It comes around every four years, and while I usually have little interest in it, this year I'm paying close attention. Of course I'm talking about Leap Year.
No, just kidding. Leap Year is stupid. I'm talking about the Olympics, to be held this August in the Chinese capital of Beijing. For the average person, the Olympics are usually nothing more than an opportunity to develop a sudden, passionate interest in obscure sports, and to indulge in some good-natured nationalism. (You suck, Albania!) But this year, there is controversy! Due to a crazy quirk of procedural irregularities, the International Olympic Committee accidentally awarded the Games to a backward, secretive country that regularly murders its own citizens! Whoops!
Just like the Olympics themselves, China's human rights violations are usually only interesting to the people involved. The rest of us are vaguely aware that something is going on, but we know that if we think about it, we'll just feel guilty for not thinking more about it. So we don't think about it at all, and we figure someone else will deal with it. It's the same mindset that usually kept the kitchen trash in my college apartment piled several feet high.
But being granted the significant privilege of hosting the Olympics has brought the matter to the forefront. (The matter of human rights in China, I mean, not my kitchen trash.) The protesters who have previously been ignored as they chanted "Free Tibet!" on metropolitan street corners are suddenly being heeded. "Go on," we are saying, now listening attentively. "Tell us more about this free Tibet you're offering."
The deal with Tibet is that China says it has always been at least the de facto ruler of that territory, while Tibet says not so fast, there have been plenty of times over the centuries when Tibet has been autonomous. In 1950, China, now all communist and mean, tried to settle the matter once and for all by invading Tibet, figuring that if they wouldn't respond to reason and diplomacy, then perhaps a little killing would change their minds. The Chinese army shot a lot of people, tore down hundreds of religious structures, and strong-armed Tibetan leaders into signing a treaty that said, basically, "You belong to China now! Oh, and you always have. So there." Frankly, China seems a bit like an abusive boyfriend who becomes a dangerous stalker after being dumped, shouting, "If I can't have you, no one can!!" as police put him in the back of the squad car and ask Tibet if it has someplace safe it can stay tonight.
There are differing points of view on China's right to control Tibet. Some say that for a comparatively weak territory like Tibet, there are advantages to being part of a larger and more powerful country. For example, Tibetans are entitled to discounts at all Chinese buffets worldwide. Others say that we're talking about land and the earth here, and none of it truly "belongs" to any man-made government. And then others say shut up, you dirty hippies, it has to belong to SOMEBODY. And then the protesters point out that most Tibetans didn't want Chinese rule in the first place, and that even if they did, they certainly didn't sign up for all the executions and murders and kidnappings and general abuse that have been a major part of China's leadership style. That part was a total bait-and-switch.
And of course, that's just how China treats its occupied territories. Its treatment of its own citizens, in mainland China, is no better. They execute a lot of people over there, even more than Texas does, including for crimes as minor as embezzlement and tax fraud. Anyone speaking out against the government tends to be imprisoned or killed. China also cruelly forces its citizens to eat with chopsticks, rather than with the more efficient knife and fork. That is why Chinese people are so thin. That, and poverty.
But China is eager to change that nasty ol' reputation! It wants to clear the air, so to speak. (Not literally: Beijing's air is dangerously polluted and will be a serious health hazard for the athletes.) The reason Chinese leaders wanted to host the Olympics in the first place was so they could show the world how modern, progressive, and easy-going they are. The Olympics are supposed to be fun, after all. To that end, Beijing is forcibly displacing as many as 1 million of its residents to make room for the Games, and local laws will banish the homeless and mentally ill from the city. See? Fun! The official slogan of the Beijing Olympics: "Come and enjoy yourself ... OR WE WILL CRUSH YOU."
Because of all this, many people are opposed to the Games being held in China and are calling for boycotts. It does seem a little incongruous to let China host an event that's meant to be in the spirit of peaceful camaraderie among nations, and doing so could be seen as tacit endorsement of China's behavior -- or, at the very least, as indicating that China's egregious misdeeds aren't awful enough to warrant punishment. You have to wonder why the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the Games in the first place. The decision was made in 2001, and it's not like China was a land of rainbows and buttercups then. The IOC should have said, "Now, China, if you want to host the Olympics, first you have to stop KILLING EVERYONE." Then China would have looked down and shuffled its feet and said, "Aw, gee, guys." And then, just when the IOC wasn't looking, China would have killed them.
