From: roten@CUBA.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Roten)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: The "new" outlook on China
Date: 29 Jul 92 00:06:46 GMT
Organization: /cuba_b/dirbe/roten/.organization
X-Newsreader: GNU Emacs 18.57.1, GNUS 3.13, NNTP 3.10

It's been a loooong time since I posted to, or even had time to read, SCC.  
I've been pumping out code for the idiot^H^H^H^H^H^H folks who manage the 
CDAC facility here eleven hours a day, and weekends for a month now.  But 
soon, I plan to 1) finish BPW, 2) find a better managed project, and 
3) tell my supervisors here, who got us into this mess in the first place, 
to go jump in a lake.  :-)  Then you will have the questionable pleasure 
of seeing my stuff again.  ;-)  

In article <zlmm1=f.kemnitz@netcom.com> kemnitz@netcom.com (Greg Kemnitz) 
writes:

>It appears that the Olympics is the first time that many Chinese in the 
>US have been exposed to large doses of the new post-Tiananmen American 
>perspective on China: from being "our" Commies, China has become "the 
>last of the Stalinists".  And as the last of the Stalinists, China has to 
>have a "sports machine" befitting a totalitarian dictatorship, whose 
>abuses will be discussed at length.

I haven't been following the Olympics on television news.  But this does 
*not* surprise me.  

Is it just me, or do both the Chinese and American cultures seem to take 
almost any conflict, no matter how formalized, and try to make it a fight 
between 'good guys' and 'bad guys'?  

When I was a kid, I learned at a *very* early age how to tell the 'good 
guys' from the 'bad guys' in a Western, even if I turned the TV on in the 
middle.  The good guys all wore white hats.  The bad guys all wore black 
hats.  It was *that* stereotyped!  

So it does not come as a mind-numbing shock to see the same kind of 
stereotypy applied to the Olympics by vacuum-skulled 'journalists' whose 
reputation for disinformation in this country makes the pre-Gorbachov 
KGB sound like a bunch of straight arrows ....

>The current coverage of Chinese athletes is essentially identical to the
>coverage of Russian and other Eastern European athletes during the Cold 
>War: insinuations of steroid abuse, stories about being spirited off to 
>remote training camps far away from family and friends at a tender age, 
>etc.  Many of these are true, but the achievements of the individual 
>athletes should not be diminished.

>China *does* have an Olympic sports machine, but so do many of the 
>world's countries - certainly all countries which do well in the Olympics 
>have national Olympic sports machines of one sort or another.

Well, sports which are not popular in this country tend to hurt for 
sponsors.  Last night, I saw the plight of an American Olympic-class 
weight lifter covered.  The poor sod has to work two jobs, because he has 
to buy his own *equipment*, as well as feeding himself and his family.  
The poor guy can only spare about 1/4 of the training time he ought to 
have.  The American non-system of Olympic support makes it easy for 
newscasters (particularly the sensationalist tabloid types we have here) 
to point the finger at folks who *have* received organized and effective 
support from their governments.  

>It seems bizarre that NBC's Olympic coverage is even more flag-waving 
>than Olympic coverage was during the Cold War - one would think they 
>would have outgrown such nonsense.  In the US, it is to be expected that 
>American athletes will be featured over others, but the annoying comments 
>by the announcers seem to get out of hand.

>I've often wondered if the Olympics should abandon national affiliations 
>and have the athletes compete as individuals - the ugly jingoism that 
>oozes forth at Olympic time is distracting and annoying, and doesn't seem 
>to be relevant to the high-minded goals of the Olympic movement.

It might not be a bad idea.  It seems that sports, especially when they 
are organized and international, can call forth ugly emotions in the 
spectators.  Jingoism can simply OOZE forth.  And Americans are not the 
only offenders, nor even the worst ones.  Remember the fondness of British 
soccer fans for rioting?  

>The most annoying thing will be the politicians hoping to be seen with 
>the "winners" to cover up their failings: George Bush will be seen with 
>Pablo Morales at the White House Rose Garden, and Fu Mingxia and Zhuang 
>Yong will certainly have photo ops with Li Peng and his pals at the 
>Zhongnanhai.

But then, politicians are _DEFINITELY_ a lower life form, about three 
or four rungs below the earthworms ...

--
Charles Roten | Hughes-STX, Incorporated | 
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