Beijing 2008, or: who else isn't watching?

[Adrian II]

So who else isn't watching this stupendous display of trivia and hysteria? You aan I are probably the only ones and we may not even agree on the reason why we don't watch.

I don't watch because the games are kitsch. They represent power politics, big money and chauvinism and have nothing to do with sports, certainly not amateur sports, although they profess to be about nothing but the latter.

Feng Jianzhong, deputy chief of the Chinese Sports Affairs Bureau, has stated that the last candidate to bear the Olympic torch would 'represent the image of China, can communicate with the world and can show the Olympic spirit.' Well, Mr Li Ning, of Li Ning Sportswear Ltd, certainly did. His company made a handsome profit on the Hong Kong stock exchange this week. And not only the fireworks were fake, so was the singing of the Chinese hymn. No doubt most sports victories are fake, too, although you never know which one until the drugs tests are in, the corrupt judges are smoked out (which they never are) and the real women are separated from the steroid hybrids.

Call me oldfashioned, but to me it's simply distasteful to see all those vain, empty-headed sports figures assembling in one of the world's worst dictatorships and doing their inane little routines with balls and spears and stuff, and all the world is watching it on tv and going 'aaah', oblivious of the millions of slaves in China's camp system, some of whom live not far from Beijing since they had to help build some of the facilities.

Bah. At least the Roman circuses were the real deal, they weren't effeminate celebrations of commercialism that destroyed the manly spirit of the observers; they inspired them to face wounds and death scornfully, to celebrate the glory and victory even of criminals and slaves as long as they demonstrated aptitude, courage and persistence.

But wait, the Chinese have Christians, don't they? Why don't they throw some of them to the pandas lions? They kill them in prisons, underground cellars and work camps, so why not in public?

[Lemur]

I have a wife. Women love them some Olympics. So no, I can't ignore the corrupt little show entirely. But I'm doing my best.

It's nothing against China on my part, however. I always try to ignore the Olympics. Sports are meant to be played, not watched on the freaking couch.

[InsaneApache]

I've managed to miss all the events so far, even the opening ceremony, so consider it a job well done. Now and again I hear summat on't radio about whining syncro divers but that's about all....

Who's winning?

As if I care

[Louis VI the Fat]

The Olympics? I'm enthralled!

I can't wait until we smash the Yanks at the men's 4 x 100 relay swimming final.


look it up.

[Ice]

The Olympics? I'm enthralled!

I can't wait until we smash the Yanks at the men's 4 x 100 relay swimming final.


look it up.

That was the one where the 1-5th place teams all broke the records, right?

Oh yeah, tell your countrymen not to brag until it's a sure thing

I've been watching a lot of the Olympics. It's good entertainment to see quality athletes.

[Xiahou]

I've managed to miss all the events so far, even the opening ceremony, so consider it a job well done.

Ditto.

[Adrian II]

There are more of us than I thought.

Mind if I join you guys around that campfire? Let me tell you the story about Adrian's rowing days at university. It only cost me time and money, buckets of em, I had to puke at the end of practically all our daily training hours and I never won anything. And I had a great time!

[drone]

Haven't watched any of it. Even before I got cynical about the commercialized aspects of the Games, the Summer Olympics never really appealed to me anyway. The Winter Games are more fun to watch, but I don't really care too much about them these days either.

For grins though, a 2008 Summer Games Humor Item.

[Adrian II]

For grins though, a 2008 Summer Games Humor Item.

IRQL-not-less-or-equal! I know that screen!

(your grins)

EDIT
According to that article even the Chinese know that Vista is crap.

[Viking]

Well the olympics shows China from its best sides

The cute little girl whose sweet-voiced rendition of one of China’s favourite revolutionary anthems started off the Olympic opening ceremony performance may not have been all that she seemed. Little Lin Miaoke, it has been revealed, was only lip-synching.

Officials have now admitted that the voice that rang out through the vast Bird’s Nest stadium was really that of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, who may have had the voice of an angel but whose crooked teeth made her unsuitable for the opening ceremony's top spot.

[...]

Chen Qigang, music director for the ceremony said in an online article: “Little Yang Peiyi’s failure to be selected was mainly because of her appearance, because we were concerned with the interests of the nation.”

Communism and equality at its best, surely.

[Spino]

I think I've caught about 15-20 minutes of the Olympics since it started.

While I also despise the diva/celebrity aura surrounding modern athletes (and their awful egos and attitudes) I am quite comfortable with the presence of displaced/projected nationalism in the games. Politics and nationalism has always been part of the Olympics since the day the games were first held way back when.