Alas, it's too late for that. The IOC did award the Games to Beijing, and there's nothing that can be done about that now. So should individual nations refuse to participate in the Games? That's a tough one. No one wants to support China in anything. Their government is secretive and their laws are draconian. The toys they manufacture poison our children. Their virtual-gold farmers corrupt the sanctity of the World of Warcraft environment. They have that crazy system where their first and last names are reversed, so that when you see a Chinese name you're never sure which one is the family name and which one is the individual name. Nobody wants to endorse that kind of behavior.
But if nations were to boycott the Games, it would be unfair to the athletes. With a lot of these sports, there's a very narrow window of opportunity. For example, in 2004, an up-and-coming gymnast might have been only 12 years old and not ready for Olympic competition. Now, she's 16 and ready to go for the gold -- but if she skips this year and waits for 2012, then she'll be 20, which is like 80 in gymnast years. She'll be washed up and appearing on "Dancing with the Stars." It's now or never.
Many other athletes have been waiting their whole lives, too. There are world-class ping pong players who have dreamed since childhood of competing in the Olympics. They have trained and practiced tirelessly, ignoring the friends and family who kept telling them that ping pong wasn't a sport and shouldn't even be in the Olympics, and that they were stupid for wasting their time. Do you want to be the one to tell those poor saps that their friends were right? I know I don't.
So for better or worse, it'll be a Chinese Olympics this year. Beijing is ready. The Chinese have been practicing their fire drills, which it turns out are quite different from what I thought, and they've beefed up security. (All they had before was that really long wall, which anyone with a ladder could get past.) I say we should give China the same benefit of the doubt that the world gave Salt Lake City back in 2002: We'll give 'em a chance to prove they're not as hilariously backwards as everyone thinks ... and then we'll get the hell out of there before they kill us all.
And it's... GOLD for Snider......
Pure gold.
I feel like I've come full circle here. I started reading Snide Remarks right about the time Eric was doing stuff on the Olympics while they were near him in Utah.
I was waiting for you to make the comparison to the Olympic games held in Berlin in 1936. With the exception that Germany wasn't "Nazi" Germany when the decision was made to hold the Olympics there (and, with China, the IOC should have taken into consideration that China's always been a little like the uncle with a criminal record you try to avoid at reunions), it's a pretty good comparison.
In 1936, Hitler felt like the Olympics would be a good showcase for how advanced his "race" was. I believe the motto for the 1936 Olympics was, "Here, try some oppression. It's good for you." And now the IOC has given China the opportunity to show off some oppression of their own. And exports slathered in lead-based paint.
I can't imagine what it must be like for the athletes involved - unless visiting an oppressive and overcrowded country run by a military is anything like being in an American airport the week after 9/11. Then I guess maybe I do know :-)
I, too, found Snide Remarks in connection with the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. I was preparing to spend a month in Utah covering the games, and I was curious about the attitudes of the strange and exotic folks who lived there. Google led me to some columns by a Mormon bishop's son. One of them, titled "How To Speak Mormon" as I recall, poked fun at expressions that were remarkably similar to those of the small-town Methodist churchpeople of my youth, and that reassured me that I would feel at home in Salt Lake.
I still don't get the Olympics. At all.
Okay, Mr/Mrs Olympic Athlete, let's say your country boycotts this year, so you don't get your fifteen minutes of fame and a chance at a metal.
What were you going to do, strip naked on the platform? Melt the metal down and sell it? (Which better be Gold, then, cause silver ain't worth what it used to be.) No, you weren't? Then why should I care how fast you can run or how awkwardly you can triple jump?
You don't get paid when you win, and what happens if you take 8th place. I mean, most people won't even care about the Gold Medal winners after a couple weeks of 'back-to-your-regularly-scheduled-programs'. Do you think that maybe being the eighth highest jumper in the world is gonna get you out of a speeding ticket on down the road? Trust me, it won't.
My advice, take all the years of time and energy you're putting into physical training that may or may not get you on the cover of a Wheaties box that only your mom will keep or possibly frame; instead, spend that time and energy doing something for that actually may benefit people around you.
Now, I suppose I'll stop before I get preachy....
"This free Tibet you're offering..."
Oh my word. That'll keep me laughing for a while.
I'm still bothered that any of this matters. The spirit of the Olympics (which has long since been traded in by the IOC for crass commercialism) has been the friendly spirit of competition. It should be a time when nations find a brotherhood with each other through a mechanism that needs no translation and no bloodshed. Politics has no place here.
Yet, it seems that rather than put aside our complaints and concerns, having all people of the world meet together in athletics, we have boycotts and propaganda, protests and attention-seekers.
Fine, China has HR issues. Deal with them politically, economically, militarily. But, the Olympics should not be affected.
