I am not a flag-waving patriot, but I do feel a certain amount of sentiment for my adopted home country. Statements like the ones above annoy me, but I have long since stopped attempting to justify America’s actions to my family. In truth, they’re right: The United States, through the Bush administration’s policy of unilateralism and a one-track focus on terrorism, has made many enemies throughout the world, and alienated many of its friends. What sets my nerves on edge, however, is the sense that the People’s Republic will never face the same problems.

A year ago, I saw a newspaper headline about a raid on an oil field in Ethiopia where 74 people were killed and the oil field was destroyed. Seven foreigners were also kidnapped. What made this headline particularly noteworthy was that the oil field was Chinese, and the kidnapped foreigners were Chinese nationals.  More recently, 5 Chinese hostages were killed in an incident in Sudan.

Before Nixon’s historic 1972 visit, China had no interests overseas. It maintained diplomatic relations with only a few countries and was focused entirely on itself. China was self-sufficient but hopelessly backwards. With Deng’s reforms and the opening of the market came an increase in the amount of international trade and the rise of consumerism. China has gone from having no possessions abroad to holding over $1.9 trillion in foreign currency, much of which is starting to be invested back overseas. China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 integrated it into the world economy, making it vulnerable to many of the problems of globalization, not the least of which is a strong dependence on foreign resources. While the PRC is the largest country in the world in terms of population, it is poor in terms of resources. The standard of living has increased dramatically and with it the demand for resources, all of which have to be obtained from overseas. It is estimated that if China reaches first-world standards of living, it will approximately double global resource consumption and pollution. 1.3 billion people require a lot of resources and produce a lot of trash. Most people in the West see China as an immense opportunity, a huge untapped market of possibilities. What I see, however, is a mass of people hungry for resources who feel that they deserve to consume.

As China grows increasingly dependent on foreign sources for critical resources, it will increasingly invest in the global market. Already Chinese companies have made many moves to achieve better supply security, especially in oil. But as can be seen from the case of Ethiopia and Sudan, Chinese investment means Chinese nationals abroad. China is investing heavily in third world countries, competing with Western nations in order to be the first to exploit those resources. China’s lack of an imperialist history and its status as the world’s largest developing nation gives it a lot of influence with these countries. One of the cornerstones of Chinese foreign policy is the idea of noninterference, and Chinese aid comes with none of the demands for transparency, accountability, and political reform that Western aid comes with. For the moment, China truly is making a great number of friends in the third world.

This trend, however, cannot last forever. Already there is some degree of disenchantment with the way the Chinese do business—it is usually Chinese companies that benefit directly from Chinese aid; local companies are often left in the lurch. China’s low cost of labor often directly competes with developing economies in third-world nations, causing factories to shut down. As China develops, it falls into the classic pattern of developed nations—importing raw materials from underdeveloped nations, exporting the finished products back to them, and pocketing the difference. Chinese overseers are often very poor with following through on promises of development—companies will often promise to build infrastructure and pay for clean-up but renege on benefits, insist on long hours and low pay, and leave the cleaning up to someone else. As Chinese companies frequently do this domestically, it’s no surprise that their track record is similar overseas. Where Chinese interests are concerned, China comes first. For example, China is building a series of dams upriver that could dramatically impact the Mekong river delta, causing unimaginable environmental and economic changes downstream in countries like Vietnam. Despite protests from environmentalists and local officials, China continues to build its dams. While situations like this are admittedly uncommon and there are many exemplary Chinese companies, it only takes one mistake to give an entire country a bad reputation.

The developing world is an unsafe place. The Chinese promise noninterference, but as its assets in the developing world increase, so does the risk of losing them. China has shown itself to be committed to regional stability, preferring multilateral talks to action. However, if war breaks out, it will have to choose between protecting its citizens and investments or losing both.

Many of the problems that the U.S. has internationally can be seen as a legacy of the Cold War, where it propped up certain regimes in order to contain Communism and protect its own interests. Vietnam, Korea, Panama, and Nicaragua are all examples of this. The U.S. often deliberately supported unsavory regimes in order to try and maintain stability. When regime change came eventually, it was accompanied by a backlash of anti-American sentiment. China’s avowed statement of noninterference can be a bit selective when it comes to its own interests. They insist that the matter of Taiwan is a domestic issue. They support the U.S. war on terror, in part to help contain their own problems with transnational terrorism, especially separatists in Xinjiang. It notably has avoided using its veto on the UN Security Council, preferring to abstain. One notable exception is the case of Darfur. Ethnic violence on the scale of genocide has been occurring for several years, and the UN has done nothing even to censure the Sudanese government for its actions because China has made it clear that it will use its veto to shoot down any “interference” with Sudanese domestic policies. The reason for this is the heavy Chinese reliance on Sudanese oil fields, a partnership significant enough to warrant visits from President Jiang Zemin in the past and President Hu Jintao recently. While this kind of covert support wins them friends now, in the future, it will perhaps make them just as many enemies.

