Olympic Balls: More Fakery In Beijing
THE Wall Street Journal notes mnore fakery oin Beijing. After Michael Phelps was found out, there’s this:
In the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, a procession of children bore a large Chinese flag into the Bird’s Nest stadium, each child wearing a costume representing one of China’s ethnic minorities.
However, the children actually were members of the Han majority, an arts official said in an interview. Yuan Zhifeng, deputy director of Galaxy Children’s Art Troupe, said the children were drawn from the all-Han Chinese troupe. “I assume they think the kids were very natural looking and nice,” Ms. Yuan said …
China’s 55 minority groups are officially celebrated, often as curios in pageants to the country’s self-image as a harmonious, multiethnic society. But many live on the margins of the mainstream, poorer and less-educated than their Han countrymen.
Says the Times:
“Fifty-six children from 56 Chinese ethnic groups cluster around the Chinese national flag,” read the ceremony programme.
We’re all Chinese now.
As he says:
Can you imagine the ca-ca hitting the fan if a similar ceremony in America used cute Caucasian children in blackface to simulate old-timey Negroes? Or little white Girl Scouts with Indian headdresses?
Or a Spanish basketball teams that pretends to be Chinese:
In a photo that was taken in a pre-Olympics advertisement for a courier company that sponsors the Spanish federation, Pau Gasol and friends, winners of the 2006 FIBA World Championship and strong medal favorites, posed with their index fingers pulling back the skin by the corner of their eyes…
José Calderón, the point guard who plays professionally in the N.B.A. for the Toronto Raptors, wrote on a Web site: “It seemed to us to be something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture. I want to express that we have great respect for the Orient and its people.”
Maybe, they’re one more ethnic Chinese group..?
Posted: 15th, August 2008 | In: Back pages Comments (8) | TrackBack | Permalink
