Bolt

For those of you that didn't see this live, this is was a truly wonderful moment, one I think actually encapsulates some of the greatness of sport. This one, obviously, is more impressive.
'What?' You say, 'he's celebrating like an idiot, he added time to his total because of this, and his showboating makes his competitors look like chumps. How does this reflect well on sports at all?'

I actually think his reaction came more out of surprise than anything else. I think, like the rest of us watching, when he saw just how far ahead he was (or couldn't see, couldn't see anyone near him when he glanced side to side,) he was in awe, and he just started doing what was natural, and what a lot of the rest of us were doing, which was jumping up and down and saying "holy crap did you just see that!! That was the finals, right? How the hell did that just happen?"

This is different from Leon Lett's showboating that lost the Cowboys a touchdown back when they played the Bills for the first time, because, while that is a rare occurance for Leon Lett to be sure, he didn't have it in the bag, in the first place (the ball was stripped from him and he didn't get to score a touchdown) and in the second place because the whole "game" (race) was over.

It's also really different from what women's (and possibly men's, but I've never seen a men's indoor volleyball game, I'm sure I will soon) volleyball players do after every single freaking point, like that one point is the most important thing in the world. They run around like rabbits, or five year olds, and they hug and slap each other like they've just won, well, something actually significant.

Bolt's (what a great name) run was significant, and he trounced the competition by so much that I don't think any of them could possibly be sore about it. They simply didn't have a chance. It's not like, when one team wins by an inch and then freaks out and rubs it in the loser's nose like they're a thousand times better. This guy actually was a thousand times better, AND THESE ARE THE FASTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! That's why I think what he did was incredible, and why the pictures of him floating above the track as he highsteps it at the end are absolutely beautiful, even if he was, just a little bit, saying, "wow, I'm the best thing in the world."

Haha, also, look at the number two guy (the one to Bolt's right.) I don't know if he's so excited because he just won the silver medal behind superman, which basically makes him the fastest human, or because he just saw what Bolt did. Probably the first, but it kind of looks like the second.

Have fun and run relaxed.

Taking it personally

Righteousness does not mean self-righteousness. A blog from the New York Times.

The article doesn't really concern me, it's the comments underneath. The vituperative nature of nearly every blog is troublesome. It's not just that people have the ability to carelessly insult others on the internet, it's that people reading these comments take them personally. A dialog is basically impossible on this "democratic" forum, because everyone just trenches in to their position, baffled and infuriated by how wrong every one else's view (but their own) is. They are all, more or less, saying the same things, over and over again, just directed at the opposite side.

Now, don't get me wrong, dialog is not always the most effective solution to a problem (like, for instance, the failure of dialog) nor is it always necessary, but arenas as this, where the worst of each country is displayed, just pushes us all further and further into nationalism, the type that could easily destroy the progress the world community has made as community since the end of World War II.

The most ridiculous thing is that basically everybody's point is stupid. I don't have the time or space (I guess I do have the space) to refute all of this, but basically, the Americans are all openly harping a country they still think of as being the U.S.S.R., and the Chinese people are all defending their country and pretending like nothing's wrong with it. Some Americans take the reverse position, of course, and are even more cynical than the Chinese, but this is even worse. There are points to be made on both sides, and nobody makes them at all, and when they're (rarely) made, people respond to other mistaken posts in a way that shows they often didn't understand the post in the first place!

The other thing that frustrates me is that everyone acts like blog comments are representative of the general population, and that each post were being written by the collected will of the american/chinese people.

Ha. I guess I'm guilty of that too.

Well, for those of us who are willing to listen and dialog but still rebuke, China has an authoritarian government. The United States has a lot of idiots.

Root, root root for the home team

I'm watching the U.S.A basketball team embarrass the Chinese. The Chinese have been competitive, especially in the first half, but it was mostly due to a string of three-pointers, a hot streak that didn't hold. The U.S. team has owned the area around the basket, I'd be surprised if more than half of their points haven't come of of dunks and lay-ups.

It's 87-52, this is getting ugly.

Chinese broadcasters seem much less reserved than Americans, and are obviously openly rooting for the Chinese team (which doesn't bother me a bit, I just find it funny) though they are not above complementing the U.S. on having good balls. (An amusing direct translation.)

All in all, looks good for the U.S., crisp and team-oriented play, which seems to be what they were missing four years ago according to everybody on the planet. There have also been some real pretty plays.

The medal count here is gold-focused, listing those teams first which have the most gold medals, not that have the most medals, period, which, of course, is not how we do it in the U.S., though I have no idea how they do it anywhere else. Obviously, this is to serve the interests of having "China" on the top of the board, since are likely to win the most gold medals this olympics, though they may still lose the overall count to the U.S. I wonder if this is the way they counted four years ago. Perhaps I'm just overly cynical.

Also, in the vein of yesterday's "ridiculously sentimental" part of the post, there was a montage of the Chinese men's soccer game, which they lost to Brussels, with a sappy song playing over it that started, "Don't cry, the one I love most." It really is like living in a soap opera here sometimes. Also, the Olympics graphic in the bottom corner of the screen reads, "Watching the Olympics Together."

One big happy family, this place.

Olympics Update 08/09- Olympics Reservations

There have been comparisons between this Olympics and the Munich Olympics of '36, centered on the idea that an oppressive and illegitimate government, the Chinese in this case, will be given the ignorant approval of the world's mood-setting class, much as Hitler's regime was legitimized by Munich, much of the world approving of the Nazi government.