On the other hand, however, China has done many positive things to improve its soft power. While Chinese foreign aid does not even begin to approach the scale of Western foreign aid, it is usually better publicized. China has also begun to show a very adaptable and practical foreign policy when it comes to regime change, preferring to sit on the sidelines rather than referee. It signs bilateral goodwill agreements and promises aid. While cheap Chinese labor does directly compete with local industries in many third-world countries, it also makes certain items, such as TVs, computers, cars, and other high-end goods much more affordable to the people in those countries.

It would be naive of China to feel that its place as the champion of the developing world is secure. A more conciliatory and cooperative American foreign policy could greatly undermine its advances, especially if China continues its track record of promising big but delivering small. It would be a good idea for Chinese citizens to not be complacent in the knowledge that a Chinese passport makes one a low-profile target in most countries, but to realize that it will take careful maneuvering by the government and China’s companies in order to maintain the current status quo.

Roman Polanski at the BFA.

The event began with a promising screening of Polanski’s student films, including “Two Men and a Wardrobe” and “The Fat and the Lean,” the former of which Polanski later attributed to his success in securing funding for his first feature film, the Academy Award-nominated Knife in the Water. The showing of these student films—perhaps a bit unsophisticated by current standards—served as an excellent impetus and inspiration for the BFA students present. Unfortunately, the promising start quickly unravelled. The event suffered from:

1) The poor behavior of the press. A massive number of people in the front snapped pictures of Polanski throughout his interview and during the screening of his film, blinding the man and blocking him from view.

2) The poor behavior of the audience, who embarrassingly stormed the stage at the end, mobbing the elderly Polanski and greedily grabbing at him for autographs and pictures.

3) The idiotic usage of pre-written questions as opposed to audience interaction. The questions were largely read aloud from notes by non-Chinese international students who seemed to be under the impression that their questions were actually letters to Mr. Polanski. The translator could not read the hand-written questions so Mr. Polanski was forced to read the questions, which led to one of the most amusing/embarrassing situations of the afternoon: A “question” began, “Dear Mr. Polanski, not sure if you remember me but I met you last week and gave you a copy of my student film. What do you think of my chances of getting into a film festival?”

Cringeworthy.

The mob descends.

There were a few gems, though. After the diminutive Polanski’s arrival on stage, he attempted to hide behind the comically massive bouquet of flowers placed on the table before him. He also articulately and charismatically responded to questions from the arbitrator. Polanski aimed to inspire the students present, advising them to avoid “chopping your films into fruit salad,” and discussing his rambunctious beginnings as a director in film school: Polanski invited hooligans to a conservative school party to liven up his one and only “documentary,” which almost got him expelled and turned him off of documentaries for life. However, Polanski’s love of film kept the school authorities from expelling him, and it was his education and support at the Polish Film School that led to his momentous success as a director.

There were moments of exasperation—when asked about the film Tess, Polanski irritably recalled the fact that Chinese censors chopped the film from two hours and forty minutes to an hour and a half when it was released in China in the early 80’s. But for the most part the director was patient and elegant, and showed a propensity for telling stories and for providing great sound bites. On the responsibility of the director, he said, “The atmosphere on the set depends on the director. If he knows what he’s doing, the crew immediately respects him. If he has passion, they will follow him. If he has a sense of humor, the crew will laugh. [But] if he is depressed, they will be as well.” With regards to film theory, he scoffed, “What is film theory? Tell the story, and if you don’t have anything to say, shut up! Asking a director about theory is like asking a centipede which leg he moves first.”

Overall, Polanski’s Q&A was a great opportunity which was somewhat wasted. With less bureaucratic planning and a more relaxed Q&A, the session would have been more insightful, and allowed the BFA students to show off its best assets: its students.

The author of this article was a former student of the Beijing Film Academy. The author requested that the article be published anonymously. Any e-mails responding to this post will be forwarded to the author.

The past does not guarantee the future. Although the United States will still be the preeminent power in the world in 2012 regardless of who is elected as the next President, there is significant danger that the 2008 election could mark the beginning of the end of the American Century.

The reason is that this election is about the nature of America, the soul of the nation. It is true that America is a self-interested country that does terrible things in the international arena. In this respect, it is no different than any other great power. What is different about America is the mythos that surrounds it, a mythos that is rooted in the American Dream and the centrality of the individual. The idea that “all men are created equal” lies at the very core of what it means to be Americans. Indeed, what makes America different is that, eventually, we live up to this creed—slavery was abolished, women gained the right to vote and the New Deal and civil rights movement made equality the cornerstone of the American experience. Yet, like alliance politics, these past triumphs do not ipso facto guarantee future successes.

Nor is America’s hold on international imagination guaranteed to last. The vision of America as a purveyor of freedom is being muddied. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are slowly replacing the Statue of Liberty as the symbols of America. We cannot allow this transition to be completed, for it would extinguish the thing that keeps human rights activists and political dissidents working and dying for their causes: hope. America is the idea that hope will win out in the end, that equality will trump inequity, that the poor and rich will all be held equally accountable in when their ballots are counted and when they appear in court. This election is about whether or not this creed will be sustained in the years to come. By looking at the two candidates, we can see that the two conflicting halves of the American self have been pitted against one another.

