issue, and China is essentially perceived as a very non-international site for the international event. China is not the first country to host the Olympics during such a politically angst-ridden time, but they are certainly the most controversial Games that this generation has ever seen.

Speaking from the perspective of an American born Chinese girl who supported her mother’s taichi demo at this year’s Olympic Torch Relay in SF – There’s a lot of anger boiling around all things China and Olympics-related. It’s unfortunate. When I went to the relay, I was by myself. I left work during lunch and was soon lost in a sea of human rights activists, pro-China supporters, pro-Olympics supporters, and your standard set of spectators. People were jostling side-by-side filling the air with heated words, just barely containing themselves from erupting in violence.

I remember one such exchange between a tall Caucasian man holding a human rights picket sign high in the air. He was nearly nose-to-nose with another Chinese man. The Caucasian asked “Why don’t you want dialogue?” in a condescendingly controlled-yet-hostile tone. The Chinese man forced out, with the effort of speaking articulately in his non-native tongue, “You need to go out of here. Just go out!”

When is a simmering riot the right place for “dialogue?” The two towered over me as red China flags cast an angry red light over everything within my viewing range. My heart palpitated.

It was awkward and hostile and thick. After a few minutes after the taichi demo, I simply had to leave. The taichi performers were being asked by news reporters, “Are you pro-China or pro-Tibet?” What else could they answer but “We’re just pro-Olympic spirit”? Holders of signs made pointed efforts to cover their opposition’s signs, sometimes encircling smaller groups, sometimes just yelling and drowning out whichever opposing side was being interviewed on camera.

Even at the martial arts fundraiser for China’s earthquake victims, a capoeira group chanted “Free Tibet!” at the end of their set. One Chinese woman behind me yelled something indiscernible in retort. But obviously the purpose of that charity event had not taken full precedence of China’s other humanity issues at the moment.

It makes me sick. I love social discourse and exchanges between opposing sides when it is in the pursuit of progress and compromise, but I cannot stomach the hostile confrontations. It truly makes me sick to the stomach.

On an aside, I am one of an unestimated 1% who thinks the Beijing Fuwa are really cute.

We can also expect some Canadian cutery when the 2010 Games bring us Miga, Quatchi, and Sumi. Something about having a sasquatch represent the strongest in humankind’s physical feats is hilarious to me. Mascots for the Games have had a longstanding inconsistent track record for being loved and being hated. Compared to Atlanta’s Izzy? So much better.

Tags: athletes, bai ling, beijing olympics, celebrities, china, darfur, fuwa, joey cheek, mascots, olympics, tibet