I lost interest in the Olympics when I hit my late teens. My apathy increased when they opened the Olympics up to professional athletes who were living off fat team contracts and piles of cash from commercial sponsors. There was something special about watching amateurs busting their hump to train, perform and compete at world class levels. Also, there was an added level of excitement due in no small part to the whole 'Cold War/East vs. West' thing. My most recent beef with the Olympics is the insistence on incorporating every silly sport under the sun into the games.

[Warmaster Horus]

I don't watch 'em. I find it boring, and with some afterthought to be exactly what you described them as: power politics, etc.

Also because practically all the "competitors" have steroids pumped in them, probably.

[JR-]

i don't have a TV to start with, but i haven't followed the olympics via any means at all.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So who else isn't watching this stupendous display of trivia and hysteria? You aan I are probably the only ones and we may not even agree on the reason why we don't watch.

I don't watch because the games are kitsch. They represent power politics, big money and chauvinism and have nothing to do with sports, certainly not amateur sports, although they profess to be about nothing but the latter.

Your inability to separate politics from the rest is your own problem. If seeing the face of a first time olympic medal winner doesn't bring a smile to your face then I don't know what to say to you.

Feng Jianzhong, deputy chief of the Chinese Sports Affairs Bureau, has stated that the last candidate to bear the Olympic torch would 'represent the image of China, can communicate with the world and can show the Olympic spirit.' Well, Mr Li Ning, of Li Ning Sportswear Ltd, certainly did. His company made a handsome profit on the Hong Kong stock exchange this week.

Li Ning is a famous chinese gymnast with six olympic medals including three gold.

Call me oldfashioned, but to me it's simply distasteful to see all those vain, empty-headed sports figures assembling in one of the world's worst dictatorships and doing their inane little routines with balls and spears and stuff, and all the world is watching it on tv and going 'aaah', oblivious of the millions of slaves in China's camp system, some of whom live not far from Beijing since they had to help build some of the facilities.

Your starting to smell a bit of intellectual snobbery here adrian...

Bah. At least the Roman circuses were the real deal, they weren't effeminate celebrations of commercialism that destroyed the manly spirit of the observers; they inspired them to face wounds and death scornfully, to celebrate the glory and victory even of criminals and slaves as long as they demonstrated aptitude, courage and persistence.

I don't suppose the people watching them and going "aaah" were oblivious of the conditions lived in were they?






I really enjoy the olympics myself. My only beef with the coverage so far has been their insistence on showing so many swimming heats and semifinals. The are a bunch of boring sports in the olympics but fortunately they don't show most of them (with the exception of beach volleyball). The olympics is all about swimming, track and field, and gymnastics.

[Adrian II]

Your inability to separate politics from the rest is your own problem.

The Chinese don't make the distinction. Failing to spot that is deeply naive.

Li Ning is a famous Chinese gymnast with six olympic medals including three gold.

Li Ning is a trained rabbit, the product of a totalitarian state that used all legal and illegal means in its arsenal to raise, train and promote him. And because he plays his role of loyal supporter of the regime to the hilt, he was allowed to start his business venture and prosper. If not, he would have been in prison. Li Ning is an experiment in human engineering, he has nothing to do with sports. And if you had read the piece by Bao Tong which I linked, you would have an idea of the tremendous costs to society of such experiments.

And yes, I have seen winners smile. I saw a Chinese female gymnast smile after she won; she still had baby teeth because she is far younger than the required age of 16.

You're watching a freak show, my friend. You may prefer to remain deaf and blind to unpatalable truths, that is your right. Just don't accuse others of snobbery because they refuse to buy into it.

[discovery1]

And yes, I have seen winners smile. I saw a Chinese female gymnast smile after she won; she still had baby teeth because she is far younger than the required age of 16.

So the Chinese team really is 12 and not just looking it?! Damn.

You know, I once thought that if I were the best in my field it wouldn't matter, for me anyway, where I worked. I don't think that's true anymore.

[Adrian II]

So the Chinese team really is 12 and not just looking it?! Damn.

You know, I once thought that if I were the best in my field it wouldn't matter, for me anyway, where I worked. I don't think that's true anymore.

The Chinese Gymastics Federation listed their true ages previously on a website, but now their papers have been changed and the Olympic Committee has hushed it up. Things like that happen all the time, and all nations do it if they can. It's sickening. Most of the winners in gymnastics were never allowed to be their own age if you catch my drift. But the totalitarian states ar far worse in every respect. Just look into the info coming from former East Block states about their former athletic and gymnastics programs. Trained rabbits, my man.

[PanzerJaeger]

Your starting to smell a bit of intellectual snobbery here adrian...

Ya, he better stay out of there. You know how the Chinese treat intellectuals.... and journalists.

