This is an article I read from a Chinese’ friend’s blog post written originally in Chinese. I appreciate his words, and share his feeling. Here I translated his original write-up with a few editing and a few of my words; post it here to share.
Behind Shiwen Ye’s Case
originally written by Lei Meng
Within the first day of London Olympic Game, China had achieved four gold medals. Pleasantly surprised to all Chinese around the world, two of the medals came from the “traditionally weak” sports – swimming. This achievement was the total number of medals that China has won in the past three Olympic Games. Most importantly, one came from the man’s swimming, which had never happened before for Chinese team, while the other came from the young 16-year-old athlete, Shiwen Ye, with a new world record, which is the first time after the ban of high-tech swimming suit. However, this amazing record turned out to be a questioning towards Shiwen Ye, and then towards the whole China.
Shiwen Ye only used 28’93’’ to finish her last 50 meters, which is even faster than the famous American athlete Ryan Lochte. And then, the BBC reporter alluded that Chinese athletes might have used illegal drugs to boost the performance. Soon afterwards, numerous American and British media joined the questioning queue, affirming that this was an impossible performance. And, the one reasoning they quoted a lot is that in the last century in the 90s, there was one record showing that someone in the Chinese swimming team used some illegal drug, therefore, Shiwen Ye must have had it too. Well, shall we say, that since the U.K. had sinfully endorsed slave trade two hundred years ago; all British people are slave traders now?
Most unbelievable thing is that, after the testing organization already proved the sincerity of Shiwen, and the IOC Medical Commission and even the British Olympic Committee Ximoyini Han had come out to clarify the cleanness of Shiwen Ye, the mass media’s questioning is still all over, even saying that Shiwen Ye is exactly the same as a former East German athlete in 1980. Based on this ideology, can we conclude based on the fact that since Phelps had won fourteen gold medals in the previous two Olympic Games; but this time, he only got one, Phelps must have used illegal drugs that the previous two games did not detect, and/or this time he intentionally held a negative attitude towards the game? Either way, Phelps should be deprived of his Olympic qualification and forfeited his medals!
I would really wonder, behind all this questioning and distrust and all these demagoguings, there could be other reasons.
As is known to all, swimming is one of the most focused sports in the Olympic Games, and it is also the traditional strength of some western countries. The sudden rise of Chinese athletes is for sure difficult to accept to a lot of them. Buried in their own financial crisis for four years, with the decreasing national self-confidence, the sensitivity is accelerating. One thing that has been repeating again and again in history is the state of mind that the declining aristocrats hold against the rising power. That was the case in 19th century, and so is the case after 200 years.
Some of the misunderstanding is caused from the culture gap. One of Confucius epigram, which is deeply held by Chinese, says that a noble man puts action more than words. For example, in the press conference, Shiwen always answers her training “exciting and hard,” which even caused a journalist’s rude question, “Are you a robot who only knows training and getting a medal in the competition?”
Shiwen Ye’s receiving in the world Olympic Games is also a reflection of China in the current world. Different from the western regime and western traditional way of development, its achievement, its legitimacy, and its sustainability have been a big challenge to the traditional world system, especially now, in the “double-dip” financial crisis. There is an underline fear of its political prototype’s replicability. The former Soviet Union’s threat to the western world was not because of its nuclear weapon, nor its technology, but of its political format that had never been the case in the past. If the USSR had the same political ideology or regime as the western world, there could probably not have that much a threatening, like the current “democratic” Russia.
Because of the imaginary threatening of Chinese ideology towards the western society, even the tiniest negative event in China would be magnificently magnified. This happens in the questioning from those media towards Shiwen. Even when all the authorities have already proved the purity of Shiwen’s case, those media are still chasing behind. Their long established influence is still quite capable to change the God into a Satan.