On the one side, we have the brash, patriotic war hero. By all accounts, he is surrounded by sycophants and driven by notions of courage, patriotism and honor. He will not brook defeat, nor will his desire for victory be shackled by international institutions—the national interest will be his guiding principle. He believes that the withdrawal from Vietnam humiliated the nation and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and he will not let this happen again. Ostensibly, this “can do” attitude is an admirable trait for a commander-in-chief. The problem, however, lies in the details—victory in this war is impossible. History is replete with occupying forces that have brought about their own demise and failed to impose their will on the occupied. What we do not have an example of is an occupying force that was able to successfully end and win an internal civil war.

To think that we can create a constitutionally liberal democracy in Iraq out of the current constituent parts is quixotic. Not only do we not know how to “create” rule of law, a state that enforces contracts and works for the public good, we know very little about Arab culture and the Arabic language. This is not to imply that the Iraqis will not be able to create a tenable constitutional structure for themselves, but to simply note that we, as outsiders, will not be able to force such an agreement to come to pass.

The stubborn patriotic desire to win in Iraq is also at play in the candidate’s refusal to negotiate with Iran. Iran is an enemy, so we can’t give them the legitimacy that will be afforded to them if we negotiate. Well, yes, Iran is an adversary, but the ostrich head-in-the-sand approach is not going to work. In fact, the Iranians were very helpful in Afghanistan and Iraq until the Bush Administration labeled them as part of the “Axis of Evil.” Not negotiating will only serve to strengthen Iran’s current course of action, which consists of meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq and supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.

And as for his Vice Presidential selection, suffice it to say that she represents the ugly id of the American psyche.

On the other hand, we have a candidate who embodies the American ideals of compromise, equality, cooperation and the prudent use of overwhelming force as a last resort. His initial objection to voice concern over the invasion of Iraq should, with the help of hindsight, elicit applause. But approbation for this prescience should serve as the beginning, not the end, of any discussion of his understanding of international affairs. He understands that America is strongest when it binds itself to the international institutions it created during the Truman Administration. To be sure, he has asserted that his administration will work outside of this framework if need be, but only as last resort, not as a standard operating procedure. Moreover, a look at his foreign policy team reveals that he surrounds himself with professionals who will give him honest advice. As no one is omniscient, this ability to seek out and accept advice from top-tier assistants is a prerequisite for being an effective President.

Engaging with allies and forging a tenable solution for exiting Iraq will be top priorities. By extricating ourselves from an un-winnable war and re-energizing the fledgling Atlantic Alliance, he will demonstrate that America is no longer Prometheus unbound. Rather, we will return to our traditional role as the leader of the free world. By working with others, he will restore the moral credibility that has been decimated by the Bush years. Engagement with Iran, while not necessarily accomplishing anything, will show that the U.S. will not eschew all states that do not conform to American norms. More important than Iraq or Iran, however, are the issues looming over the horizon. What will America do about environmental degradation, resource depletion, water scarcity, global warming, and the rise of China?

To adequately address these issues, the next Administration is going to have to engage with China. The Bush Administration should be applauded for helping to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization. This has tethered the Chinese economy—and with it the fate of the Communist Party—to continued economic growth and the U.S.-led western bloc. But unlike some had expected, China has not become a constitutional democracy overnight. Rather, Hu Jintao has used Chinese economic growth—much of which relies upon the international system the U.S. created, leads, and during the past few weeks has almost managed to destroy—to tighten the reins on the press and political dissension. Thus China is an attractive model for other authoritarian governments that want to enjoy the benefits of the U.S.-led economic order without relinquishing power. These governments want to let their populations become rich, but they don’t want them to become free.

China offers bread for the poor and guns, riches, and power to those already in power. Before discounting the appeal of the Chinese model, it is important to realize that humans want dignity. Dignity entails freedom, but the foundation of dignity is the ability to provide oneself and family with food, shelter and education. China appeals precisely because its model provides basic dignity for the poor and power for the rich.

Instead of shirking from a real debate by unequivocally asserting that humans want freedom, we must reckon with the fact that, more than freedom, people want dignity. Before pointing a self-righteous finger at those who would gladly trade freedom for bread and a job, those of us in the West need to realize that subsistence farming is the most brutal and terrible of all jobs. And that a hungry person will take any job that will end the hunger. A vote cannot buy a person bread—but a job can.

America offers an alternative to China, and this is what excites the masses, the human rights activists and those who care for their fellow man. This is what scares those in power.

This election matters because we cannot afford to lose hope. The foundation of hope is the steadfast belief in the equality of man. This election is about the nature of America—the very fabric of the country. Will we continue to soldier on Iraq and waste American lives and treasure for four more years until we realize that as outsiders we cannot win a civil war? Will we refuse to work with the Europeans, or engage with Iran and thereby lower our international standing to its nadir? Or will we realize that it is time to turn the page of this disastrous chapter of our nation’s foreign policy that the Bush Administration has wrought. Will we finally realize we don’t know how to export democracy and that incremental and cautious change is the best we can hope for?

