As the Beijing Olympic Games are approaching to the end, a lot of Chinese are wondering: has hosting the Games succeeded in changing the West's stereotypes about China?
I have been wondering the same question. what I found out seems to be very disappointing: the Beijing Olympics only served to reinforce the stereotypes about China.
Leading up to the Games, all Western media focused on one talking point: how China was preparing the Games as a propaganda tool to project a better image to the world. But what we Chinese are saying? We want the world to see the REAL China first hand. There have been too much distortion in the Western media about China. We were hoping the Olympic Games can help change that.
The opening ceremony was a big bang. Everyone I met told me it was spectacular, unprecedented, incredible, (add your own adjectives here). Initially I was very happy. I was proud. But after carefully examining, I sense these praises are not exactly what we are looking for. Yes, many people were awe-stricken by the 2008 drummers counting down to the opening of the Games. But I sense that awe was a little bit condescending. It is not the kind of awe when people watch the first man landed on the Moon. Nor the kind of awe that people have when they watch Usain Bolt dashing to the finishing line, leaving others in the dust. It is rather the kind of awe when people see thousands of ants transporting food, seemingly without any supervision, or when people see the bees dancing in front the bee hive, signaling where the flowers are. It is that kind of condescending awe most of the Westerners felt when they were watching those spectacular performances of the Opening Ceremony.
In their view, the Chinese are like machines, displaying absolute conformity and non-individuality. The group synchronized performances at the Opening Ceremony only help reinforce that view. To them, we are just like the ants, or the bees.
Then you may ask, what about all those gold silver and bronze medals. As of now, China has won 89 medals, second only to the US. Fifty of those medals are gold, far surpassing the US. Shouldn't we be proud? Shouldn't that change people's view about Chinese?
To westerners, Chinese are typically nerds who are good at math and sciences. Sports are the fun thing that the Chinese does not know much about. Even though Chinese athletes have won so many medals, that fact still does not change their view. They think Chinese athletes are just manufactured goods. They are not even human. They are the products of a nationally organized sports machine or factory. They believe: we western athletes play sports for fun, and the Chinese train for sports only to get gold medals. Chinese sports programs are just like factories that churn out athletes.
Back in 1996 when the Olympics were held in Atlanta Georgia, NBC ran a program that provided stories about the real life of the athletes. When it was about the American athletes, NBC showed how these men and women loved the sports and were having fun playing in the Olympics. But when it came to the Chinese athletes, the stories were often very sad. The Chinese athletes were picked by the government to be trained in sports camps. They left their families at very young age, and spent their childhood training for sports. To them, sports were not for fun. They were for winning gold medals to glorify the Chinese nation. So all the Chinese athletes were shown to be under tremendous pressure. What NBC implied in the program was obvious, the Chinese don't like sports. They just use sports to serve propaganda purposes.
So with this view, no matter how many medals the Chinese athletes win, it does not change a bit the stereotypes about China and Chinese.
So for those Chinese who pin too much hope that Olympics would help the world see the real China, wake up. It ain't gonna happen!
So stop worrying about what other people would think about you. Don't give a damn about their opinions. Let them say whatever they want to say. Let us just have some fun!
Let the Games continue!
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2 comments:
let the game continue? no. should be this way:let the game begin!
there is a way of the world thinking, and there is a way of chinese thinking...the vast majority of chinese people accepted that this is a very importance chance to show to the world that china's progress to the world,to improve the national solidarity, and chinese govenment has been quite successful at it.on golbal stage, the game is the huge breakthrough for china's prestige and national power, but for many chinese, the goal of the game is simply to demonstrate china's rise to superpower status. the gloating has just begun.i couldnot agree you more, why do we need to give a damn about the western style thinking? let's have some fun. we chinese can do it, and we can even do better, let the feast begin again!
Great work.
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