Well, it seems I am not the only one who had Olympic misgivings. It all started with the baby Chinese gymnasts-they snag these kids when they are 3 years old. It became clear very quickly that the Chinese athletes were enslaved people working for the state. I did not watch much as I felt it was so wrong to "celebrate" what clearly could only be accomplished with total and complete dedication to the exclusion of all other things and when we are talking about children that is abuse in my book as they have no choice.
Here is a link to cut and paste that speaks to just what my concerns were:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-fg-hardship26-2008aug26,0,2347697.story
2 comments:
I don't see the link...I'm interested in reading that. I was worried about the Chinese athletes if they didn't win. Did they get to live?
Mother: Obviously it is a difficult situation for people like us, conditioned into Western schools of thought to understand. But for the Chinese, and Eastern philosophy in general, the individual is merely a part of the larger community as a whole. Linguistically speaking as well, it is inherent in the language. In Mandarin Chinese, when referring to the first person, there is no singular or plural, merely because the plural is implied. This is not Maoist, or communist, or even Modern; certainly the proof is in the age and the development of the language, intertwined with Eastern Philosophy (which is something I know you understand quite well, thanks to Yogi Alf).
The pride of a single person to be entered into the Olympics after being trained for their entire lives pales in comparison to the country-wide nationalistic pride inherent to their culture. What I'm trying to say is: yeah, it really blow to work day and night for 12 years to compete in one olympic event, but only in our eyes. The overwhelming national pride is something that we can only dream of. I might not agree with it, and I might think that it's really lame, but I accept that I just don't get it.
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