The Olympics

A confession — the Olympics were not an event I “seized” in the traditional “live life to the top” sense.

In many ways, I might as well have been in Siberia watching it on a small black and white TV screen. I didn’t fling myself into the mob at Tiananmen Square and witness the fireworks during the opening ceremony. And I certainly didn’t crowd in at Wangfujing to watch it on the big screen.

Instead, I went out with friends, hit the Saddle, and came back to watch the opening festivities at home.

And then I went to the light-weight and light heavy-weight boxing matches the next day. A friend hooked me up with two tickets. The other “cool” venues were out of my price range. So all in all, I got to watch 21 matches.

Russia whooped on Sweden. The US beat out Argentina. The Irish kicked ass because, well, they’re Irish and this is boxing. And China barely won against some small country I can’t even remember.

(The Chinese guy wasn’t good, but the People carried him to victory. He had no choice but to somehow win. For that matter, the People carried all of the Chinese athletes to victory with a force I haven’t before witnessed in my life.)

But anyway, boxing was fun until I got bored and uncomfortable sitting in chairs designed for someone two feet shorter than me.

That’s it really.

All attempts at politicizing the games aside, the Beijing games went off flawlessly. The plan was sound and the people rose to meet the occasion with a sense of diligence and honor rarely seen.

I was impressed. The sincere kind of impressed, not the one laced with cynicism and the word “but.” And this from a guy who hates pageantry and “feel good” events.

And if you were to press me further, I would have to say the 2008 games were most remarkable because for the first time in several hundred years, the Chinese people, as a whole, had something to be genuinely happy about.

Something to be proud of that wasn’t tainted or contaminated. Something they earned for themselves in the wake of rebellion and unforgiving natural disasters.

To understand the Chinese mentality, you only had to watch the opening and closing ceremonies.
No one stood out. There were no individuals. Instead, there was a force of people moving in synchronized coordination to accomplish something grandiose.

That was China moving at its best. It is also China’s strength and its most staggering weakness.

And in the coming years, I’ll be keen to to see if they’re able to keep their footing together.

August 26th, 2008 in Current Events |