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I asked my friends on Facebook and also my social-media addicted FriendFeed “friends” whether they felt more negative or positive about China as a result of the Olympics. Here’s some of the responses:
FriendFeed
Here were a few responses I got on aggregator site FriendFeed (link to the discussion thread here):
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Summary:
- Some people were more positive than negative
- Generally impressed with architecture, modernity
- Chinese Olympic cheerleaders in bikinis at the beach volleyball games also help
- Some felt that “the positives and negatives balanced each other out” and theGames “confirmed many of my impressions.”
My feed on FriendFeed is here: http://friendfeed.com/elliottng
Here were some responses I got in Facebook:
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Some reactions:
- “exactly, utterly the same”
- positive about the ability to pull of an event of this size and scale
- negative about the perceived need for perfection that caused organizers to fake fireworks, to fake minorities with Han children, and to hide the singer with crooked teeth
- impressed by Zhang Yimou (see Southern Weekend interview of Zhang Yimou at China Digital Times: part 1, part 2), but less impressed by the Party
- not surprised by the crackdown on protests and undesirable people
- impressed by the art and architecture…”there is some free thinking going on there”
Exactly, Utterly the Same
“Exactly, utterly the same”: I think this is probably the most powerful insight. People came in with a set of impressions and feelings. Some had a more negative feeling about China than others. The Olympics gave xenophobic, hateful people what they wanted: intimidating armies of performers, goose-stepping soldiers, demonstration of unrepentant authoritarian power, casual disregard of press freedoms and “the truth.” The Olympics gave critical people what they wanted: empty protest parks, 70+-year old women sentenced to re-education. The Olympics also gave supporters of China what they wanted: Gold medal leadership, exceptionally well-run games, friendly volunteers, artistic and architectural achievement.
In summary, the Olympics did not win hearts and minds for China that already had a strongly negative impression of the Chinese Government, or a strain of xenophobia or fear of the Other. But the Games did create a richer set of images for people who have limited awareness or previous interest in China, or have images of China from 1989, 1993, 1997, or some other time-lagged perception of China. In that way, it may be a small step forward in helping some people see China for what it is today.
How would your non-Chinese friends answer the question: “Did the Olympics make you more negative or positive toward China?”
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photo courtesy 赤子之心chizi-zhixin on Flickr
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