[TevashSzat]

This is a question to all who happen to apparently hate China's government:

Have you ever lived in China for a long period of time? Have you ever interacted with Chinese natives who aren't in the minority? Have you guys made any attempt to understand Chinese culture and thinking?

From what I can tell so far, most who has lived in China for a significant amount of time, whether a native or a foreigner, acknowledges the Chinese government's problems, but realizes that it is improving the people's lives.

Also, China's power in this world for the time being is here to stay. I bet most people here (don't know about you guys over in Europe) can find dozens of items in their house that are made in China. Whether you hate China's government or not, without China, the world's economy will go kaput

[Adrian II]

From what I can tell so far, most who has lived in China for a significant amount of time, whether a native or a foreigner, acknowledges the Chinese government's problems, but realizes that it is improving the people's lives.

Except the lives of religious people, ethnic minorities, political dissidents, and the millions who were more or less randomly whisked off to Laogai, the world's largest covert network of forced labor camps. Like Bao Tong said': 'In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone.'

I feel that much of China's recent economic progress is the result of the energy and initiative of ordinary Chinese, enabled because the government is finally off their back in some areas of the economy.

[TevashSzat]

Except the lives of religious people, ethnic minorities, political dissidents, and the millions who were more or less randomly whisked off to Laogai, the world's largest covert network of forced labor camps. Like Bao Tong said': 'In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone.'

I feel that much of China's recent economic progress is the result of the energy and initiative of ordinary Chinese, enabled because the government is finally off their back in some areas of the economy.

Okay, that is true, I don't deny it.

Name a civilization that has lasted for any significant amount of time who hasn't done most of these things at once in their history. I have studied US History for quite alot and I can quickly come up a very very long list of things that have rivaled the atrocities of the Chinese Government (Indians and smallpox come to mind here). Imperialistic Europe caused countless hardships in the lives of billions. In fact, the rise of the Communist party is in part due to the European undermining of the nationalist democratic government that caused it to be viewed weak in the minds of the whole country.

In fact, its not just China's economic growth, but the whole world's. So many companies rely on China's cheap labor and sweatshops that the whole world is dependent on China as much as China is dependent on everyone else is.

[Louis VI the Fat]

This is a question to all who happen to apparently hate China's government:

Have you ever lived in China for a long period of time? Have you ever interacted with Chinese natives who aren't in the minority? Have you guys made any attempt to understand Chinese culture and thinking?

Chinese culture is difficult to comprehend from the outside. It is inward looking, and Chinese, individually or collectively, have a tendency to close like an oyster at any criticism.
Having said that, the world is quite accustomed to Chinese. There are Chinatowns everywhere, their kids go to school with everybody else. And there are Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong. More open, more free Chinese offshoot countries.

All you have to do with Chinese is stop treating them like pack mules and they prosper. There's no 'need' for China to be authoritarian. Nor is the improvement of the quality of life an excuse. Nor is the very tiresome 'but you did it too' a proper argument for those over the age of six.


It is precisely because China is here to stay, because it is inevitable that China will assume it's place as the world's biggest superpower, that Chinese authoritarianism feels at once misplaced, outdated and, indeed, threatening. The current China mixes the indignified retoric of a state that feels wronged by history and unacknowledged by the outside world, with the arrogance of a superpower.


On a personal note, my hairdresser of course is Asian. A few gays from Hong Kong and mainland China. Why? A) Never have your hair cut by heterosexuals. And b) hipness flows from East to West. Tokyo - London - New York - Los Angeles. From these capitals hipness flows to the continental masses of Asia, the European continent and the US. Once something has reached LA you do not want to be associated with it even when dead.
Why is that relevant? Because they are the face of China to me. How some geriatrics, power hungry Chinese officials and those horrid IOC members think that mass spectacles like these Olympics impress anyone or project 'power and progress' is beyond me. Maybe it did in Bucarest in 1978. In Pyongyang too. But not in the globalised world of 2008.

[DemonArchangel]

Louis: About the opening ceremony, I somehow doubt it was about "power" and "progress" and more about Zhang Yimou's own arrogance and showmanship demanding that he do something massive (ever see the movie Hero?). Couple that with a near unlimited budget, and you have the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games. I had the honor of watching Zhang Yimou's rendition of Turandot in Germany a few years back, and it was massive and awesome, just like a miniature version of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So who else isn't watching this stupendous display of trivia and hysteria? You aan I are probably the only ones and we may not even agree on the reason why we don't watch.

I don't watch because the games are kitsch. They represent power politics, big money and chauvinism and have nothing to do with sports, certainly not amateur sports, although they profess to be about nothing but the latter.

