Archive for The Tao

A blogger in Beijing.

America’s financial crisis

October 20th, 2008 • The Tao

I don’t know enough about the markets to comment at length about what’s going on on Wall Street, but I do have the ability to sense trouble when it’s here. And reading this from NY Times’ columnist Roger Cohen has me positively frightened (not as frightened as by this , but still). I excerpt:

Asked about the crisis, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , the Brazilian president, said: “What crisis? Go ask Bush.”Thanks, Lula. Brazil is sitting on $208 billion of its own in reserves, so perhaps Lula would say his flippancy is justified. But I don’t think it is.

Remember the last financial crisis in 1998? With the Russian economy in a freefall, Moscow officials scurried to the U.S. Treasury to secure vital American support for $17.1 billion in new International Monetary Fund loans. That steadied things.

The world has changed in the past decade. There’s been a steady transfer of wealth away from the United States in a shift most Americans have not yet grasped. But there has been no accompanying transfer of responsibility. New powers are free-riding as if it were still the American century.

This is not exactly a new theme. We’ve been hearing about a world power shift for a while now, from America to not-America, and the Democrats have used it as a sort of rallying cry for their campaign (not quite phrased as “America’s decline,” of course). But what are truly the ramifications of a new world where America doesn’t have the strongest voice?

We can speculate for hours. But here’s one thing that must end, and might under a Democrat in the White House: American hubris. I’ll end on a quote from a Democrat in the House of Representatives, from Cohen’s column:

“I think it’s a perverse pride thing,” he said. “We don’t ask for help. We’re the big, strong father figure. But let’s be realistic: we’re no longer the dominant world power.”

Cohen’s column brings up China on more than one occasion. Well worth a read.

UPDATE, 9/24: China Vortex says if America’s financial system goes down, so does China’s .

NOTE: This was originally posted on 9/24/08.

Nine Chinese oil workers kidnapped in Sudan

October 20th, 2008 • The Tao

From AP :

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Nine Chinese oil workers were kidnapped in an oil-rich region of southwestern Sudan in the latest attack on China’s interests in the African country, officials said Sunday.

Sudanese officials blamed a Darfur rebel group for Saturday’s kidnapping, calling it a stab at development efforts in Sudan. The attack took place outside the western Darfur region and none of the Darfur rebel groups, who have fought the central government for five years, claimed responsibility.

As we get more information I may have more thoughts, but for now I’ll say that this reminds me of an article by Peter Hitchens last month. Basically, after almost getting killed by a murderous mob in Zambia, he wrote a withering and — to be quite honest — blathering anti-China piece titled “How China has created a new slave empire in China .” I excerpt from the Daily Mail:

It is my view - and not just because I was so nearly killed - that China’s cynical new version of imperialism in Africa is a wicked enterprise.

China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid advantages of shameless exploitation.

For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, promises of new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a free and tax-free run at Africa’s rich resources of oil, minerals and metals.

For the people, there are these wretched leavings, which, miserable as they are, must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.

Read the article with a critical eye — that is, ignore the part where he describes his narrow escape from death’s grip, or whatever — and you’ll see this isn’t an article at all: it’s an op-ed, and a poorly conceived one. (Is it just me, or do most British articles seem terribly subjective and biased, not to mention poorly written?) For example, edit out some of Hitchens’s select adjectives and this is what you get:

It is my view that China’s new version of imperialism in Africa is a(n) enterprise.

China offers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple advantages of exploitation.

For the governments, there are gargantuan loans, new roads, railways, hospitals and schools - in return for giving Peking a tax-free run at Africa’s resources of oil, minerals and metals.

For the people, there are these leavings, which must be better than the near-starvation they otherwise face.

In other words, when viewed with an objective eye instead of one from a guy who “was so nearly killed,” there’s no evidence that the enterprise is “wicked”; there’s no evidence that the “promises” of those new roads, railways, etc., were, as Hitchens implies, empty promises; there’s no evidence that the leavings are “wretched.” And one has to ask — the writer should have at least asked if not answered, which he does not — why are they wretched if in fact they are “better than the near-starvation they otherwise face”?

Here’s the thing: we all know mining is a tough job, and we readily acknowledge it must be tougher in Africa than elsewhere. No one denies that. And no one denies the endemic poverty in many African countries, and the squalid conditions, and the diseases, and, yes, the exploitation. It’s truly a tragedy, this on a continent that does not lack for tragedies. But to say China has “created a new slave empire” is rubbish. It also happens to be irresponsible and sensationalistic and stupid — maybe we can blame the Mail’s editors on that one, but we’re not here to pass the buck.

Just read the section that starts…

It is noticeable that in much former British territory we have left behind plenty of good things and habits that are absent in the lands once ruled by rival empires.

Even so, with Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Uganda on our conscience, who are we to lecture others?

…and you’ll understand how unorganized and ill-conceived this article is. The question “who are we to lecture others” is never answered. Hitchens doesn’t so much as attempt to write around it: he flat out drops it in favor of more China-bashing — “Peking regards anything short of deep respect as insulting, and it does not forget a slight,” etc.

