I wish that I have the positive vibes from these Olympics Games in Beijing as seen up close by International Olympics Games Chair Jacques Rogge. He has said :
"Throughout these Games, the world learned more about China, and China learned more about the world," Rogge said.
His predecessor as Olympics Games "point man, " Juan Antonio Samaranch, was even more ebullient:
"I think it is the best Olympics ever," said Juan Antonio Samaranch, former head of the International Olympic Committee. "China is No. 1."
That said, I have mixed feelings that the incorrigible "vicious attack dogs" from the Western news media have changed in any shape, form, and manner in their narrow-minded, bigoted stance of piling, bad-mouthing, and spreading venom about China and the Chinese peoples. Eurocentrism and white supremacy remain the fundamental anchors from which you look at the non-West; and China bashing, badmouthing and insulting remain at the core of the "modus operandi."
Let's be real ! You can't teach these old dogs new tricks. No way.
All these CBs (China bashers) and CDs (Chinese Demonizers)are too set in their rigidity, and they are like maggots who have infected the dying cadavers of many of these aging old media such as the New York Times, and the Washington Post.
Sadly, we Chinese around the globe can forgive ignorance or even bigotry that is based on lack of knowledge or access to news and information.
But if you are supposedly learned, well-educated, and part of the Western intelligentsia, supposedly with all the tools that will enable you to understand cross-culturally beyond your eurocentric lenses, but you remain close-minded, and have a consticted mindset, what can be done to change this narrow-mindedness and puniness of the minds ?
Time to move on. My take is for the non-West to seriously ponder, "Does the West still matter anymore ?"
For the Intelligentsia from CHINDIA, i.e. China and India, and the rest of the non-West, I think we have some serious reflections and thinking ahead in the days ahead.
I am less and less optimistic that the West can turn around in its steadily rapid decline in this new challenging world of globalization. With or without the World Olympics Games.
If you look back at how the American news media reported on these games, you can't help but wonder the jingoism that they have demonstrated. With 212 nations competing in these games, solely with NBC and other American news media reporting on these games, you would think that the athletes are primarily American and European.
And you would think that the Chinese (51 Gold medals), the Koreans (13 Gold Medals), and the Japanese (9 Gold Medals) are not even close to medal contention, but less visible. Just look at the actual medal count overall:
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml
And from the way the Western news media spin the story, these Games are all about Michael Phelps, the American Basketball Redeem Team, and Usain Bolt (of Jamaica). Everything else is just a backdrop.
You ask yourself why ? I say racism and white supremacy.