This brings me back to the issue of decadence. If the electorate does not take a chance on a candidate who is intellectually, descriptively, and philosophically the embodiment of the most salient features of the American experience and what it should mean to be American, then we as a people deserve our fate. But whatever numbers are posted on November 4th, I am proud to say that I have already voted for Senator Barack Obama and currently enjoy the privilege of volunteering for his campaign in Cleveland, Ohio.

What are the implications of China’s space program and the latest spacewalk?  Is it a waste of money or the start of a new space race?  Here are our thoughts.

—

Oscar Moralde

Why is China pursuing space development? The answer is simple: space exploration is the sole domain of the superpowers. As in the Olympics, only the United States and the Soviet Union have made it to the top of the leader board in recent memory, and not coincidentally they are the only nations to have successfully launched human beings into space, and only the U.S. has landed a man on the moon. But these days Russia’s space program is limping along, catering mainly to space tourists; while the beleaguered U.S. has relegated its space program to an afterthought when it is not beset by tragedy. This is another opportunity for China to shine on the world stage, another venue that offers prestige without threat, another way for China to show it has the infrastructure and drive to achieve what few other nations on the planet can do.

Is it worth it? Undoubtedly. It is almost disingenuous to label funding of space exploration as wasted money, especially when the same nations barely bat an eye when they maintain million-man armies and enough nuclear weapons to lay waste to the globe. The same people who fail to see the benefit of space exploration would have belittled the discovery of the structure of the atom in the early 20th century. Space research has paid handsome dividends in terms of propulsion technology, material sciences, and advanced communications.

The Chinese push into space is a good thing, if only to give the space programs of the world—the U.S. especially—a kick in the pants. Like Sputnik’s clarion call back in the fifties, maybe it’ll take a Chinese flag planted on the rock that has only known American footsteps to remind people: looking into space is worth the trouble.

Will Coggin

It’s easy to blow off the spacewalk as, “Yeah, the U.S. did that several decades ago,” but to do so would miss the bigger picture.  China is playing the tortoise to the West’s hare, as it is slowly but surely catching up to the West in technological prowess.

The spacewalk highlights China’s capability of self-sufficiency apart from the West in new initiatives.  This theme, which can be seen in Russia’s brazen invasion of Georgia, and its brushing aside of Western criticism, this could be the modus operandi of the two countries for the future.

J.R. Siegel

The Communist Party is willing to do anything that makes the Party and motherland appear strong and this most recent mission to space is no exception.  The thinking in Beijing is rather simple: If the Party demonstrates that it is making China a strong country and returning it to its central place in world affairs, then the people will accept its hold on political power.  If the Party thinks that landing a man on the moon will further legitimatize its hold on power, then it will spare no expense to do so.  If the Party thought that proving the man on the moon is Chinese would place them more squarely in the hearts of the people, it’d take steps to do that as well

Amanda Weiss

There are certain imagined criterion for entrance into the fraternity of first world powers: becoming a nuclear power, developing a massive economy, having a destructive military force, and catapulting men in little capsules out of the stratosphere. In many ways (sewage, average standard of living, customer service, hair styles), China is still a third world country. Thus the development of the space program is designed both to demonstrate that China can match the U.S. step for step on every technological feat and to create a sense of accomplishment, hope and national pride that is extremely, extremely effective propaganda.

Did you notice that Li Ning’s run around the rim of the Bird Nest during the Olympic opening ceremony’s final act looked suspiciously similar to walking on the moon? Not a coincidence.

—

Yulin Zhuang

Gold has intense cosmological significance to the Chinese. A friend of mine related the story of a court case involving a large building in Melbourne that many Chinese bought apartments in due to the fact that the top of the building was gold in the model. I’m sure many of us may have noticed that a lot of Chinese restaurants have names like “Golden King” or “Gold Lotus.” The drive for gold medals is certainly given extra fuel by this auspicious association.

But that’s only part of the reason. China’s major drive is to prove to the world that it deserves attention and respect, in any way it can. The Chinese are burning with a desire to prove their country’s eminence, powered by their seemingly unstoppable economic growth. In a country where many people are height-conscious, nouveau riche, and worried about their international image, the Olympic gold medal count provides a visible symbol of China’s rise. They are determined to prove that China is just as good as the United States, if not better. There’s an enormous chip on China’s shoulder where the United States is concerned—conspiracy theories about how the U.S. is trying to suppress China abound. What better way to get over insecurity about China’s place in the world order than to beat the U.S. soundly in the gold medal tally?

J.R. Siegel

The Chinese focus on winning the gold medal count is rooted in the institutional fabric of the nation. China is a country of superlatives—the highest train, the longest bridge over water, the most people, the oldest culture, and so on. For the state, winning the most golds validated the rule of the Communist Party by assuring the population that the Party was working to make China strong again. This is what the Olympics were about—proving that China could compete with, and defeat, the best other countries had to offer. It was about reinforcing beliefs of Chinese exceptionalism.

Striving to be the best is manifest in many other aspects of Chinese culture, perhaps none more so than business and education. Business in China is about haggling harder, making more money and winning. The gaokao is about outscoring your classmates and jockeying for position in competitive colleges. In China, the educational and economic pies are inelastic; if someone else wins a contract or spot at a university, it precludes you from doing the same. The belief that there is a limited amount of opportunity is perhaps the greatest difference between American and Chinese cultures.

