I am not a big fan of the Winter Olympics. I can't really get into watching most of the sports. I did watch some figure skating over the weekend. I felt very bad for Zhu Yi, the American born as Beverly Zhu, who is now skating for China. She did very poorly in the team event, falling badly in both the short and long programs. She has been blasted in Chinese social media. Many are questioning why an American is taking the only woman figure skating spot on the Chinese team ahead of a Chinese born skater. Worse, some question if she failed on purpose because she is not really Chinese.
I find these attacks on Zhu horrifying. First of all, if China had someone better, their Olympic leaders certainly would not have chosen Zhu. Somehow after Lu Chen had won the world championships about twenty years ago, China has not produce another female skater that is able to compete for the podium. I thought back then that there would have been a wave of female skater who would dominate the world. If the U.S. can produce a Michelle Kwan, why wouldn't China produce several of them? So there must be problems in their system that they have nobody stepping up now. Zhu, obviously was not among the top American women so she decided to represent China. She was not expected to medal. But in trying too hard to show that she belong on the Chinese team, she stumbled badly. She does not deserve such hatred. If the Chinese people think that Zhu does not belong, then they should question their own Olympic leaders to see why they have failed.
Having seen what has happened to Zhu, I really worry about another American who is representing China, Eileen Gu. Gu is in three events in freestyle skiing. Unlike Zhu, Gu is a strong contender to medal. She is dubbed the snow princess in China. If they get mad at Zhu for failing, can you imagine what they will say about Gu if she fails to medal?
I wonder if people here would still be mad if an athlete went to play for a country like England or Germany. Seems like there is just a lot of Chinese backlash. I've heard some people are upset that some of the non-Chinese hockey players were on China's team. I just don't care if they are on there or not. Most if not all of those players wouldn't have been on their respective country's team, so what's the big deal? I came across a couple of articles about Eilee Gu and wonder what your response is to them:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/china/eileen-gu-olympics-foreign-athletes-mic-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.si.com/olympics/2022/02/08/eileen-gu-big-air-gold-medal-china-citizenship-status?fbclid=IwAR0c8VWnfgndYB3sdaobPbVqkBai5r-dzs8ZJLJ7HpihtewwZow1wwetGFs
Oh and I haven't been watching very much of the games. It is very difficult to watch them when I already know the results since they happened while I was asleep!
What are your thoughts of the opening ceremony where they used the one female minority to light the cauldron?
-LBOAYM
Westerners call for boycott of the Olympics because of so called genocide in Xinjiang by China. Never mind there is no solid evidence of that at all. I can write a long essay on that. But where were these people when Europeans were committing genocide in Africa throughout the 20th century? Should all those games be boycotted? Australia, Canada and the U.S. all have committed genocide against their native people. Shouldn't all those games be boycotted? Canada just found more graves of native children taken away from their parents. Japan committed numerous war crimes but they hosted games.
ReplyDeleteEuropean national soccer and basketball teams are full of descendants from their colonial African countries. The U.S. has descendants of slaves in their sports teams. They wouldn't have those athletes except for genocides and slaveries they committed in the past. You say that these athletes are willingly representing these countries. Yes, I know. So is Eileen Gu and those hockey players.
Eileen Gu is an extraordinary human being. World class athlete, piano player, fashion model, 1580 on the SAT, outstanding speaker in English and Chinese. All at age of 18. She can think for herself, I am sure. She talked about a racist incident she experienced with her grandmother. So maybe that is why she chose to represent China. Or maybe she is doing it for economic reason. Or maybe she is just trying to inspire Chinese girls to go into skiing. I don't know but she has the right to make her decision and the hell with the haters out there.
Amazingly she won the gold last night with her final jump. She had a spin of 1620, first time a woman has ever done it. I saw the men competition the night before and only saw a few 1620s. Afterwards, she said she had never done it before but she figure to win she had to try it. Good for her!
Again, everything China does is bad in the eyes of Westerners. The Uyghur woman is a cross country skier. China never had anyone world class in that event. She is a medal contender. China does not highlight athletes that are in sports that they usually win. I have never seen a table tennis player carry the flag. Yao Ming did because he is world class in basketball, a sport that China has not produce any great athlete. So it is very typical for China to highlight this athlete in cross country skiing. It maybe propaganda. But I think back to the Atlanta when Ali, shaking badly from Parkinson, carried the torch. It was emotional. But I can also say that it was propaganda to say the U.S. has changed since the days when they took away Ali's title, suspended him because his refusal to be drafted. To paraphrase Ali at that time: "Why would I go kill them VietCongs when they have never hurt my people? They didn't slave my people. Why would I fight against them for someone who are killing my people in this country?"
Chloe Kim and Nathan Chen won golds last night. Kim is going to Princeton, Chen is already at Yale and Eileen Gu is going to Stanford. Asian Americans rock!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Gu, she is being attacked for not speaking out about Peng Shuai or Xinjiang. I find it hypocritical of the media. They don't believe Peng herself when she speaks, so they think they can get the truth from an 18 year old athlete who had no knowledge of what happened? Why don't they ask the British athletes about Prince Andrew having sex with underaged girls? How about asking Shaun White about American presidents and Supreme court justices committing sexual assaults?
If you say that because Gu changed sides, she should know about China. Well, then why don't they ask Ian Kinsler the American baseball player who played for Israel in Tokyo about the situation in West Bank and Gaza? Kinsler is in his thirties and played in the majors for many years. He certainly should be able to answer questions better than an 18 year old. So what is the media's motives in trying to corner Eileen Gu?