PeaceBang

12 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

1. I was planning to watch it, as I’ve missed the opening ceremonies for the last several Olympics. But a friend who was over at the time told me she was boycotting the Olympics because of Darfur issues, and she also told me the opening ceremonies are like, five hours long, which I found a bit daunting.

   Maybe I’ll catch the highlight reels!

   Comment by h sofia — August 8, 2008 #

2. I don’t have TV so I’ll miss it anyway, though I’ll probably tune in to the gymnastics online via one of the many non-NBC (and technically not-available-in-the-US) streaming video sites.

   However, there’s this site too, that encourages us to turn off TVs during commercials and watch them instead. It’s depressing and worth it. http://www.darfurolympics.org/

   for the record, I would likely have thrown up at the soldiers, both before and after changing the channel. gag.

   Comment by Teri — August 9, 2008 #

3. NPR has been keeping me more or less in the loop as to all of those Chinese folks that have been displaced by all of the construction that has been going on in order for China to prepare for the Games. The stadiums look terrific and are very modern. For that I congratulate the Chinese. But I can’t get past all of those Chinese citizens that have been made to suffer, all in the name of progress and the two weeks where the eyes of the world will be on China. It’s all a big show, and I think the toll has been too high on the common Chinese folks.
   First the Yang-Tze/3 Gorges Dam, now the Olympics; what’s next for the Chinese Gov’t to do to their people?

   Comment by Jim B. — August 9, 2008 #

4. Almost forgot. I’m not boycotting the Games per se, but I’m not making any special effort to sit down and watch either.

   Comment by Jim B. — August 9, 2008 #

5. I went and saw the 10 year old daughter of some dear friends in her first play. Play was cute, she was great!

   I’m interested in the games, but not interested enough to rearrange my life around them.

   The Puppy Games, however, sounds like another story. Oooh Puppy Soccer is on right now! GOAl!

   Comment by revtoots — August 9, 2008 #

6. “So far we aren’t holding public executions of dissidents”. Hm. The thing that irks me about this post is how easy it is to rise to the provication to, as you acknowledge at the beginning, have a go at the US. But I won’t (grits teeth)…

   From a spritual perspective however, and to all the heroic boycotters or Puppy Games advocates, its probably worth remembering that the Olympics is the only opportunity the world has to come together in the spirit (if not fact) of shared humanity. Engaging, whatever our views, should be our religious responsibility.

   During the (football) World Cup, we were passing through an Israeli checkpoint and the gun-toting boy soldier took a look at my g/friend’s passport and held it up, saying, “Ah, Italia! Football!” When we arrived in Jericho, the first Palestinian to approach us asked me where I was from, when I told him, he said “England! Manchester United!”.

   Sport transcends boundaries, and should certainly transcend our prejudices.

   Comment by Unitalian — August 9, 2008 #

7. @Unitalian. It’s fair to say that “sport transcends boundaries” — indeed, sports and cultural interactions have historically been the wedge to openness in other fields — but it’s also fair to choose what sporting events to support, especially since the IOC and its commercial backers aren’t what I’d call innocents either.

   Comment by Scott Wells — August 9, 2008 #

8. Scott - who IS “innocent”? Little League maybe?

   There’s plenty wrong with China, but he who is without blame…

   Leaving aside the issue of executions, I felt the post included some pretty cheap shots: at the one baby policy, for example, which is aimed at keeping demographics under control (to the benefit of us all), the air quality (hello? Kyoto?) or the military display. [I don’t mind disagreeing with you, Uni, but I have to say that I see nothing “cheap shot-ish” about making simple statements of truth. Millions of Chinese baby girls have been sacrificed to “keep demographics under control” — they could just as easily been boys, but they’re not — and the Beijing smog is there, whether or not the US signs on to the Kyoto Agreement or not. And just ’cause I’m piping in here, I have thought a lot about whether or not we should overlook some things in the name of unity, and I agree that there are times to do so. But I don’t think this is one of those times. The fleeting “unity” we would achieve/are achieving (and are we, really? How so? Isn’t the Olympics centered around fierce competition? And is competition ever essentially uniting? I think not. It’s not a big worship service; it’s a Roman amphitheatre. Let’s not sentimentalize these things or misplace their function) to me has no integrity if it gives the Chinese government the impression that displays of technology, precision and cultural grandeur dazzle the world so that we don’t see the horrific realities of their policies. - PB]

   This is a nation exploited by foreign powers including our own in recent history, one in which up to 20 million died in the second world war, so I can understand why they take security seriously.

