Oh, sure, you may THINK that 2008 begins in just five months or so, but for 1/5th of the world (give or take), it all starts one year from now – as today Beijing’s Olympic Clock hits the magic 365 days number. Yee haw!
Many have said that these Olympics will be “China’s coming out party” … and that very well may be true. However, one wishes it was more a “hi dad, I’m gay” kind of party, rather than the flamboyantly homosexual father of four announcing it to his church kind of self-serving spectacle/debacle that it has become.
I mean, the Greeks.. they knew how to show a cool level of detachment to the whole thing. They half-ass completed building everything and then didn’t even show up for the events. But not China. No, no, no. Hell, Dalian, a city roughly 1,000km from Beijing, has had an “Olympic Square” dedicated to the event since it was announced China would host ’em.
The numero uno question on a lot of people’s minds has to be whether China “should” host the games … meaning, is the country a socially responsible enough member of the global community? A number of high-profile organizations tend to think “no”. ImageThief has a great post in response to the detaining of reporters (and protesters?) at yesterday’s protests near the BOCOG. He nicely sums up the PR field of land mines that China will have to navigate these next 365 days.
The best thing for Beijing to do under these circumstances would have been to err on the side of tolerance and allow the protest to proceed under supervision. Credit is earned slowly, painfully and in tiny increments while setbacks come in great, heaving leaps, and activists can win the PR battle by baiting the Chinese authorities into overreacting. Detaining journalists on the scene, under any circumstances, was asking for trouble. – ImageThief
Nothing could sum it up better than that line: “Credit is earned slowly, painfully and in tiny increments while setbacks come in great, heaving leaps”. Sadly, the engine of development in modern China has created an insatiable appetite for instant gratification. Mix that with a 2,500-year-old tradition of never admitting you’re wrong… and you’ve got a newspaper full of great headlines.
I’m sure the Games will go off with a whole lot of hitches. If there’s a single thing China’s proven it’s damn good at as a country, it’s powering through. Of course unforeseen things will take place, shit will get said, feelings will be hurt, and surely a few bad things will happen. This will get (justifiably) blown out of proportion in Western media, and (undoubtedly) down-played here in China.
But, in the end, everything will return to the status quo. Western news can continue vilifying China when there’s nothing else on, and China can go on pretending that the rest of the world “just doesn’t understand” and go back to searching out the next Happy Happy Joy Joy event for the population’s further befuddlement amusement.
The one other certainty is that September 2008 will go down in history as the month 1.3 billion people simultaneously experienced an anti-climax unlike anything ever before felt in the known universe.
Ryan,
Isn’t that a bit harsh? Sure to be anti-climatic? There’s a decent possibility China will win the Olympics… and whatever place they end up taking you know the rest of 2008 and much of 2009 will be filled with replays of whatever events were won.
New heroes in the making… for endless replays on Chinese TV.
Haha, it’s completely in reference to the fact that China is treating 2008 as the be-all solve-all for China. The day China emerged. Bah. I spent all morning listening to “We’re Ready!” spots on the radio… we get it, you’re ready… but your pronunciation is still crap 😉
I agree with you about the anti-climax. The hype is just too great. When it’s all over, the silence will be deafening.
One criticism about your PS’ed photo: I don’t think it works. That photo is a celebration of one man’s defiant stance against repression, not, as I think would be more suitable to your purpose, a condemnation of the repression itself.
Hey Chris, credit doesn’t belong to me for the photoshop’d photo – if you click on it, you’ll see the caption has a link to the Flickr account where I found it.
Though I agree on a wider-scale you’re right in what the Tank Man photo means to a lot of people, however, it is the most easily identifiable photo of the Tiananmen “incident” – which is surely why it was used to represent how China/Beijing has (or hasn’t) changed.
yeah, it’s all gonna kick off when all the nit-picky foreigners hit the PRC, peeking under the rug at all the dust that’s been swept there.
this week’s banner unfurling on the great wall (and other antics) were just a taster of the between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place difficulties coming for the government next year.
I think that China has 1.5 billion people now, because of family planning, so many children couldn’t get their identity card.
Athletes will win the Olympics, even so, the children will not have a presentable football field in the poor area.