Today marks exactly one year until Beijing kicks off the next Summer Olympics. I've been reading a lot about how behind Beijing is on lots of important stuff, like human rights and the environment, and to be completely frank: I'm worried about China. It's going to get a lot of bad press in the next year and beyond because while China has a lot of good things going for it (the food, Zhang Yimou movies, the people) and will always have a big place in my heart, it is not what the West is used to, in a lot of ways.
I experienced a great deal of culture shock visiting Sweden because in my head, there was the USA, and there was the rest of the world, which for me equals China. (I lived there for a year, after all, and it is very much ingrained in my mind.) And Sweden was very different than both the US and China. It was clean, orderly, easy. Nice. China is mostly none of these things. Living there for so long and going with the purpose I did made my China experience very different than what the media and certainly, the athletes, will experience when they spend a month there next August. And like I said, I'm worried for China. The country and the people are all about saving face, and they will lose a lot of face when athletes complain (rightly so) about the pollution and politicians and others complain (rightly so) about so many other things. These Olympics are the most important thing to happen to China (at least the capital city) in a long time. It's a country with a lot of rough recent history, and they're desperately seeking the approval of the globe. They think they belong at the top (and they were for centuries), and this is their chance to show that they are again. I can't say this with any certainty because my scope of experience is limited, but China is far behind South Korea, Japan and the West in lots of areas (and I don't just mean structural and behavioral, I mean societal issues: justice and freedom issues). It made for an exciting place for me to live and explore, but it'll make for a bad place for the Summer Olympics, I'll bet my bottom kuai on.
It's a pipe dream of mine to make it back there next summer (either as a teacher, or who knows, a blogger) but whether I experience Beijing on display in person or not, I promise for the next year I will be paying close attention to the Middle Kingdom and what the world is saying about it.
P.S. I'd like to find a great news feed for all things Beijing Olympics. My first instinct (of course) would be Google, but if anyone has a better suggestion, let me know.
I experienced a great deal of culture shock visiting Sweden because in my head, there was the USA, and there was the rest of the world, which for me equals China. (I lived there for a year, after all, and it is very much ingrained in my mind.) And Sweden was very different than both the US and China. It was clean, orderly, easy. Nice. China is mostly none of these things. Living there for so long and going with the purpose I did made my China experience very different than what the media and certainly, the athletes, will experience when they spend a month there next August. And like I said, I'm worried for China. The country and the people are all about saving face, and they will lose a lot of face when athletes complain (rightly so) about the pollution and politicians and others complain (rightly so) about so many other things. These Olympics are the most important thing to happen to China (at least the capital city) in a long time. It's a country with a lot of rough recent history, and they're desperately seeking the approval of the globe. They think they belong at the top (and they were for centuries), and this is their chance to show that they are again. I can't say this with any certainty because my scope of experience is limited, but China is far behind South Korea, Japan and the West in lots of areas (and I don't just mean structural and behavioral, I mean societal issues: justice and freedom issues). It made for an exciting place for me to live and explore, but it'll make for a bad place for the Summer Olympics, I'll bet my bottom kuai on.
It's a pipe dream of mine to make it back there next summer (either as a teacher, or who knows, a blogger) but whether I experience Beijing on display in person or not, I promise for the next year I will be paying close attention to the Middle Kingdom and what the world is saying about it.
P.S. I'd like to find a great news feed for all things Beijing Olympics. My first instinct (of course) would be Google, but if anyone has a better suggestion, let me know.
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