American culture and democracy are rooted in an understanding that compromise is a central part of life. Perhaps this is why Americans take a certain pride in being sportsmen, win or lose, and are humbled by the very chance to compete. The lack of compromise within Chinese institutions and the constant focus on superlative achievements, on the other hand, may be why the Chinese were so focused on winning the gold medal tally.

George Ding

I once saw a Chinese woman with a fake D&G bag. I asked her, “Do you like Dolce and Gabbana?”

“What,” came the reply.

“Dolce and Gabbana.”

“I don’t know it.”

I pointed at her bag. “Dee and Gee.”

“Oh! Yeah, I like it.”

I imagine you could repeat this experiment with any number of hard-to-pronounce brand names but the point is, there is a tendency in China to emphasize things without understanding the historical and cultural context behind them, and the Olympics has proven to be another example of this semiotic myopia.

The woman knew that the letters “D” and “G,” when splayed on a purse, meant something important, just as the Chinese government knew that five colored rings and an inextinguishable fire meant something. But what?

The fact that China decided to focus on winning gold medals instead of addressing human rights issues, solving its long-standing internal disputes, or even warning its own citizens about tainted milk, shows that China has completely missed the point.

The plan to dominate the gold medal tally, Project 119, began seven years ago and shows China’s commitment not to athleticism but to winning. So much for the spirit of competition. In Chinese this ability to bend the rules without breaching them is called xiao cong ming—literally, small intelligence.

The emphasis on medal-grubbing cheapens China and the Olympics alike. It belies an insecurity or self-consciousness, like a classroom bully trying to prove something. Ironically, by attempting to showcase its power and gain international respect through the collection of gold trinkets, the government might have done just the opposite.

Oscar Moralde

There is undoubtedly a great amount of prestige associated with being on the top of the medal count; the last time any nation besides the United States or the Soviet Union was at the head of the leader board was Germany in 1936. “Winning the Olympics” via medal count is something that is automatically associated worldwide with being a superpower. The American media this past Olympics was very fond of calling nations “sports powers,” and most often this referred to the PRC.

The Olympics is a perfect platform for China—a non-threatening venue to show off its “peaceful rise” to a global audience. The same characteristics that garner success in the Olympics—a highly motivated and diverse populace, an intense and competitive training network, and the manpower and budget to sustain such a system—generally translate to national success. Each victory in the Games is emblematic of similar such victories in other fields.

An interesting dichotomy between the U.S. and China when discussing medals is the distinction between the gold count and the total medal count. The American media prefers to count total medals, while most of the world, including China, prefers golds when ranking nations. This could be ascribed to the Americans clinging to the count they won in 2008, but the U.S. has used the total count since the beginning of the modern Olympics.

Does this say anything about the two nations’ sports philosophies? One line of thinking is that the preference for total medals reflects the American preference for a sports system where excellence results from individual drive—the wide spread of medals reflects the breadth and depth of sports acumen amongst the entire American people.

The preference for the gold count fits with the viewpoints of smaller, more specialized countries, and nations with centralized, top-down sports infrastructures. For these nations, it doesn’t matter if no one else in the country is any good at a certain sport, as long as the best person in the world at that sport is one of their countrymen. In this view, silvers and bronzes are immaterial.

Which viewpoint is better? Are they even accurate? It’s conjecture, really; but it sounds good, doesn’t it?

Chinese education typically does not involve sports education. There are no high school or collegiate sports like in the United States, and organized sports take a distant second to extra math or English classes. The closest approximation is the 军训 (junxun), or military training, that many students undergo several times in their career—the lucky ones only once when they enter university, the unlucky ones when they enter middle and high school as well. Junxun is a two-week to one-month long phenomenon in China that occurs at the beginning of the school year, where students put on camo, practice wheeling in formation, and climb up and down mountains. They are sometimes even given the opportunity to fire a gun. Other than that, there is no real organized sports program for them to participate in.

The Asia Times article, however, misses a few details. It would be incorrect to think that the Chinese are fat and inactive. A simple walk through the park will assure you that outdoor activities are popular with the old and young alike. I find myself consistently amazed by how active the older generation are—one of the favorite activities among the middle-aged is to kick around a feathered shuttlecock in a game that greatly resembles hacky-sack. Many of them look like pros, juggling the shuttlecock with their feet, knees, and elbows. I’ve seen badminton being played in the most unlikely of places, not just parks and street corners, but even inside a museum. Weekends will see places like the Fragrant Hills, a popular mountain outside Beijing, crowded with people out for leisurely hikes.

What the public sector fails to provide, the private sector is making up for. A decade ago, the idea of paying money to go lift heavy things and run was preposterous to most Chinese. Nowadays, private gyms are opening everywhere. Memberships go for as little as $100 for a year’s membership; others, like Bally’s Total Fitness, can cost ten times that. Come 7PM, these places are packed with people frantically exercising, to the point where not a single aerobic machine is available and there’s not a single spot to lay out a yoga mat.

