Well, just as well that Hollywood "mench" Steven Spielberg is not involved in any shape, form, or manner with the directing and staging of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics today, 08-08-08. Here are two reviews, one from the Washington Post; the other from the San Jose Mercury News:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/09/AR2008080900044.html?hpid=topnews
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10148682?source=most_viewed
From my perch watching this spectacle from San Francisco, online, via CCTV, and myriad other alternative sources other than mainstream American news media (not CNN, Fox), it is demonstarbly clear that Zhang Yimou, the amazingly creative director and pioneer of China's resurgent filmmakers from the Sian School, have produced a stunner.
What a thrill to watch this spectacular show condensing 5,000 years of Chinese history. There was a lot of symbolism in that production. One has to understand Chinese political history and grasp its complex cultural history in order to take in its full meaning and implications.
To many Western pundits, they have ran out of subjects to carp upon..... so now, the "complaint menu du jour" is that the show was "too long."
Merde ! B.S. Talk about Western self-indulgence, immediacy, and instant gratification. Take it easy, Dude.
This morning, I was reading my daily newspaper in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle, and doing a cursory "content analysis" of the "spin" of the coverage of the Beijing Olympics, I can discern and conclude immediately that the biases, prejudices, distortions, and downright insolence are obvious.
Let me illustrate to you just a sampling of how the San Francisco Chronicle spun their story:
1. On the front page, the headline reads, "Old Part of Beijing - Dirt, Not Dignitaries."
How about San Francisco's armpit side of its inner crime-infested district, the Tenderloin ? Or Hunter's Point ? In any city of the world, there's bound to be a ritzy side and a downtrodden, sleazy "armpit" side. So why was this news to the SF Chronicle?
2. Two pieces of commentary in its editorial pages were headlined as follows:
One reads: " Olympian Effort Needed to Clear China's Smoggy Skies."
How about the smog of Los Angeles or the major gridlock and bottlenecks of I-80 between Oakland and Vacaville ?
Another one reads: "The Games the West Wanted".
Gimme a Break ! Good grief. This bashing, demonization, and bad-mouthing have been relentless and being spit out as if China is a "spittoon." And much of this is being spewed from the Western world with the "privileged" prima donnas and ratpacks of the Western and American news media.
As a matter of fact, the American entourage accompanying President George W. Bush as he landed at Beijing International Airport made a fuss about how they were not accorded "VIP treatment" and were subject to luggage inspection to ensure that they are not bringing into China contraband, drugs, or unlawful materials, in conspiracy with the "mau mau" demonizers and protesters. What makes the American news media ratpack any more privileged, pray tell ? Aren't Chinese media people visiting America subject to the same scrutiny and inspection ?
Ultimately, I raise this question:
"Why do white people in America hate China and the Chinese people so much these days, I ask ?"
I suspect that these days, in an economy teetering on recession, Americans as a whole are in a surly, angry, raging mood because not only has American society tanked economically, but that morally and civilly, American society has severely been depleted by any semblance of any semblance of proportionality, cultural sensitivity, and respect for others other than their "Euro" culture. Because of these, they are scapegoating China and the Chinese.... easy "whipping boys."
They have brought their "Europeanized" version of "human rights" to manically-obsessive heights, to the point of waging a crusade against any others who do not subscribed to their version of what the concept means.
Fundamentally, when China and India, which I aptly described as "CHINDIA" start to emerge as two economic collossal powers, this emergence has sparked a lot of angst and anxiety among many Americans.
Talk about "outsourcing," "China pricing" or "Cheap Chinese imports."
Sam Walton's old Walmart's slogan, "proudly made in America" is today, "proudly made and imported from China."
Consequently, because of this, the maniacal pursuit of China bashing and demonization.
If you can't win the economic competition the legitimate way, you simply go negative, go carping, hectoring, badmouthing, mau-mauing your formidable competitor. Sooner or later, something will stick against the competitor.
Amazingly, though, instead of achieveing any success in what they are doing, the West and the Western news media have only stiffened the resistance, intensified the resiliency, and stoicism of the Chinese people, and firmed up their resolve to overcome, despite of and inspite of the pile of insults, denigration, and "bad-mouthing" mounted by many in the Western news media, acting as shills for theChina demonizers and bashers.
By the latest Pew Research poll, a robust 86% of Chinese polled expressed satisfaction and contentment about the state of their society.
So, what gives?
Let the boors be boorish. Let the insolent be insolent. Let the hooligans be hooliganistic. Let them yell, scream, insult, bad-mouth, and mau-mau China for all they want. Let them do their publicity stunts outside of Chinese soil. So long as 86% of China's population believe that their country is headed in the right direction, and solidify around the clarion call for "harmony" and "Chung Ho," China will be alright and can walk proud with its heads high.
And yes.... Let the Western news media act as amplifier and shill for the protestors, the China demonizers and bashers.
For us Chinese, just look at these bad press and publicity as "farting" --- smells bad but benign and innocuous, completely harmless. Just "hot air."
Let the Games proceed. And proceed fabulously it has thus far.
Enjoy the sports competition in the next three weeks, Dude.
Consider the following report by clicking the link below about the opening ceremonies and the absolutely stunning spectacle staged by brilliant Chinese director Zhang Yimou:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080809/D92EDVD8J.html