   There is plenty to take issue with, but treating the Chinese as if they are some kind of pariahs is kind of dehumanising, and hypocritical - how many items Made in China are in your household?

   Comment by Unitalian — August 9, 2008 #

9. I, too, am surprised to be such disagreement with your sentiments, PB. The event was, I thought, stunningly breath-taking. It seemed to me that a complex and awkward country wanted to offer a great feast of beauty and entertainment to its global neighbors.

   Sure, the ceremonies were 4.5 hours long. But for at least half of that, my friends and I couldn’t stop gasping: “WOW!” and “Oh my God!” and “How’d they *do* that?” The visuals, the technology, the elaborate and precise choreography (1,500 people performing Tai Chi in perfect rhythm? Tell me how they did that, when I can’t get three bridesmaids to stand in their places)…it brought me to tears a couple of times, for all of the right reasons: “shared humanity,” in Unitalian’s words, but also because of the evident pride and passion among the Chinese.

   I wasn’t bothered by the few brief goose-stepping moments — it was one more example of the breath-taking precision and element of performance that Chinese culture is known for.

   What did bother me was this: when the camera kept cutting away to show world leaders, other countries’ presidents were attentive, smiling, and clearly enjoying themselves — while our own Commander in Chief shed his jacket, splaid his legs, looked at his watch, and gazed into space (until the U.S. team entered the stadium, which roused him a bit).

   My God. Not only does Dubbya embarrass himself when he tries to speak at home and abroad — the man can’t even get through the Olympic ceremonies as a spectator without looking insolent and shallow. [ I am SO GLAD I didn’t see that. I would have wailed something big and heavy at my TV screen. The man makes me hissing mad! But am I surprised…?- PB]

   Comment by Rev E — August 9, 2008 #

10. Re: Unitalian

    I agree with you about the “let he who is without sin…” comment. Certainly Native Americans were made to suffer in the name of progress for the US to be established. And not long after I posted yesterday, I was thinking about the price that is paid in the name of progress. Here in Boston, thousands of people were dislocated when the central artery/expressway was built in the 1950’s. The roadway cut right through the center of the city, splitting it in half. Now fifty years later, the “Big Dig” buried the expressway underground. What are they doing with the area above ground? Turning it into a park. Just thinking about it over a fifty year period, it seems ridiculous, displacing all those people, in the final equation, for essentially nothing.

    So it seems “progress” makes us all accountable in a way.

    Also, I think alot of American consumer products are made in the Republic of China/Taiwan, not mainland China.

    Comment by Jim B. — August 9, 2008 #

11. I skimmed through the ceremony on my DVR this morning. I was rather impatient with most of it. (Doesn’t help that my very old TV doesn’t make it look as visually impressive as it probably is.)

    Two things struck me:
    1) Usually watching large numbers of people do things in synchrony is impressive, but when it is in China, it just disturbs me. They want to emphasize that their people are perfect machines. oh, that can smile. I found the few parts where they had children acting like children moved me simply by the contrast.

    2) The expense, the excess, the amount of waste that is surely going to result contrasted rather sharply with the statements of environmentalism they were trying to make (according to the announcers, at least.) [Thanks for pointing this out, Kate. I felt exactly the same way. - PB]

    I will watch some of the Olympics, for the athletes, and because I am drawn to and inspired by endurance-based events. I’ll probably watch more races than games. I’ll skip the commercials. It’s really the only time I watch sports, ever, except maybe the World Cup, and by next week I’ll have had enough for another two years.

    Comment by Kate — August 9, 2008 #

12. PB, thanks for your analysis. I was too lazy to think this hard about it myself — you were asking about sloth recently (!) — and wondering what was bothering me about it all. You’ve said it very nicely in this post and your other one. Just in terms of a small symbol, North and South Korea could not march together this year because their leaders couldn’t come to a deal to allow them to do so. So much for global unity surrounding sport, there.

    I did think that Yao Ming and the little earthquake hero boy who marched in with him were the best part of the parade and totally better than the insane lighting of the torch. That little scrap of human interaction, I could get into.

    Comment by Theodora — August 11, 2008 #

Leave a comment