China has its fair share of people who do slight amounts of exercise on a semi-regular basis. And, as we can see from the Olympics, it has world-class athletes. What it lacks, however, is that core of people in-between: semi-professionals and dedicated amateurs. The Chinese athletic system focuses on selecting children when they are young and training them up—the Western ideal is more of self-selection, the people who have the talent and the drive rise naturally to the top. The Western ideal tends to produce more of a bell curve—a number of fairly decent athletes, with a few high-scoring athletes and a few pudgy couch potatoes. The Chinese system produces a large number of high-scoring athletes, but very few casual enthusiasts. It could be argued that for overall balance of fitness in a population, the Western model has its advantages.

I see few obese people in China. Standards for body-norms here are much stricter than in the West—girls who would be considered slim in the West are thought of as “average” or “a little fat.” I do, however, see an increasingly number of obese children.

The lack of sports facilities and organized sports has a deeper impact on society, a much more invidious impact: Chinese do not learn how to be team players. Chinese people do not play a lot of team sports that involve cooperation. Even basketball tends to be ad hoc pickup games where teamwork is more of a byproduct than anything else. Sports are a unique way of learning more about one’s own strengths and weaknesses and, more importantly, how those strengths and weaknesses fit into an overall team structure, where one person’s strength can balance out another’s weakness. Chinese education has no real room for this kind of learning, both in their education system (which is highly competitive rather than cooperative) and in their sports activities (mostly solitary or one-on-one).

Now, it may be difficult to draw a broader thesis of Chinese society as lacking social teamwork norms; and even more difficult to link that back to lack of organized sports. I would like, however, for all of us to take a step back and think on our childhood and the games we played. The word “team” for us has special meanings and connotations that come from sports. English is a language filled with sports metaphors. While we may not explicitly remember life lessons we’ve learned from sports, they most certainly exist. Sports are about a group of people working together to accomplish a larger goal, without being explicitly ordered to do so. Even watching a local community sports team in action is a marvelous example of a heterogeneous group mind in action—we see group decision making, fluid reactions to change, and spontaneous pockets of cooperation emerging out of what should rightfully be chaos. It’s beautiful to see because all of this happens during the game without anyone stopping to discuss it.

Anyone who has worked in a Chinese company will have noticed that the Chinese business model is anything but what we’ve just described. Everything is centrally directed and centrally run, with each person assigned their own piece of the puzzle. Rarely do they have a good understanding of how their part of the puzzle fits into the overall scheme, what Marx called alienation. Managers give explicit instructions to employees, who carry them out as ordered. While this may sound like American bureaucracy, most American companies allow a certain amount flexibility. This hive mind that works towards a common goal is a feature of the most successful and innovative companies that we see out there—Gore-tex, Google, etc. It is not typically a feature of a Chinese company.

A greater investment into sports in China would have payoffs beyond simply the health of its citizens. It would foster a greater atmosphere of community and cooperation, friendliness instead of competition, and a greater camaraderie between strangers. In the wake of these once-in-a-lifetime Olympic Games, it is difficult to predict how things will change. But it is certain that China’s athletics program will have to be altered in order to fit better into this post-Olympian world that China now inhabits.

Liu Xiang was set to compete in heat 6 of round 1 of the men’s 110 meter hurdles and before the competition itself, there was extensive vapid pregame coverage which included a search for Liu Xiang who, the commentators concluded, after cutting to aerial shots and shots from inside the Bird’s Nest, had not yet entered the stadium. Eventually Liu did enter the stadium and was set to race, but after taking a few steps after a false start, he ripped off the numbers taped onto his legs and withdrew himself from the race without a word.

Everyone knew that the hurdler had been inflicted with a hamstring injury and an inflamed Achilles tendon but they still expected to see him run, and some expected to see him win. Indeed, the finals competitions on the 22nd are colloquially referred to as “the Liu Xiang finals.” Liu himself said of the Olympics: “I will try my best…. I hope it will be the second birthplace of my dreams.”

After broadcasting the heat with an empty lane 2 where the hurdler stood just moments before, the video feed cut back to the commentators who immediately began explaining, or perhaps apologizing for, the situation. Although they pleaded for tolerance and understanding, they were unable to hide their surprise. Here are a few quotes, roughly translated:

We thought we had considered all the possibilities—that Liu Xiang would win, that Liu Xiang would lose—but we never thought that he wouldn’t compete.

Injuries happen to everyone. Your spirit can be solid as iron but your body cannot.

We hope that no one will interrupt Liu Xiang’s rest in the following days. I am sure he needs it and he must be feeling a little shaken right now.

CCTV 1 then concluded the broadcast and went to recaps. But about twenty minutes later it aired a press conference where Liu’s coach explained that “if it were not absolutely necessary, Liu Xiang would not have withdrawn from the competition” and said that the injury was at the back part of the Achilles’ tendon, where the tendon meets the bone.

Pain is invisible, known only to the sufferer. I can only imagine what it must be like and take the words of his coach at face value. But for 1.3 billion people, this result, which could easily albeit incorrectly interpreted as ignominy, could be a bitter pill to swallow.

