Great Moments in Olympic History

Holiday time

Catherine and I will post less frequently for the next couple of weeks, because we’ve gone on holiday. But meanwhile, our friend Ivan will keep you company as our guest blogger.

About pundits

As afriend of mine, a wise, elderly historian, has said:

“Only in America, can someone become a famous journalist and a pundit despite how most of his predictions turn out to be wrong.”

Hmmmm.

“It is undeniable that China is shaking the world! China is a rising power!”

 

Postmodern post disappears!

Yesterday Catherine and I posted a very postmodern post here.

For the sake of postmodern thoroughness, we have decided to make it disappear.   We have however saved a copy on our hard drives and will be happy to give one to MAJ in the future.

The sacred torch, the cross and the earthquake

First, Catherine and I want to make it clear that we are not gloating over the suffering caused by the earthquake in China.   We will ask our local Catholic Priest to offer a special prayer for the earthquake victims at mass next Sunday.

But that throws all the recent babble about the “sacred” Olympic torch and Jin Jing the “angel” into clearer perspective, doesn’t it.

For all of the Chinese PR babble about the “sacred” torch and Jin Jing the “angel”, how many victims of the earthquake are now taking the slightest bit of comfort, consolation or spiritual sustenance from contemplating the Olympic Torch?

All it takes is a reminder of the essential human conditions of vulernability, suffering and death, for false idols like the Olympic Torch to be revealed as deaf, dumb, mute and impotent gods, powerless to inspire faith, hope or charity.

Meanwhile the truly sacred symbols of the Buddha, the Koran and the Cross of Christ continue to inspire those three “great things that last” – faith, hope, and charity – among the Chinese believers in those true faiths, in ways the Communist Party is revealed, once again, to be impotent to do.

True, neither the Buddha nor the Koran nor the Cross of Christ could prevent the earthquake.    But the spiritual power in those truly sacred symbols is the power to inspire transcendence of suffering and death, a power which does not reside in the “sacred” torch or in its corporate sponsors.    Call the Christian eucharist (the consecrated bread and wine, the “body and blood” of Christ) a superstition if you will, but those who believe in it are sustained mentally, spiritually – and thereby even medically, to some extent – by its symbolism of transcendence of suffering and mortality.    The same will never be true of Coca Cola, and Lenovo’s computers will never inspire righteous moral struggle in the way the Holy Koran does.

 

Zippy the Pinhead’s Gone China

Portrait of a Pinhead with a PhD in “China” or something like that.   Who needs to write accurate translations when slurred paraphrases of what you don’t really know how to translate can be made to sound intentionally funny?   Solipsistic musings are smart!  Zippy likes the packaging!

 UPDATE:   You can listen to a free mp3 of the entire song, “I’m Zippy, Who Are You?” at this link.

Ping pong, panda and China’s not so harmonious diplomatic symphony

I can understand why John Pomfret,  a senior China correspondent from the Washington Post, would strive desperately  to convince his readers that China’s international reputation has remained largely unscathed despite the recent ugly displays of racial nationalism in China and among Chinese nationals overseas.  After all, his job would be on the line, should international condemnation trigger a Boxer-Rebellion-style anti-foreign campaign in China.  I am sure many US investors and American expatriates in China will share John Pomfret’s anxieties.  However, one might ask if Mr Pomfret is still sufficiently sentient  to acknowledge the interests of his readers to know the true conditions of damages, not to mention the potentially dangerous consequences, of the current recrudescence of nationalism in China.

I really doubted whether Pomfret’s ethics would be so charitable or even be subordinated to any kind of uncynical integrity,  after I read his latest blog post titled “China’s Harmonious Diplomatic Symphony“.  Of course Pomfret’s admirers might argue that Pomfret has lived among the Chinese for such a long time that he has finally learnt the art of double-speaking.   I will let you read the following excerpts from his post and judge it for yourselves:

Long term expats-in-China: “Gooble gobble, one of us!”

What happens to Western expats-in-China after they’ve been there for a few years or so and become long-termers?  “Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us!”

From the nightmare movie, “Freaks”, an allegory for long-term expats-in-China:

 

Jin Jing, Batman, Zhang Ziyi and the Three Stooges

Food for thought from Tom Legg:

No one could have possibly dreamed up a story line about attacking a lady in a wheelchair to tug at the audience’s heart strings. That would be unpossible, right?

Go take a look at the video Tom links to in that post, of a woman being thrown out of a wheelchair in a fake “professional wrestling” stunt.

That got us thinking about other kinds of staged acts of apparent violence.   It should get the rest of you thinking too.   Beijing’s Western PR whores have been asking you to believe what your eyes tell you about the apparent “attack” on Jin Jing.   They have asked you, rhetorically, “how could it have been staged?   Don’t you believe your own eyes?   Isn’t it obvious?”

Well actually, no, it’s not obvious.   No more obvious than the staged stunts in Batman, or Zhang Ziyi’s ability to fly, or any stunts performed by the Three Stooges.   Did you know that the sounds of violence in all the Three Stooges movies were artificially produced, on machines?   That’s called “special effects”.   Please – Roland, Richard and Dave – please teach your children the difference between special effects and reality.   The real Three Stooges understood the difference, and expected their audiences to do so as well, unlike those PR machines who have nothing but contempt for their audiences.

Dramatis personae:

Moe, the alpha stooge = Roland Soong

Larry, the mumbling fair and balanced stooge = Richard Panda

Curly = could only be the incoherent, petulant, prolix Dave

The Visitors

The international legs of the Olympic Torch relay are over.   What has the world learned about China and the Chinese, in the past few weeks?

Something like this.    An allegory from Monty Python’s, “The Visitors”:

Setting:     House = The Torch’s “host” countries of Britain, France, America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, et al

Dramatis Personae:    “The Visitors” = the embassies and mobs of students from the People’s Republic of China