There are similarities with this, but a few important differences as well. Primarily, the international media is much more unified than it was in the nineteen thirties, and so, though the split between the Chinese propaganda (media?) and the western media is great, there is still western media operating in, and reporting on, China, in an investigative capacity that was not the hallmark of 1930's journalism. In short, I do not think the Olympics will make the stories of Sudan or Tibet go away, though they may suffer a lack of attention afterwards. But that's a main and important difference. It is only an analogy, and the insinuated aftermath of the analogy, that there is going to be a major world conflict in the next three years, is hopefully not likely.

As for the similarities: it was an odd experience watching the opening ceremonies, and I actually would not have written this unless I had the experience I did, watching it alone at home, but then in a large, hip crowd at a club's party. The (mostly westerners) cheered for the western countries, boozily and obnoxiously (I was in something of a bad mood because sick) but for no team as much as America, and China, screaming (while the chinese servers looked on) Go China, Go China, in Chinese they had learned in the last week (中国加油，中国加油，for those of you keeping score.)

With the general western business enthusiasm for China (something I will write about later for sure,) and the sort of "wow, look how elegant everything is," middle-classed China tour, the west perhaps is already disposed to think of China's rise as perfectly benign. True to its entreaties for peace and harmony, the theme of the (rather fantastic if also characteristically totally overblown) opening ceremonies, China, I think, will not have the militaristic forays typical of a rising world-power (whether or not China is actually on its way to being a world power I will be discussing as well later in the week.)

But, watching the ceremony (If anyone caught the way the Chinese flag is unfurled as it is raised, that is basically emblematic of the whole tone of official China (official being much broader, of course, in an authoritarian government, than in the west): ridiculous dramatized sentimentality and self-importance again, this is a description of formality, not of the people or the culture at large) I couldn't help but feel terribly conflicted. This has become the realization of the dreams of a billion freaking people, and watching some of the Chinese women around when the torch was (finally) lit, it was clear that they were moved, some nearly to tears, while the general mood itself was one of surreality, an odd dream. Chinese people are people, and I am happy for them, and happy for them to see some respect accorded their country, but it kills me to see it placed wrong, both from the outside and within. I could not help, while watching the ceremony, but feel that a giant mistake was made placing the games here. This peace, and the harmony of the Chinese society, comes at the cost of terrible repression, though officially, of course you would never hear this acknowledged, and it's difficult to get an admission, as a foreigner, that this is the case, though, as you get to know somebody, they are less reluctant to speak their minds and defend their country, which they always feel is under assault from us westerners. As my Chinese is getting more and more fluent, I am hoping to engage some Chinese people (already friends) in a discussion about what the word "peace" could possibly mean if it covers the beating and repression of anybody willing to point out that things aren't exactly fair.

China is a wonderful country with interesting people that has a lot to share with the world, but what is currently being offered is a fantasy, one that westerners are all too likely to accept for one reason or another. It is wonderful, after all, to be a foreigner in China, but I am glad my home is somewhere else, because what is happening now in this country is not sustainable (I mean in the sense that running through central park every night in the mid-80's was unsustainable,) and the dream of this country, and the dreams of its people, may well turn nightmares, all the more likely because stoked by the paternalistic government, at the end of which, hopefully, they will wake up, but don't count on it, it hasn't happened before. Again, I will probably write more about this later. I don't mean to be too pessimistic. What virtually every westerner assumes is going to happen, that the country will slowly become more and more liberalized, is possible. Anything, after all, is possible.

But even this dream is still a cruel and unending joke for the one billion people that live here in abject poverty, and if it becomes a nightmare for the rest of the 300 or so million, it will make all of our sleep a little more restless, and this is what bothers me about westerners glibly assuming the ascension of Chinese liberalism. The Chinese can make whatever arguments they like about sovereignty (this whole peace and harmony thing is in a way a great big deal: we, the chinese say, will not attack anyone else, as long as we're free to use our army as we please inside our own borders) but if the country hits a rough patch, it could well either implode, or explode, and neither of those are going to be good for the rest of the world, interconnected as we are all becoming. Even if it doesn't, the fact that national actions (pollution, for instance) are no longer restricted to national borders means what happens in China, doesn't necessarily stay there.

Also, a side-note, the odd sentimentality that surrounds children in this country was alive and well during the ceremony, if you watched, something else that makes me sick, not just because it's so corny, but because these kids, for whom everything is done, will be forced into a mind-numbing system for the next twenty years of their lives (if they're lucky) and will never have the chance to express themselves as free human beings, the most of them, at the least.

All in all, though, I had a good night.

Keep your eyes skeptical.

UPDATE: a good little essay about this from an actual Chinese-American.

Erk. (Updated)

Well, this was unexpected.

Apparently a knife-wielding Chinese person killed an American at the Drum Tower (a tourist landmark near very touristy areas) and wounded one other, also wounding their Chinese tour guide. They were relatives of a U.S. Men's Volleyball coach, but had nothing identifying them as either Olympics visitors or Americans. This is rare in China, as the article points out, but I'm wondering if we won't see some more attacks like this as a sort of subconscious rage in the Chinese people finds an outlet. Still, I doubt it, but I'll certainly be cautious.

I hope we'll find out more about this, but, since it is China, I wouldn't be expecting anything.