With the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing, China pounced immediately on this opportunity to heighten their image as a country of peace, prosperity, and sportsmanship. All was going well for awhile and then...hilarity ensued.
Now I realize some people may not agree with me that these PR backfires are as funny as I find them but then again I appreciate the subtle (or not-so-subtle) irony of the situation. I'm not saying that every China-related media frenzy is worth a chuckle (lets not forget the tragic earthquakes and mudslides that occured) but for a country whose government is so hell bent on giving just the perfect image that they'll do ANYTHING to portray it just so....they've had almost everything come around full circle and covered internationally.
It all begin with the running of the torch; the beloved precursor to the actual Olympic events. This year, the torch was met with controversy as protests against the Chinese recognition of Tibet were held. As media swarmed over the on going struggle for Tibetan freedom (which, might I add, isn't necessarily a bad thing) the Chinese government and the Olympic Committee did their best to, well, ignore any relevance to the issue at all, giving themselves a sort of double standard as the Olympic games drew near. This mindset seemed to say "sure, we oppress people in their own native land...but enough about that! Let's put focus back on the Olympics, a true show of humanity and peace, which China is a blossoming example of!"
Thats not really what I find funny though. It starts the way, but in truth its simply world politics at work...and really, theres not that much that even I find hilarious about that.
A few days ago, however, as the Olympics were finally underway the world was met with breaking news; the little darling who sang her heart out in the Opening Ceremony was not, in fact, the actual singer at all. No, the real 7 year old girl who sang was deemed "not cute enough" by a panel of "officials". Basically, this little girl was told she wasn't good enough to represent the image of China and thus a much more agreeable looking child was found to lip-sync. Interviewed later, the snubbed singer Yang Peiyi told China Central Television that "just having her voice used was an honor"...perhaps another attempt at covering this up? In case anyone is wondering, Peiyi doesn't look like the child of Frankenstein; the picture of her in an AP article about the situation showed a cute, bubbly, chubby faced little girl...the kind of little kid that any audience would eat up just as much as they did with the pig tailed Lin Miaoke. Of course, theres going to be those people who say "Westerners don't understand. It's more important that the most beautiful child represent the country that China is trying to portray" simply because they're butthurt over such shallow narcissism...Westerners wouldn't understand? The whole Western hemisphere is obsessed with body image and unreasonable standards of beauty, and even the media still made a big deal out of this child getting the double standard. Way to go China PR, if epic fail was an olympic sport, perhaps you'd have even more gold medals to show off.
Last, but not least, anyone who has watched the womens gymnastics knows what I'm about to touch on....China has two competitors, both said to be 16, whom all were skeptical about. Seriously, you can't tell us that those girls are 16. Even the Chinese media reported on earlier news documentation within the past year claiming both girls to be 13 and 14, respectively. However, the Olympic Committee has given a simple answer; the government-provided passports claim them to be 16, therefore, they must be 16. This is funny to me an absurd sort of way, since fake legal documents MUST be out of the question, despite those things floating around known as FACTS.
So what have we learned from the perfect nation that is China? Douchebaggery is acceptable as long as you have one document saying it is and you are pretty enough to present it. The spirit of humble sportsmanship lives on!
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