Yet another Olympics post
I have been in two minds for much of the duration of the Olympics. On the one hand, I absolutely loved the Opening Ceremony - I thought it was brilliantly done, and Zhang Yimou richly deserves a lot of accolades. Speaking of Zhang Yimou, I started teaching a segment on Chinese film to my Chinese Culture students on Monday and I asked them if they knew who directed the Opening Ceremony. They said Zhang Yimou, and then I asked them what else he was famous for. They looked puzzled for a while until one piped up 'Um, Raise the Red Lantern...' I must admit I thought they'd say Hero or House of Flying Daggers et al. My favourite moment from the Opening Ceremony would have to be Li Ning's lighting of the flame - that was absolutely spectacular. I also loved the colours of the costumes in the Tang Dynasty segment. They reminded me straightaway of Curse of the Golden Flower (at this point the Channel 7 commentators said 'This reminds me of Zhang Yimou's films' and Commentator #2 said 'Like Raise the Red Lantern?' (amaliestar groans in background and thinks 'Honey, if you don't know what you're talking about you shouldn't say anything' - yes, I'm pedantic! For those who don't know Zhang's films - Raise the Red Lantern is set in 1920, not ancient China!).
Lin Miaoke was adorable - and was promptly dubbed 'the Chinese Nikki Webster' in Australia. I do think that the decision of the Chinese to use Yang Peiyi's voice but not let her appear on the night singing Ode to the Motherland was a bad blunder. From the pictures I've seen, Yang Peiyi was still a pretty girl - and her gap teeth made her even more endearing. :-) I feel sorry for both Lin and Yang to be caught up in something which they had no control over - especially Lin, since some people will probably blame her (most unfairly) for what happened. I can, on the other hand, see this from the Chinese perspective. They didn't want to lose face and they felt having a less than 100% physically perfect little girl appearing in the Opening Ceremony would make them look bad in the eyes of the world.
This brings me to a major beef I have with the Australian coverage of the Olympics. From the start they've seemed to be looking for things to criticize so they can drive home the message that (a) the Beijing Olympics are crap (b) The Chinese are a mob of lying, cheating scumbags. Instead the main message I'm getting is that yep, there have been dumb things that the Chinese have done. Bashing up a foreign journo for doing his job and allowing a Chinese referee to judge a Chinese sportsperson's performance are both terrible things, and the Chinese should be held accountable for these actions. However, they have pulled off an amazing Opening Ceremony, and things are generally working and happening as they should. The Australian press is really coming across like a bunch of racists idiots. I'm also horrified that almost no commentators are saying any Chinese names right - how hard could it have been for someone to have written out the phonetic spelling of things for them? The notable exception to this is the gymnastics coverage which I'm listening to at the moment - the commentators there have consistently said Yang Wei's name right.
I'm not trying to be an apologist for the Communist Party, because I think they've got a hell of a lot to answer for. As do BOCOG. But the total lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge on display by foreign journalists is darned embarrassing. The ones who are Beijing/China reporters are fine because they live there and actually have a fair idea what they're doing. But the fly-in, fly-out crowd are making a hash of everything. As usual the line from the media is that other nations (mainly the Chinese) are full of cheating athletes - but 'our' athletes are pure as the driven snow and couldn't even spell d-r-u-g-s if they tried. Tamsin Lewis' remark about 'knowing' when she's running that the people to the left and right of her will be cheating was charming - how would she feel if that was said about her? I'm sure lots of athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs - including 'our' athletes. I'm assuming that it's the rare athlete whose stomach isn't pumped full of goodness knows what drugs. Here in Australia we are so hypocritical about drugs in sport - as soon as 'our' athletes are accussed of being drug-takers, the accuser is the worst in the world, but it's nothing less than the absolute truth if our media reports on foreign athletes being drug takers.
Watching the footage of the British journalist who was arrested by the Beijing police for reporting on the Tibet protest, I was as appalled as anyone else. That shouldn't have happened. The existence of the 72 hour law - when someone can be detained for 72 hours in Chinese police custody before their embassy is informed - is also very frightening. The Chinese are stuffing up - but they're trying (I mean that in all senses of the word!!).
Lin Miaoke was adorable - and was promptly dubbed 'the Chinese Nikki Webster' in Australia. I do think that the decision of the Chinese to use Yang Peiyi's voice but not let her appear on the night singing Ode to the Motherland was a bad blunder. From the pictures I've seen, Yang Peiyi was still a pretty girl - and her gap teeth made her even more endearing. :-) I feel sorry for both Lin and Yang to be caught up in something which they had no control over - especially Lin, since some people will probably blame her (most unfairly) for what happened. I can, on the other hand, see this from the Chinese perspective. They didn't want to lose face and they felt having a less than 100% physically perfect little girl appearing in the Opening Ceremony would make them look bad in the eyes of the world.
This brings me to a major beef I have with the Australian coverage of the Olympics. From the start they've seemed to be looking for things to criticize so they can drive home the message that (a) the Beijing Olympics are crap (b) The Chinese are a mob of lying, cheating scumbags. Instead the main message I'm getting is that yep, there have been dumb things that the Chinese have done. Bashing up a foreign journo for doing his job and allowing a Chinese referee to judge a Chinese sportsperson's performance are both terrible things, and the Chinese should be held accountable for these actions. However, they have pulled off an amazing Opening Ceremony, and things are generally working and happening as they should. The Australian press is really coming across like a bunch of racists idiots. I'm also horrified that almost no commentators are saying any Chinese names right - how hard could it have been for someone to have written out the phonetic spelling of things for them? The notable exception to this is the gymnastics coverage which I'm listening to at the moment - the commentators there have consistently said Yang Wei's name right.
I'm not trying to be an apologist for the Communist Party, because I think they've got a hell of a lot to answer for. As do BOCOG. But the total lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge on display by foreign journalists is darned embarrassing. The ones who are Beijing/China reporters are fine because they live there and actually have a fair idea what they're doing. But the fly-in, fly-out crowd are making a hash of everything. As usual the line from the media is that other nations (mainly the Chinese) are full of cheating athletes - but 'our' athletes are pure as the driven snow and couldn't even spell d-r-u-g-s if they tried. Tamsin Lewis' remark about 'knowing' when she's running that the people to the left and right of her will be cheating was charming - how would she feel if that was said about her? I'm sure lots of athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs - including 'our' athletes. I'm assuming that it's the rare athlete whose stomach isn't pumped full of goodness knows what drugs. Here in Australia we are so hypocritical about drugs in sport - as soon as 'our' athletes are accussed of being drug-takers, the accuser is the worst in the world, but it's nothing less than the absolute truth if our media reports on foreign athletes being drug takers.
Watching the footage of the British journalist who was arrested by the Beijing police for reporting on the Tibet protest, I was as appalled as anyone else. That shouldn't have happened. The existence of the 72 hour law - when someone can be detained for 72 hours in Chinese police custody before their embassy is informed - is also very frightening. The Chinese are stuffing up - but they're trying (I mean that in all senses of the word!!).