Or how about this, Tony. Maybe instead of spending all of this time forming a badly-spelled diatribe (example: it's MEDAL, not metal) against people who actually do something with their lives and tune their body perfectly to the point where they are the very best in the world at something, you should spend that time and energy doing something that may benefit people around you.
"Fine, China has HR issues."
I think they should just outsource all their jobs to India.
LOL!
Fabulous! That about sums up many individuals' whole awareness of anything that is going on outside their daily grind (and of course, if it's free, we might as well take one...). And you did a very nice job summing up the whole China/Tibet relationship. Kudos!
Hilarious. My favorite part was already mentioned by Randy (#6).
And Tony's comment was âœ.
Oh how I LOVE the social commentary/political stuff! Very funny! So many gems in there!
As for olympians...they get HUGE amount of money from sponsorships...life time's worth of money...at least that's what the 10,000 meter runner I know says. He runs for money? weird.
I'll tell you how China ended up with the Olympics: Bribery. The IOC is easily bought. I did a paper on it in my Business Ethics class in college. How do you think Salt Lake City ended up with the Olympics? Or Atlanta? Or Tourenau (sp?)? They gave the IOC the best stuff. Most of the IOC, or their family members, have lovely cabins in the SLC area and one of the committee members even had his mother flown in to a SLC hospital for some surgery she needed and couldn't get in Switzerland. And, of course, while she was here she needed a place to stay, so she got a house too!!!
I love the slogan. I can totally see the Chinese actually wanting to use it... "Come and enjoy yourself ... OR WE WILL CRUSH YOU." Makes me think of a little thing we used to call FFF when I was a kid. Forced Family Fun.
Free Quebec!
Ben, did you mean Torino? Sounds like your research wasn't too extensive other than some hearsay.
I can't believe no one has commented on the title of this article. LOL, it's definitely the best title you've had in a while. I don't even care if you stole it from somewhere (not that I'm accusing you of that).
Cincinnatus #14, Misspellings aside, the whole bribery thing is common knowledge. It was HUGE news in SLC before the Olympics, and it's why Mitt Romney got involved in the first place (ie to clean up the PR mess left by the original organizers after the news broke and they all resigned--well that and to fix the budget). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Winter_Olympic_bid_scandal
I like the American products in Beijing. They have things like shrimp McNuggets and crab-flavored Lays.
Oh, I'm not saying that the bribery didn't happen. That part's obvious. I only heard about it on the news every single day for three years or so. I was just pointing out that the guy did a research paper on the Olympics and didn't know the name of the town that held the games.
I don't think your joke about Chinese food/Chinese Olympics leaving you hungry for more an hour later was too obvious. And even if it was, I still laughed. But I will probably need to read this Snide Remarks again in an hour. (zing!)
Give me a breat cincinnatus, I did the paper like 6 years ago and didn't feel like looking up the proper spelling, hence the "sp?" after the town name. Sorry I didn't memorize the paper for you. I assure you though, it was very well researched and I do remember getting an A on it. I'll be sure to memorize all the cities the Olympics have been in and their proper spellings in the future just for you.
In his defense, when you're posting a comment, it is pretty hard to open a new tab and google "2006 Olympics" to see how the city is spelled.
Good stuff!
A friend of mine was one of the San Francisco protesters who caused the torch to take a different route. He was all proud until I pointed out to him that China is a totalitarian regime and, as such, does not care what anybody thinks about it.
The "this free Tibet you're offering" brings to mind a Family Guy joke (one of those non-sequitur flashback gags). Protesters were chanting "Free Tibet!" Peter says "I'll take it" and then gets in a phone booth, places a call, and says "Hello, China? I have something you may want, but it's gonna cost you. That's right, ALL the tea."
Concerning the "Free Tibet" Joke.....
Nice Family Guy reference, Eric. Is that where you got it, or is it just coincidental?
Oh man! Kathleen beat me to it! AND hers was longer!
Let's not forget we gave the 1936 Olympics to Germany. Of course, Germany was chosen in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power - and nobody really knew what was going to happen.
@matt: Actually, both "metal" and "medal" work in that sentence. "Metal" is arguably even a better word to use as it implies both meanings. A "medal" is not necessarily made of "metal" and therefore isn't always something you can melt.
I think it's funny that Sam apparently read some comments, but not all of them, since his first one duplicates what #3 said.
