Hundreds of millions of Chinese people, that’s who.
Lin Dan, badminton champion, is on his way to rock star status through a combination of good looks (relatively speaking) and an ever-growing reputation as a bad boy.
Witness some of the edgy — some would say unsportsmanlike — conduct that is drawing legions of fans to the formerly obscure world of top-level badminton:
Mr. Lin is representing China at the Olympics. The suspense is killing me…
The spirit of Milli Vanilli lives!
What do you do if you’re producing the Olympics opening ceremony and the powers that be decide that the little girl chosen to sing the “Ode to the Motherland” isn’t cute enough? Do you:
Give up? Watch the video:
Here’s the Spanish Olympic basketball team in a photograph that they posed for before leaving for China:
Ching Chong China-Hombre!
Yes, they’re really pulling at the corner of their eyes.
What’s bizarre is that the picture was taken for a full-page ad appearing in Marca, Spain’s best-selling newspaper. I’m guessing they thought it was cute. Humorous. Good-natured fun.
Spain is learning their lesson the hard way — word is that the photograph may jeopardize Spain’s bid to host the Olympics in 2016 or 2020.
The incident reminds me of how, back in 1979, the US Navy was loooking for a popular music group to help in their recruiting efforts. As you may recall, they ended up picking the Village People.
The Olympic Games have not yet started, but already host country China has been accused of cheating.
The accusations center around two women on the gymnastics team who may be a few years short of 16, the lower age limit imposed by the Olympics since 1997. Conflicting records indicate that He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan may be as young as 14.
Chinese gymnastics officials have stated that they are relying on Ms. He and Ms. Jiang’s passports, both of which indicate that the women are in fact 16 years old.
Well, that settles it. I mean, to pull off this kind of fraud on the international gymnastics community would require iron-fisted control over a corrupt bureaucracy staffed entirely by civil servants too frightened or misguidedly patriotic to blow the whistle. There’s no way that could happen in China!
BTW, this is not the first time that the question has come up. In a televised interview, Chinese gymnast Yang Yun said that she was 14 at the time of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, at which she won individual and team bronze medals.
North Korea, however, holds the record for the most brazen attempt to add a couple of years to a gymnast’s age. At the 1991 world championships the North Korean team included a gymnast named Kim Gwang Suk, who claimed to be 16. Ms. Kim was 4 feet 4 inches tall, weighed 62 pounds, and was still missing her two front teeth. During one stretch in her career, the North Korean Gymnastics Federation had listed Ms. Kim’s age as 15 for 3 straight years.
Things got ugly in Beijing when tickets went on sale for the Olympic Games, set to kick off on August 8, 2008, at 8:08 am. Particularly prized were tickets to the diving events, in which China is a gold-medal favorite.
Hopeful ticket seekers camped out for more than 24 hours with the line stretching out for more than a mile. When the ticket booths finally opened, things got “scary” as people tried to push to the front of the line.
Rude Chinese people? I’m shocked!
Some broken-hearted diving fans were forced to settle for tickets to synchronized swimming.
If only, if only there were some technology that allowed people to buy tickets without actually having to be there…
If you’re McDonald’s or any of America’s other top consumer brands, the answer is China. American corporations are reportedly champing at the bit for the chance to use the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics as an advertising springboard into the vast Chinese market.
I can’t wait to see what Amtrak comes up with…
Why not ride the rails that your ancestors helped to build? We promise that you won’t have to carry any sticks of dynamite this time around. There’s way more than a Chinaman’s chance that you’ll have the time of your life!
President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month, saying that skipping the event “would be an affront to the Chinese people.”
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2008-07-06-bush-g8_N.htm
In other news, President Bush knows how to use the word “affront” correctly.
(Note to President Bush: If my in-laws are any example, the Chinese people are going to be affronted no matter what you do…)
Usually, when the Chinese government talks about cleaning up scum, they aren’t being so literal.
But square mile after square mile of blooming algae is threatening the suitability of Chinese waterways for Olympic competition. The algae population has exploded, in large part, as a result of pollutants that have created an excess of algae nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen.
The port city of Qingdao has mobilized 10,000 workers and 1,000 boats in a frantic effort to clean up the problem in time for the Summer Olympic Games, which are scheduled to kick off on August 8, 2008, at 8:08 AM.
No word yet as to whether a way has been found to blame the problem on Tibet.
