Saturday, August 23, 2008

Nice Story

I saw a really nice story on tv yesterday.

The Chinese womens field hockey team won the silver medal, their first ever medal, and their head coach is actually a Korean. He's been coaching the chinese team for the past 9 years, and has learned to speak pretty decent Chinese. His wife and three children live with him in Beijing. He is really proud of his team, and has decided to retire after winning the silver medal. Despite retiring, he decided he won't be returning to Korea. Two of his children go to university in Beijing, and the other one goes to middle school in Beijing, and he enjoys his life in China very much. I really enjoyed seeing the passion and bond he shares with his players, celebrating birthdays, celebrating wins, giving lectures after losses. Kim Chang Back is his name. Also, his annual salary is just $45,000, but he donated $15,000 of his own money to the Chinese earthquake relief cause.

Shawn Johnson also appeared on China's top talk show with the Chinese gymnastics team as well. It was a cute little show. Shawn was really sweet, and the audience and her Chinese opponents really loved her. I think she's a stark contrast from the scary and highly competitive Nastia Liukin, who wasn't even invited despite winning all around gold. Johnson spoke whatever Chinese she learned, congratulated the Chinese gymnasts, and talked about her own interests and hobbies. I think the audience and Chinese gymnasts and coached really admired her. Despite looking like a tiny 16 year old girl, she has a lot of inner strength and I think the Chinese gold medal team even felt that and looked up to her.

I actually had the ticket to see the men's 110m hurdles final, which is auctioning for as much as 20,000 rmb in China. Unfortunately, Liu Xiang, the 2004 gold medalist, was injured and could not compete. It's a bit dissapointing to have the most desired ticket of the olympics and have it go to waste.

I haven't been able to watch NBC. I love NBC olympic coverage, but I heard this year all it's been is politically biased coverage and lots of whining. I think that's pretty lame.

At one of the track events I went to, an elderly late sat next to me and talking to me a lot. She asked me how's American peoples impressions of China, and I said it's good. She also asked me "why do so many Americans like to criticize Chinese human rights?" and I didn't know how to respond, so i said "I don't know." There's lots of places I'd like to see Chinese improve upon, and I think i'm as passionate about it as anybody out there, but I think the Chinese feel that they do not need others telling them that their lives are messed up because they have no civil rights. I think they feel if their lives we're as freedomless as Americans say it is, the Chinese would probably be the first ones to notice.

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