YOGAYUGA

This controversy topic has been on more than a week since the Chinese women team won the gold medal of team gymnastic. Chinese women do usually look young compared with our actual age, but obviously two in the team do look particularly young.

On one hand, many are delighted that China is doing so well in the Olympic, on the other hand, many are disappointed that China is breaking rules in the games. A good post made by James Fallows that shows a post, from the Stryde Hax blog, did the technical job of finding information that has not been removed from caches of official Chinese web sites. I am very surprise that how this technical guy found the caches page, and discovered the niches of the Chinese system. As what James Fallows said is correct, this revising public records is not something Chinese or outsiders should want to see, but in my eyes this is something related to justice. I think I do look at things in fair open way. Although I am a Hong Kong born Chinese, I truly believe that the internal issues of China could only be improved under international pressure. International pressure is seen as a challenge of Chinese government, is also a way that leads China towards the real modern world. Hope that this controversy story will end up in happy way but under the truth.

I read a sad story about mothers of two Chinese gold medal winners on newspaper - one is a beggar and one is picking up rubbish on the streets of Beijing for self support. Of course, these two mothers are now having good life since their sons/daughters won the gold medals. The news story didn’t name those two gold medal winners. They are now awarded big money by the government. Before they won the medals, it’s hard to imagine how their mothers survived in poverty, but their sons/daughters are actually in the national teams. Needless to say, this is the way to get out of the poverty by joining the national training. However, their parents didn’t get any government support until their sons/daughters won any international games, and became famous. Yao Ming and Liu Xiang are really the special case and exceptional case. Many of Olympians are still earning very little money every month. They do look at the competitions as their only life goals, and as the only way towards good life. The physical environment of Chinese Olympians is indeed very different from those in the west.

Just imagine how much money China spent on the Olympic and how many people of China are still under poverty, you cannot blame those who made harsh judgment on internal issues of China, and call it as a totalitarian country. I got no doubt about it.