da xi gua

There are still numbers of Canadian looking at China with colored-lens. Here is one of them. The writer Christie Blatchford wrote this article the other day after the Opening Ceremony. Just take a look of it yourself. The subject is "The iron hand behind the magic show." She is with the news paper "The Global and Mail", which is one of the most subscribed news papers in Canada. "The Global and Mail" is division of "CTV Globe Media".

I have written a letter to her and to all senior Editors of "The Global and Mail" days ago. If you would like to write something to her and those senior Editors, here are their addresses:

All following information is originally from "The Global and Mail" website. For accuracy, please refer to: www.theglobeandmail.com  

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD  (Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinions/columnists/Christie+Blatchford.html)
cblatchford@globeandmail.com

Senior Editors: (Link:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/help/contact-paper#editors)

egreenspon@globeandmail.com
nacampbell@globeandmail.com
jsimpson@globeandmail.com
rube@sympatico.ca
amaki@globeandmail.com
snorthfield@globeandmail.com
dpratt@globeandmail.com
NDCampbell@globeandmail.com
letters@globeandmail.ca


The iron hand behind the magic show
(Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080808.wolympics-blatchford09/BNStory/beijing2008/home)

CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
Saturday August 16, 2008





From Saturday's Globe and Mail

August 8, 2008 at 8:37 PM EDT

BEIJING — Look, when the biggest branch of the human family brings its will, considerable talents and sheer overwhelming numbers to bear upon a task, it's going to work out rather nicely.

When, in addition, this particular fork of the clan doesn't have to bother about getting permissions or permits, whip a howling, nitpicking opposition into line to get the smallest bill passed, answer to a ferocious, nasty and occasionally nutty Fourth Estate, deal with an auditor-general or 10 and otherwise account for the books, contain the delicious effects of brown envelopes, leaks and secret papers or private parts misplaced by hapless ministers – or suffer any of the other garden-variety slings and arrows of life in a raucous democracy – the result is going to be simply magnificent.

It was.

China put on a hell of a show, the Olympic opening ceremony by turns enchanting (all those winsome children), magical (fairies and spacemen floating down from the open Bird's Nest) and audacious (the last torch-bearer, triple gold medalist Li Ning, running a ring around the top of the stadium in the night sky to light the Olympic cauldron). The Chinese are accomplished, generous, inventive, peace-loving, and they look marvellous to boot.

Adam Van Koeverden carries his country's flag during the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. (Getty Images)


Internet Links

• Full coverage: Beijing 2008
  

Can I stop now? Or rather, can I say that what I am about to write next is not a slur upon the people of the most populous nation on the planet, whom I admire and like, the several hundred of them that I have now encountered, that is. I understand that they are proud to be Chinese. I'm a Canadian, so I know from needing approval: You did great, folks.

But Holy Mary, Mother of God, it cannot be considered unmannerly to note that as good as the show was, as smashing as the facilities are and as super-successful as the Games themselves probably will be, it all happened like this not only because of Chinese ingenuity, but also because the government could bulldoze homes when it needed land, put up walls whether or not they were wanted, dislocate folks at whim, spend like a drunken sailor, issue marching orders even about street-spitting and chest-baring and lock up, detain or ‘re-educate' anyone who dared whisper the mildest complaint.

As even Confucius said, in one of several quotations prominently displayed on screens at the ceremony, “The most valuable use of the rifles is to achieve harmony.” Maybe he meant hegemony.

My wonderful colleague Geoff York, The Globe's bureau chief in Beijing for six years now, sent me an e-mail the other night about the bare-chest habit of Chinese men, which has amused me and my visiting colleagues no end. He attached a story he wrote six years ago, I think, about this same penchant for shirt removal and how, in anticipation of the Games, the government had issued an edict against it. Toward the bottom of the story was a paragraph that mentioned that no fewer than 500 people had already ratted out their bare-chested fellow citizens to the Ministry of Good Conduct or whatever it's called.

How unbearably sad, but that's the kind of society Chinese communism has built, where neighbours sell out neighbours even on something as unimaginably small as this, either because not to do so would actually invite scrutiny (Did Yu see Chan take off his shirt and not report him?) or because of well-placed fear that it might (Did the police see Yu watching Chan and not pick up the phone?) or because after so many years, it's every snitch for himself.

(That reminds me: On the road to the field hockey stadium, there is a tree in the second row of new plantings that is decidedly taller than its cousins. Someone should report it; someone probably has.) Similarly, when I asked one of our interpreters a few days ago about the possible places where real, ordinary Chinese would be watching the opening ceremonies, she suggested a city park where there were going to be big-screen TVs.

“Of course,” she said slowly, and added, in that doublespeak the Chinese have had to master, “the people there will be organized,” by which she meant, they would have been directed to show up with their little red flags.