In the coming days, this athlete’s foot will be the topic of many discussions. Indeed the media is already dressing this decision up as a heroic one. One reporter at the Bird’s Nest said, while holding back tears, “His decision was brave and he has already surpassed himself and will continue to surpass himself.” Commentators back in the studio added, “I just want to say one thing to Liu Xiang: we will always be with you.” The program ended with a montage of Liu Xiang training videos accompanied by somber string music.

The Chinese people might always be with Liu Xiang, but will his sponsors? Liu Xiang peeks out at Beijingers from behind hundreds of advertisements. But what will the face that was once associated with miracles and Olympic gold stand for now? Unless the media can fully shape Liu’s withdrawal into an act of martyrdom, and get the public to buy it, it could be a long and lonely fall from the top for the Olympic hurdler.

I changed the channel after CCTV 1’s anticlimactic denouement to CCTV 3, which showed a commercial that featured Liu Xiang soaring over the hurdles in Athens. Perhaps the Chinese people will have to settle for those reruns for another four years.

Even before the Olympics began, the protests had begun.  However, the perpetrators should be congratulated for defeating their own cause.

The merits of their Tibet argument aside, such tactics as shown the other day are highly ineffectual. China is currently at a high point for nationalism and patriotism. A high percentage of Chinese are reported to feel comfortable with their government, perhaps despite the low level of political freedom or perhaps because of their increasing prosperity. Since the Olympics is viewed by many as a way to show China’s development to an international player, events that would cause the Chinese to lose face will be magnified.

There seems to be an ill-defined goal behind such brash actions. Perhaps it is “awareness.” Young Westerners seem to love awareness campaigns—if only more people knew, the thinking goes, something would change. Of course, the problem with this attitude is within this very line of thought: nothing is getting done. Some people wave banners and signs, and go home feeling proud of having “done something.” Meanwhile, the status quo continues because nobody is actually attacking the problem.

In the States, when you want to show your support for a person or a cause, many people will put a sign in their yard or a bumper sticker on their car. However, when you go to someone else’s yard and start slapping on bumper stickers and putting down yard signs, the people who live there are going to get upset. And because it’s not your property, you legally have no right to do so. Such is the case here. Such ill-tempered protests will serve to harden the population, not change minds, by causing the Chinese to lose face.

The Olympics serves as a time for cultures to come together and share ideas. Perhaps the young, self-righteous protestors can take some time to learn about Chinese culture—what Chinese think about Tibet and Taiwan, why they have those opinions, and how to best change a Chinese person’s mind. My guess is, in the police station and on the flight home, they’ll have a lot of time to think about it.

Normally I am utterly apathetic towards sports; I don’t seriously follow or watch any major professional or college sports. But every four years (and to a lesser extent, every two years in between) you’ll find me glued to the television screen. And not just for the big ticket events, like China versus the United States in basketball, or the thrilling races at the Water Cube. No, tell me that Hungary is facing off against Brazil in women’s handball, or that Colombia is contesting China for the men’s 62kg weightlifting gold, and I’ll tune in. By the closing ceremonies, I’ll probably have watched more than 150 hours of Olympic coverage.

So why do I love the Olympics? Because I love stories. The “human interest stories” that networks like NBC use to tie the Games together are often derided as overblown, self-promoting fluff; and on one level, they are. But we need them, too: without the people, the sports are nothing but motion and numbers. You need a narrative.

The Olympics is a perfect example of a complex narrative. Simple narratives contain very little substance beyond what’s on the surface; everything intrinsic to them can be grasped and apprehended almost immediately. Like a snow globe, the entire narrative is contained inside a tiny space, and once you process it fully, that thing holds very little allure or staying power.

Complex narratives are the opposite—take that snow globe, shatter it on the floor, and have a guy whisper, “Rosebud,” in your ear. Now we’re talking. Complex narratives refuse to be fully appreciated with a cursory glance; rather than laying everything out and revealing everything at once, they hint at the infinite possibilities that lie outside their boundaries. They are not encapsulated, but are directly connected to a living, breathing world. This condition is what makes shows such as The Wire and Mad Men compelling as narratives, and it is this condition that makes the Olympics scintillating as a narrative.

The Olympics is like a fractal: there’s always a finer pattern to appreciate the deeper you look. At the highest level, the Olympics is “about” hundreds of nations coming together to celebrate the ideals of athleticism and international harmony; the tension comes from very real political concerns within and between nations that filter into this atmosphere of supposedly-pure sporting competition. US-China relations are the most obvious talking point, and of the most interest to this blog; I’ll discuss in detail a bit later. But also of interest is Russian and Georgian competition on the field while a state of war exists between the two nations; the two Koreas failing to march together in the opening ceremonies; and the troubled journey of the Iraqi delegation to these games. The list goes on.

Zoom in closer, past the level of national concerns and the sports being contested, all the way down to level of the athletes themselves. There are a multiplicity of stories here too. Take, for example, Kateřina Emmons, who won the first gold medal of the Beijing games for the Czechs. In 2004, her name was Kateřina Kůrková, and during the Athens Olympics she was invited to be a commentator for the men’s 50m rifle competition after winning her own bronze medal earlier in the week. In that event, the favorite was American Matthew Emmons, who had a commanding lead by the very end; even a mediocre final shot would be enough for his second gold. He had an excellent shot — on the wrong target — and plummeted to eighth place.

