Hiding in Words

The Olympic opening ceremony took place on August 8, in Beijing. That huge event was considered a splendor by many spectators.

This opening ceremony could be such an amazing show not only because Beijing has spent a really large amount of cash, but also something was faked in it and, fortunately, not many people paid attention on those frauds. Besides, money wasn’t the only sacrifice paid for this national show-off.

Liu Yan (刘岩) used to be a well-known dancer in China, but not now. “Due to a mishandling of supporting platform, which caused early exit of the equipment than expected, dancer Liu Yan fell from the height of nearly 3 meters, resulting in serious injury of the actress. Liu Yan has paid irreversible price …”, thus said the official statement of situation. [Source]

The truth is, a successful award-winning female dancer was nearly killed in the rehearsal of opening ceremony due to bad organization and man-made fault. With half of her body paralyzed, she is no longer able to do what she loves so much. She’s even not able to walk. Even if the officials have recognized her great sacrifice for the honor of the nation and Olympics, this is too expensive a price to pay.

On the Olympic opening show, a cute little girl in red had given an terrific reverie to all Chinese people who have gone through the days of red patriotism by singing an Ode to the Motherland(歌唱祖国). The moment was really perfect when Lin Miaoke (林妙可) sang with an impressive big smile on her face.

And again, that is not true. Truth is, Lin didn’t sing at all, the sweet voice wasn’t hers and belongs to another equally lovely little girl — Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜). Yang wasn’t chosen for the camera, because she doesn’t look as pretty (really?). And “Yang hadn’t been chosen out of the consideration of international image (of the government), (such arrangement or fraud) is in the interest of the State.” [Source] Holy crap, this is the most stupid excuse I ever heard. And such fake singing, according to a 2005 State Council regulation, shall be subject to severe administrative punishment.

Meanwhile, the foot-shaped fireworks weren’t real either. On the screen, you could see 29 feet exploding over Beijing, and truth is, only the last one was really shot and broadcasted on TV, all other 28 images were created by computer. And the fake-up took almost one year to make the images look perfectly “real” on screen. Wasting most of the preparation efforts made by the fireworks crew. [Source]

P.S. This is another questionable detail, how can you play a piano and make the music heard like this? Was Lang Lang really playing or not? (I don’t know much about piano, so, please correct me if I’m wrong.) (Merci, Véro!)

P.P.S. A came across a meaningful argument [:)]: If someone doesn’t look good enough should not appear on the screen for the sake of State interest, former president Jiang and his plain-looking wife should be kept away from the camera.

On the website of the Government of Sichuan Province, where a ruthless great earthquake happened on May 12, there used to be a piece of news saying that a local government of Ngawa Prefecture (阿坝州, near the epicenter of this big quake) successfully tracked and stopped the rumor in Barkam County (马尔康县) that “There would be an earthquake in the coming days.”

After the earthquake, heated debate aroused around the early signs and predictions of the earthquake. And this news, was quietly removed from the government website.

I wrote a posting on my Chinese blog quoting the tracking of “rumors”, and was ordered to be deleted by the Web police.

There has been signs of “uncensored” reporting and more space of free speech right after the earthquake happened. And the modern communication technologies such as the Internet and text messages helped a lot in the enhancement of the space of free speech. And the government and government-backed “mouthpieces” were really swift in responding to the catastrophe.

And quickly, the Propaganda Section of “the” Party followed in to restrict the media the second day. A friend of mine works at a renowned newspaper in Southern China, and he said, he “saw the photocopy of the document ordering to stop independent reportage and to quote ‘the truth’.”

Now, on China’s TV, you can only see a lot of information. But the highlight is on high-officials like Wen speaking slowly on getting “complete success in the relief effort” (and Hu talks even slower than Mr. Wen, the Premier), despite the innumerable deaths lying quietly in the debris. Like the government media have done in every natural and man-made disaster, every effort and every success are interpreted as the result of sticking to the party-line.

When I was eating out with my friend, who is an African European, we talked about “white Europeans often eat beef that is not thoroughly cooked, sometimes still with blood in it.” And I translated to another guy like “Europeans eat beef that is not well cooked.”

Here I subconsciously and mistakenly thought Europeans are WHITE. And my friend said “so I am not usually considered a European.”

Ummm, say if I was in Europe or America for years and even if I was well Europeanized or Americanized, I would still be referred to as an “Asian.” They call this kind of people “bananas” in America, because they are as “white” as the American people and their skin is yellow.

But my friend told me he would be referred to as “the black”, instead of “an African.”

I have to admit that Chinese people are actually a little tiny bit … racist, although this word is too strong. Most people would “naturally” feel the white are “higher” than “the Asians” and sometimes they don’t think the black people are as good. But most times this tendency is very subtle and often ignored. It embarrasses me when people tell unkind jokes about foreigners and I have to laugh with them to be polite.

I guess this is because China is not internationalized enough. And I hope things might be better as time goes on and as China develops.