It's one thing to be “voluntold” by one of your pals that you will, for a case of beer, help him move house next weekend and get his giant box spring up a narrow staircase to the third floor; another for you and him and thousands of others to be voluntold to go to a park to demonstrate cheerful support for the Games and the government.

Whenever I found myself being moved to tears by all these shiny, happy people – on the stage, on the stadium floor, in the stands, giving directions – involved in the show, I could snap myself out of it by wondering how many of them were voluntolds. The homogeneous, omnipresent smile-i-ness of the Chinese is unsettling. It reminds me of what people say when a child is killed: He or she was “always smiling.” Well, I don't know a kid who smiles all the time, who doesn't throw the odd tantrum or sulk or pull his sister's hair. Why would the Chinese?

The thing is, as a prosecutor friend of mine wrote me during the ceremony, we don't know, can't know, how much is genuine and how much is not, how happy anyone is, because in a one-party dictatorship, we know only what they want us to know, and one thing we know is they don't want us to know much.

My friend was sick at heart by what he considered the fawning coverage of the opening on the CBC. “China may have a lot of new Ronald McDonald statues and wave a lot of hankies in unison,” he said, “but they still don't let their people think, vote, talk. We don't know.

“Human history – Romans, Americans, great empires – are built on freedom, not a better monetary position. I think the human soul wants freedom, liberty, most of all. No better example than the U.S. flag bearer [runner Lopez Lomong, once a Lost Boy of Sudan and now a proud, grinning American].

“So give me liberty,” my friend said, “or give me a triple burger and large fries. I take liberty.”

So, it was a great show. But that's all it was.

To borrow from a song by Jim Carroll, an old New York rocker, all those people who died – by the millions in the Great Leap Forward – died. All those who were subjected to the self-criticism and struggle sessions of the Hundred Flowers Movement, and who renounced what was dearest to them, suffered. The only nod to the man then at the helm – the Great Helmsman – was in the vaguely Mao-style jackets worn by the Olympic flag-bearers, all great Chinese Olympians.

The party, the government, that can so revise history, obliterate great swaths of it, can do anything. No wonder these Olympics were built with less fuss than it takes the average Canadian to get the okay from the committee of adjustment to enlarge his garage.

The former Olympians handed off the flag to eight uniformed members, I think of the People's Liberation Army, who smartly marched it, in a nice, high goose-step, to the pole. It was a fine reminder, the veiled threat amid the colour and fireworks and fun.

da xi gua

In the other day, CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD repeated her article about the Opening Ceremony with a similiar subject. Her mind was not changed....

"Beware the iron hand behind the magic show"
Link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080809.OLYMPICSBLATCHFORD09/TPStory/TPComment/?query=

da xi gua

Here is what I write to them again today.



Dear Christie,

"Keep up your good work." was the last line in my previous email to you. I found you really get points on something. Obviously, your articles are filling with you personal emotion, anger and jealousy. I don't agree it's a professional way to write.

Is Canada a perfect country? Negative. The hell a lots of problems inside Canada, but why our critics, you are one of them, only know criticizing other countries issue. By doing that, you can't help improving this country, Canada. It's the place you and your loves live. Do you want to help improving the system and the living environment for yourself, your loves, your friends and your readers? Why do you wasting so much energy, and subscriber's money just for expressing your personal emotion? I am residing in Canada. Honestly, I really don't like to see you wasting subscribers money just for your own "pleasure", critisizing other countries. If it helps to improve Canada's, I would like to say I were wrong.

Look at yourself, how much abhorrence to China in your mind. Some people do dislike China, but you are just gone extremely. Reading your words is just like hearing a crazy woman screaming out loud. There is a very good example should fit you.

Your neighbor was poor, and ugly. Supremely you found the neighbor moved to a better house, even bigger than yours. It's too short for you and your mind couldn't even adapt to the reality. So you were pissed off. You started telling people how bad your neighbor is, blah blah.... So people start thinking you are an expert of critic, but they just don’t know actually your neighbor has been getting a much better life. So your readers are so enjoying your speeches so far, but they would realize the true when they would get a chance to.  G&M is not the only media in Canada.

FYI, Time magazine has more influence power than G&M, not to mention yours. Should you subscribe Time magazine. At least one thing you can learn from it, what is impersonal.

China is in the rapid change, and will take the lead among many countries. Canada's voice will become weaker and weaker, comparing to China's. I really doubt how you could ease your abhorrence and anger when the day comes...  My advice is, take 3 Flax Seed oil softgels three times daily with a meal. It would reduce the chance of heart disease, including heart attack. You need triple dose, because you have too much abhorrence....

I know it's not easy for your kind to get use to it, but it's the life! Wish you will have a good sleep, and take it easy.

2dian

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