Afterwards, Matthew gave Kateřina a post-event interview; they met later at a beer garden. They hit it off almost immediately, and married in 2007. Now the husband and wife are competing (for different countries) at the 2008 Games — that’s an international meet-cute that Hollywood screenwriters would kill for. (Another wrinkle to her story: the women’s 10m air rifle was scheduled as the very first event of the Beijing Games because it was perceived to be an easy win for the Chinese defending champion, Du Li. Instead, she placed fifth and Kateřina took the gold.)

These kinds of stories are endemic to the Olympics not only because of the sheer number of competitors, but because of the intermingling of those competitors from almost every country and every walk of life. Sure, there are the stories of the professional sportsmen (The “Redeem Team” and Federer-Nadal come to mind), but as some of NBC’s $1 billion worth of ads remind me, a fair number of these world-class athletes will be flying back home to their jobs at Home Depot and the like. The somewhat-condescending ideal of amateurism espoused by IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin may be dead, but the story of the everyman/everywoman striving for the pinnacle of athletic achievement is still an appealing one. And even with the deluge of Olympic coverage, it’s impossible to fully see all the stories.

So you have to pick and choose the best of them. For the narrative to work, the pieces have to be there in the first place; then you put them together. And one of the key pieces is often nationalism — the pride and honor of your country is at stake, after all! Sporting events like these are the last places where it is socially acceptable to hope and fervently pray that your country utterly destroys the rest of the world. And international competition makes for a great narrative… sometimes.

An example of an abortive “story” is in swimming, with the 400m women’s freestyle. NBC Sports even had a flashy pre-event video package explaining the gravity of the situation: French swimmer Laure Manaudou was defending her world record against Italian favorite Federica Pellegrini — and Pellgrini was the current girlfriend of Manaudou’s ex, who had posted nude photos of Manaudou on the internet! Truly soap-operatic stuff; unfortunately the story floundered when Pellegrini finished a disappointing fifth and Manaudou posted even worse at eighth. There might have been a story there if American Katie Hoff, who was not predicted to win the event, had snagged the gold. However, after a strong surge she barely lost to British swimmer Rebecca Adlington. Great story for the Brits; not so much for the US.

No, the real story was in the men’s 4×100m freestyle relay, an event which has made plenty of American newspapers and has been replayed, commented, and analyzed more than a dozen times in the past 24 hours by NBC’s Olympic coverage. Really, all the pieces are there:

• Scrappy underdog heroes: This event was dominated by the Americans since its introduction in 1964 — until they placed 2nd in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They fared even worse in 2004, getting the bronze.
• Dastardly villains: It is very easy for Americans to deride the French. Alain Bernard’s offhand comment that they would smash the Americans only added fuel to the flames.
• High stakes: This event was tied to another of the big American stories of the Games — Michael Phelps’s quest for eight gold medals. A loss here could have easily derailed those ambitions.
• Escalation: This event showed every swimmer giving it their all. Even the fifth-place finishers from Sweden broke the pre-Beijing world record in this event.
• Come-from-behind victory: As expected, the French seemed poised to win the event. Then Jason Lezak closed at the gap, and at the last second… America got their story.

These kinds of events crystallize the Games into a compelling narrative. But something as big and expansive as the 29th Olympiad needs more than this one story; it needs many more. So what’s the next story?

All signs point to women’s gymnastics between the US and China, at least the way NBC and the media are shaping the story. Between covering synchronized diving and the qualifiers for women’s gymnastics, NBC Sports showed a couple of interesting pieces. The first of these was a package investigating the Chinese tradition of acrobatics and acrobatics training. While ostensibly the piece was designed to give American viewers a greater understanding of Chinese culture, it’s easy to see how this can feed the nationalistic fire: either it can be used as an excuse for why America loses at events like gymnastics and diving (”They’ve been doing this for a thousand years!”) or as something to make the victory sweeter (”They’ve been doing this for a thousand years — and we still beat them!”).

The second piece of note was an interview between Bob Costas and President George W. Bush. For an interview during sports-related programming, Costas’ questions were unusually aggressive and political, including such gems of questions as: “…This remains an authoritarian state… with an abysmal human rights record. In the long run, is China’s rise irreconcilable with America’s interest?” and “If these Olympics are as successful as they are shaping up to be, most people believe this only further legitimizes the ruling party in the minds of most Chinese citizens…” The placement of such hard-hitting political content before showing the Chinese and US qualifiers in gymnastics could not have been accidental.

For a number of reasons, this gymnastics event could prove to be a powder keg. Journalists and commentators, including Bela Karolyi, coach of the gold-winning 1996 American woman gymnasts, are already hammering on issues such as the uncertain age of the Chinese gymnasts and complications with the new judging and scoring system. This, coupled with the flubs and injuries plaguing the American team, are at least setting up for a dramatic story…

I pose a question to those on the other side of the Pacific: How is the narrative of these games shaping up over there? What stories are crystallizing with the Chinese coverage of these games? The contrasts — and similarities — could prove to be illuminating.