The Olympics got underway yesterday. What a complete and total cluster-fuck of the first order. Needless to say, I was unimpressed. First, they blocked all the streets near the Olympic compound, including mine. This necessitated my walking way, WAY out of the way for no apparent reason other than for a show by the authorities who were out in force. Every street corner was manned by police and army officials, looking important, blocking our way, and generally harassing anyone who was misfortunate enough to express any interest in the Olympic festivities. What a field day for the establishment, and what a joke for the rest of us.
The pigs were everywhere. We couldn’t even get across the street in some places. Some of my friends got stuck in their dorms for 12 hours because they weren’t allowed to leave. The air was muddy with haze. Since we couldn’t get close enough to the bird’s nest (茑巢) to see what was going on, we watched it on TV in Peng Gong’s house, who was gracious enough to invite the whole posse for the occasion. My opinion is: that was it? All the hype, all the build up, all the security, and that was it? I’m sure it was great for those wealthy enough or powerful enough to be IN the stadium, but what about everybody else? What about all the people of Beijing who weren’t even allowed to leave their house, much less get within three blocks of the stadium? Even the fireworks were a disappointment, and we had a prime view from the roof. We waited up there for HOURS and that was it? (I later learned that the reason the fireworks looked better on TV than they did from Peng Gong's roof was because CGI fireworks were added to the broadcast by the Chinese). It seemed to me to be a grotesque show-off, an orgy of pomp and circumstance designed to impress the visiting dignitaries and fuck the Chinese people in the streets. Typical bull-shit from the regime that cares more for its own survival than the people of China. I have to say, I rarely, if ever, agree with Bush, but I thought his comments on the issue quite correct: the government owes it to the people of China to give them the freedoms they deserve if they really want to be respected as a global superpower. Some highly choreographed, made-for-TV, overdone, military goose-stepping spectacle is not sufficient.
To prove that I’m not just sour grapes, here are a couple articles to get you started:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gGtTrBpkUffPzYAENMTtc8HAqaBgD92EPP6O0
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-dissident-olympics-perspective,0,6274823.story
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1144279/index.htm
It’s easy to find this kind of articles, and all I had to do was a simple news search for “olympics dissidents” or “olympics oppression” from a Chinese IP address. It kind of makes you wonder how, with such ready access to this kind of news, the intelligent Chinese people can abide this sort of thing. Either they are all afraid of “disappearing” also, or they actually believe that this treatment of their fellow countrymen and women is somehow an acceptable form of human behavior. It really makes me feel sick at heart, and wonder how much I, myself, dare to do for this cause.
The pigs were everywhere. We couldn’t even get across the street in some places. Some of my friends got stuck in their dorms for 12 hours because they weren’t allowed to leave. The air was muddy with haze. Since we couldn’t get close enough to the bird’s nest (茑巢) to see what was going on, we watched it on TV in Peng Gong’s house, who was gracious enough to invite the whole posse for the occasion. My opinion is: that was it? All the hype, all the build up, all the security, and that was it? I’m sure it was great for those wealthy enough or powerful enough to be IN the stadium, but what about everybody else? What about all the people of Beijing who weren’t even allowed to leave their house, much less get within three blocks of the stadium? Even the fireworks were a disappointment, and we had a prime view from the roof. We waited up there for HOURS and that was it? (I later learned that the reason the fireworks looked better on TV than they did from Peng Gong's roof was because CGI fireworks were added to the broadcast by the Chinese). It seemed to me to be a grotesque show-off, an orgy of pomp and circumstance designed to impress the visiting dignitaries and fuck the Chinese people in the streets. Typical bull-shit from the regime that cares more for its own survival than the people of China. I have to say, I rarely, if ever, agree with Bush, but I thought his comments on the issue quite correct: the government owes it to the people of China to give them the freedoms they deserve if they really want to be respected as a global superpower. Some highly choreographed, made-for-TV, overdone, military goose-stepping spectacle is not sufficient.
To prove that I’m not just sour grapes, here are a couple articles to get you started:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gGtTrBpkUffPzYAENMTtc8HAqaBgD92EPP6O0
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-dissident-olympics-perspective,0,6274823.story
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1144279/index.htm
It’s easy to find this kind of articles, and all I had to do was a simple news search for “olympics dissidents” or “olympics oppression” from a Chinese IP address. It kind of makes you wonder how, with such ready access to this kind of news, the intelligent Chinese people can abide this sort of thing. Either they are all afraid of “disappearing” also, or they actually believe that this treatment of their fellow countrymen and women is somehow an acceptable form of human behavior. It really makes me feel sick at heart, and wonder how much I, myself, dare to do for this cause.
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