Beijing Olympics

I am currently boycotting Beijing Olympics. There is not so much to do other than not watching the games. Why? Because I don't believe in the values and the message that the Beijing Olympics is sending to the world. (not what they are TRYING to send)

Despite being under the radar in the past few weeks, I did hear about some scatter news here and there about the Olympics. Before the Olympics, of course there was the Tibet uprising which many people ended up dead. There are many ways to look at this incident. One is that China had the right to use arm against its people to ease the unrest on their land. The other was that China were killing democracy when Tibet demanded independence. The killing was bad, but that wasn't what got me upset. It was the conversation and the patriotism that ensued enraged me.

There is a huge Chinese population here in Japan, similarly in Tokyo Tech. The majority of foreign students are Chinese. They started brandishing the One-China-ism in front of my face, claiming ownership of my home country, Taiwan. To me that is just extremely rude, China has never been in Taiwan since the separation of the two governments. Their people weren't even allowed to travel in Taiwan until recently. I have never witnessed this when I was in Canada, perhaps it was because the Chinese people in Vancouver showed restraints or have been unbrainwashed. But the students here in the school are fresh out of China and bound to return to China. This was when I dissociate myself from the name Chinese. I admit I am of Chinese-descenent, but I am not Chinese. Just like many Americans are Europea-descendants, but they are not Europeans.

Coming back to Olympics, the first scattered report that popped up on my computer was the lip-syncing incident. I was not happy about it because I thought it was the wrong value to present to the world. The girl was denied the chance of a lifetime because she was not cute enough. More ironic was that they decided to use her voice and let the other girl lip-sync to her voice for the opening ceremony. To me that's deceptive, or simply, lying. Oh wait wait wait, some people would like to defend it as "means of performance." and "everybody does it." Then I wish to clarify that this deceptive behavior is dishonest and everybody doing it does not make it right. Whenever you are presenting something and lead the audience to believe otherwise, that is lying. Ashley Simpson lead the audience that she was singing live, but she was actually lip-syncing to herself. That was lying and it was wrong. The crowd's common sense kicked in and booed her off the stage. Sure, call it a mean of performance and call it my opinion. If someone actually believe that is okay, then I doubt this person's moral values.

Next comes the sportsmanship issue. Put aside the "strategic performance", I heard the next incident from a Chinese classmate. He told me that all of China now hates the Chinese Men's Soccer Team for two things. They are the most invested sports in China, but they fail to perform. Two, red cards were flying all over when the Chinese Team grew frustrated and started to foul people just to get back at them. People say, oh it's just a part of the game. Wrong. There are measures in a game to compensate the victims for the opponents misbehavior within the game, but it does not mean the conduct is sportsmanship-like. For some people who foul people intentionally for the sake of hurting the player, it's not part of the game. In NBA, Ron Artest grabbed Ben Wallace without going after the ball. Common sense would dictate that Ron Artest was unsportsmanship-like. Ben Wallace got his freethrows and posession (though he was tossed out when it turned into a brawl) Another good example is when you intentionally attack another player in hockey. There are several incidents where hard fouls or high sticks ended up with players being taken away with assault charges.

There is a sense of right and wrong in these things. I guess that's why I don't have many friends, because I can't bear them not having the same standards.