The "free Tibet" joke: No, I didn't get it from "Family Guy." This is evidenced by the fact that it's, you know, not the same joke. They both involve Tibet and multiple meanings of the word "free," but that's as far as it goes. I think anyone hearing the phrase "free Tibet" could probably take the additional half-step required to come up with a pun all by himself. It's an obvious joke and I'm not very creative, is my point.
@sam:
Yeah, but only MEDAL works in the second paragraph--the one to which (I assume) matt was referring: "...your fifteen minutes of fame and a chance at a metal" [sic].
Just another couple of tidbits to add to the list of oddball preparations China is making for the Olympics. There's a giant hill in the area that has been so polluted it's absolutely barren and depressing to look at. So, to give visitors a more natural and springlike view, and to save money on actually planting anything, officials decided to paint the whole thing green. Also, they're educating everyone on how to stand in line.
Weird, I came here moments after my daily BBC check up, and spent loads of time sifting through all the comments on the Have Your Say discussion regarding the Olympics, then come here to find a China-themed Snide Remarks. Compared to all the angry commenters on the BBC complaining about the "biased evil western media", this Snide Remarks could be turned in as a college essay. Never cracked up so much reading an essay though.
Ahhh, what I wouldn't give for the days of Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding........yeah, I know wrong games, but still......:)
There's more than one Karen here that goes by her real name?! Hello other Karen!
I just got the rhymes-with-China monologues reference. Funny.
"Their virtual-gold farmers corrupt the sanctity of the World of Warcraft environment."
QFT. I hate you China.
Actually, Karen and Karen, there are at least three of us Karens who use our real names. (But because I am older than dirt and have kinown for a long time that my name is not unique, I've been using my whole name whenever possible for at least 25 years.)
To #15 Skizat: Yeah, me too! I was going to say that, but this time, I read all the comments before posting so I wouldn't duplicate it. Good thing I did. It's especially funny to me because around these parts (southwest of Columbus, Ohio), the preferred redneck term seems to be just the last two syllables. Good one, Eric.
This column was absolutely rich with good, solid humor. Some of it subtle, some of it more obvious, but this column as a whole was the best one in a long time, in my opinion. Restating the best parts would be tedious; it was, start to finish, simply (dare I say it?) golden.
Seriously. I could see this column making the rounds as an illicit Forwarded email, like the "Titanic" column did, back in the olden days. Excellent work.
You had me at "Leap year is stupid".
I knew there was a reason why I visit this site so often...
Very funny column! I love the bit about the Chinese practicing their fire drills! Brings back fond memories of High School 20 years ago-that's 80 in gymnast years!
I also instantly thought of the Family Guy non-sequitur when I read the "free Tibet" joke. (Am I the only one who thinks that joke is painfully unfunny?)
The title for this column is awesome.
And I hope you were kidding when you said table tennis wasn't a sport!
Eric, if your mom ever gets tired of you I will adopt you. I've read nearly everything you've ever written since your days at the Daily Universe. You are a very very very funny man. I will never be able to see a "Free Tibet" sign or bumper sticker again without snickering... :) I can't wait to read your coverage of the Olympics. Anybody up for a Chinese Fire Drill?! Hey, that could be an Olympic event!
While reading at work I repeatedly laughed out loud inappropriately. Best work in a while Eric!
He was all proud until I pointed out to him that China is a totalitarian regime and, as such, does not care what anybody thinks about it.
Actually, it kinda does, considering it went to the trouble of volunteering to host the Olympic games and making Beijing look nice and joining the WTO and playing ping-pong with U.S. athletes and all that other stuff it's been doing since the Nixon Administration.
I just want to know if Eric's received any email yet from people defending Albania. Surely someone out there is "shocked and appalled" that he would dare insult so fine a country.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
Comments & Reaction:
When I mentioned the Dalai Lama being given the Congressional Gold Medal back in October, I said: "Apparently the U.S. has been wanting to give the Dalai Lama this award for a while but didn't want to upset China, which kind of hates His Holiness and is bitter about the whole Tibet thing, which is a very complicated and thorny issue that I don't feel like going to Wikipedia to learn more about." And now, coincidentally, the subject has come up again, and I went ahead and did some learning. (I was kind of kidding before about not knowing anything about it.) By the way, this page does a really good job of summarizing China's and Tibet's opposing points of view, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Doing a column about China means trying to come up with all the stereotypical Chinese things to make jokes about, e.g., Chinese fire drills, buffets, etc. It crossed my mind to suggest that after we have the Chinese Olympics we'll be hungry again for more Olympics an hour later, but it seemed too obvious.
SnideCast intro & outro: "Chopsticks Mambo," Jack Constanzo & His Afro Cuban Band.