Talking about western media, there are also some Chinese people and Chinese media that are closely chasing the nuanced detail of the whole events, without mentioning any achievements China has been making. All in a sudden, they are regarded as the most “unbiased”, “objective”, “upstanding” side of all. During this current London Olympic Games, the competition between east and west has been seen everywhere. Another one is its opening ceremony. Soon after it’s successfully elected to host this Olympic Games, the U.K. encountered the financial crisis. Under this situation, it can only go into an austere way. Under such hardship, this opening ceremony can still be regarded as successful. But it can definitely not be in comparison to the Beijing Olympic Opening, simply because what you gain what you pay. If the U.K. is not facing this recession, its opening would be far better from the one we had. But some British media still claim it exceeding the Beijing Olympic Opening; although from a patriotism standpoint, it is understandable. Objectively speaking, the way British hosting this Olympic Games has to be constrained by its trapped financial strength. But some Chinese scholar started to connect this to the political ideology, saying, “Compared to 2008, the special British humor is the specialty of the London Olympic Opening Ceremony. It is also related to its political regime and historical tradition. Under the democratic regime, officials are overseen by civic commons, therefore they cannot forbid the gibe from media, and therefore, produces the political joke. In Confucianism, politics and teaching are in one, where one has to be serious all the time, having the least humor.” Well, the British Bertrand Russell said in The Problem of China, that two saints (referring to Confucius and Zhuangzi), although living in an era two thousand years ago, have already had the humor and restrain of modern Chinese, which Europeans could barely understand, but which adds a lot of happiness to Chinese, and which makes their restrained character more obvious. Chinese people are not lack of humor, and the humorous superiority lies within their restrained acumen. Chinese’ humor is totally different from the fart that Mr. Bean did in the opening ceremony. Although, many people approve it online that this fart is the most famous fart in the world, since it is a fart of democracy and freedom. So I guess people should brandish more of a thing that many years ago, Mao Zedong put the word “fart” in his poem. But for liberal people, the British fart is the fart of freedom, while Mao’s fart is the fart of despotism.
Even some people comment online that the underline words for Beijing Olympics is “I am a big country! I am a big country!” while that for London is “I have been a big country for long!!” I guess this should be just the opposite. Beijing Olympic showed the line of an ancient civilization that has been passing down to now without interruption. China has been a big country long before the notion of “big country” was produced. It was simply a return to its place; simply showing-off a few old stuff from home would amaze the world to such an extent. London, on the other hand, signals that “I have been a big country, but not now…”
There are a lot of people interpreting the London Olympics in terms of politics. Respectively, the U.S. on the other side of the ocean says from its NYTimes, with title “A Five-Ring Opening Circus, Weirdly and Unabashedly British.” But at the same time, the The Christian Science Monitor says that “Opening Ceremony London 2012: Did director take shot at US on health care?” Some liberalists comment that American people have a kind human nature, while Chinese are having an evil human nature. Because, according to him, Americans have a religious and democratic regime. But in China, it is the long feudalistic despotism tradition. Well, it is probably that this guy does not read news or history. He probably does not know the recent Denver tragic, or the Wenchuan earthquake, or even the recent flood in Beijing, or the slavery and all sorts of discrimination in America that has been lasting for couple of hundreds of years. Even among the equally pious Europeans, even in their darkest Middle Age, they offered slaves freedom; but why is that in the same Christianity, slaves in America were treated differently?
Shiwen Ye’s record in the Olympic history is nothing surprising. In Beijing Olympic Games, Phelps received eight gold medals single-handedly. People are amazed by him and are cheering for him, but no one accusing him for using illegal drugs. The reason is simple: the world has been long used to the power of America. With time, when China returns to the stage of the world, this tragic on Shiwen would not be repeated. On our way to return to our place, there are outside twisting of fact, questioning of success, mocking, blocking, and pressing; but none of these are threatening. What really needs to pay attention to is the lack of confidence among ourselves, the blind belief and the superstitious following to the western world, and the interpretation of the fart in the opening mime to the heavenly and nobly fragrance. Because of this diffidence, we may lose our stand to cure our problem; lost the opportunity to restore and to advance ourselves, but on a path to a severe recession, the end of fragmentation, and the prey of exploit.
Articonomics 