Feng Jianzhong, deputy chief of the Chinese Sports Affairs Bureau, has stated that the last candidate to bear the Olympic torch would 'represent the image of China, can communicate with the world and can show the Olympic spirit.' Well, Mr Li Ning, of Li Ning Sportswear Ltd, certainly did. His company made a handsome profit on the Hong Kong stock exchange this week. And not only the fireworks were fake, so was the singing of the Chinese hymn. No doubt most sports victories are fake, too, although you never know which one until the drugs tests are in, the corrupt judges are smoked out (which they never are) and the real women are separated from the steroid hybrids.

Call me oldfashioned, but to me it's simply distasteful to see all those vain, empty-headed sports figures assembling in one of the world's worst dictatorships and doing their inane little routines with balls and spears and stuff, and all the world is watching it on tv and going 'aaah', oblivious of the millions of slaves in China's camp system, some of whom live not far from Beijing since they had to help build some of the facilities.

Bah. At least the Roman circuses were the real deal, they weren't effeminate celebrations of commercialism that destroyed the manly spirit of the observers; they inspired them to face wounds and death scornfully, to celebrate the glory and victory even of criminals and slaves as long as they demonstrated aptitude, courage and persistence.

But wait, the Chinese have Christians, don't they? Why don't they throw some of them to the pandas lions? They kill them in prisons, underground cellars and work camps, so why not in public?

Not only have I been uninterested since '88 Seoul, I have deliberately ignored the dirty advertisement of Red China Ltd., the most horrendous slave driving community of modern ages; violater of the most basic huamn rights of its subjects; invader and oppressor of at least three countries (being "Inner" Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Tibet) and who knows how many ethnic, religious or cultural entities.

I have been showing my own little passive resistence in my forum signature for quite a while. See my user page for details.
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[DemonArchangel]

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Not only have I been uninterested since '88 Seoul, I have deliberately ignored the dirty advertisement of Red China Ltd., the most horrendous slave driving community of modern ages; violator of the most basic human rights of its subjects; invader and oppressor of at least three countries (being "Inner" Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan and Tibet) and who knows how many ethnic, religious or cultural entities.

I have been showing my own little passive resistance in my forum signature for quite a while. See my user page for details.
.

East Turkestan is a joke, and a rather bad one at that. Xinjiang has less political legitimacy than Tibet, and that's saying something.

As for Turkey itself, I have more than my share of issues regarding it *cough* Kurdistan *cough*

About Mongolia, it's easier to just to say that China belongs to Mongolia and not the other way around

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
I'm not here (or anywhere else) advocating the Turkish İttihad-Terakki/Republic regime's policies, and myself being an outright promoter of Kurdish rights and a pupil of language and literature thereof, your nagging is moot. You may proceed with bringing up the Armenian genocide maybe. Be my guest. My words are the same, no matter what person or community, maybe with the exception of not having ever been able to study any Armenian.

Eastern Turkestan had been a sovereign state with established government, armed forces etc. until being utterly invaded by the Communist 8th army in 1948, not without prior attempts, some successful, of invasion. Some resistance survived until 1949 but masses of people were forced to flee, the majority perishing crossing the Hindukush and Taklamakan, a few thousands managed to seek asylum in India and -later- Turkey.

I do not necessarily promote new independent states of "Inner" Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan or Tibet myself. Principally I'm against ethnic-based political fragmentation and nation states. What concerns me are human rights (and those of other living things where applicable); in China, Turkey or elsewhere.
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[Louis VI the Fat]

I feel I am missing out!

I hereby violently protest the hosting of the games by Beijing! The Chinese regime is a crypto-fascist neo-com repressive machine!

Free Tibet!

Got to see what DA wil come up with for a retort about vile French behaviour.

[KukriKhan]

I feel I am missing out!

I hereby violently protest the hosting of the games by Beijing! The Chinese regime is a crypto-fascist neo-com repressive machine!

Free Tibet!

Got to see what DA wil come up with for a retort about vile French behaviour.

LOL. How can it be crypto-anything if it's a regime? Bravo, again, Louis .

[DemonArchangel]

I feel I am missing out!

I hereby violently protest the hosting of the games by Beijing! The Chinese regime is a crypto-fascist neo-com repressive machine!

Free Tibet!

Got to see what DA wil come up with for a retort about vile French behaviour.

What you say is correct. Buy one Tibet, get another free. As for vile French behavior, the French aren't vile, they're just Losers.

But East Turkestan? It was Xinjiang first, before that, it was the Xiyu. It's only East Turkestan if the Chinese let the locals get uppity.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

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I do not necessarily promote new independent states of "Inner" Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan or Tibet myself. Principally I'm against ethnic-based political fragmentation and nation states. What concerns me are human rights (and those of other living things where applicable); in China, Turkey or elsewhere.
.

Isn't Mongolia small enough already?