One more excerpt — this is from the same piece, mind you:

[China] has cancelled Zambia’s debts, eased Zambian exports to China, established a ’special economic zone’ in the Copper Belt, offered to build a sports stadium, schools, a hospital and an anti-malaria centre as well as providing scholarships and dispatching experts to help with agriculture. Zambia-China trade is growing rapidly, mainly in the form of copper.

This is the great wretched doing of China’s slave-drivers? Really?

What am I missing here?

China’s first spacewalk

September 27th, 2008 • The Tao

China Daily

China’s first ever space walk happened today, which was hard to miss because it was broadcast on every channel. My grandma, yesterday, could hardly leave the TV to eat, and she’s one who almost never has the TV on during lunch.

Of course, the most spectacular moment during the spacewalk — when astronaut Zhai Zhigang waved the Chinese flag — was captured by… a screen grab. Here’s the caption to the following picture:

In this video grab taken on Saturday, September 27, 2008 from China Central Television, Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang waves a Chinese national flag as he conducts the nation’s first spacewalk [CFP]

Bravo, China Daily: you know how to connect a CCTV1 broadcast to your computer and hit the SAVE SCREEN button on your keyboard. Intrepid, guys.

I’m going to toss the final word over to James Reynolds of BBC:

This is a country that spent decades feeling left behind - and even picked on - by the rest of the world. But this year that feeling has begun to change. It’s hard to carry on feeling like a victim when your country hosts the Olympic Games and then does its victory lap in space.

Now if we can only get the people to be less defensive. But inferiority complexes take a while to overcome, if they can be overcome at all.

POSTSCRIPT: Video via Danwei.

A view from Ritan Park

August 31st, 2008 • The Tao

A view from Ritan Park

Another absolutely beautiful day today. What would you have done with it?

Closing shop on the Beijing Bureau

August 27th, 2008 • The Tao

The Olympics came, bringing color, joy, sound, culture. People arrived with drums, face paint, flags, chants. For two and a half weeks, they helped transform the city into a place befitting the center of the world, giving us something to smile about and take pictures of (or with) every step of the way.

And now it’s gone, all gone. Only a few reminders of the big party are left, regular tourists who have stayed to watch the city’s post-Olympic depression manifest itself in the empty streets, the folded-up volunteer kiosks, the subway tunnels where once again the only faces are those of the Chinese. The clamor has been turned down. Life returned to normal. I can’t bear to even turn on the TV because all I’d see are reruns — reminders of what was.

Sigh.

Final entry here.

Bureau archive here.

This guy is a real China correspondent?

August 25th, 2008 • The Tao

This article, from BBC’s James Reynolds, is so incredibly bad that I’m going to give it its own post in the hopes that five days later, or whatever, I can revisit this and make sense of it. Why anyone would start a post-Closing Ceremony post like this –

It’s over.

In a state which has no God, the Olympics has been a religion - together with its own cathedrals, rituals, and sacred flames. Everyone in China was meant to be a worshipper. If you didn’t believe in the Games, you were dismissed as a heretic.

– is utterly beyond me. Only someone who has absolutely no idea what’s happening in Beijing — who hasn’t bothered talking to locals, many of whom say the Olympics are a hassle and are in fact not burned at any stake — can write something like that. If a blogger off the block said that, no one would bother. Reynolds, on the other hand, works for BBC, which makes this article utterly appalling.

It gets stranger from there… a cataloging of national leaders (”The King and Queen of Sweden sat a bit further back - democratically wearing their official Olympic accreditation round their necks”) followed by this observation:

The biggest cheer of the entire night came when David Beckham rose up from the 2012 bus (if ever China decides to hold elections, Beckham might have a reasonable chance of getting a seat on the Chinese Politburo).

Uh… really, James Reynolds, were you actually there? Or did you catch it on the tube from your favorite English pub?

And then this: “Then came the final moment of a decade of work. The Olympic flame (always known here as the ’sacred flame’) was put out.”

“Sacred flame” is a Chinese thing, huh? It’s not called the sacred flame because, say, that’s what it’s always been called, from the days it was lit by a High Priestess in Athens?

The reaction to the post has been, well… invisible. As of 9:18 p.m. Beijing time, there have been 67 comments — this is over a two-day period — and all of them look like this:

67. At 1:39pm on 25 Aug 2008, daisylan2008
This comment is awaiting moderation. Explain.

Xujun Eberlein, a notable blogger and author, linked to Reynolds’s abomination from her blog, Inside-Out China, with four words: “This one is hilarious.”

One way of putting it, I guess.

How does Reynolds’s blog post end? Oh but with a bang! Never mind ridiculous and ill-conceived…

A billion people will now have to find something else to believe in.

From the Closing Ceremony

August 24th, 2008 • The Tao

Here’s how good it was: afterwards I was walking on the concourse checking out pictures on my camera when I went smack into a wall.

I can still hear the awful splat sound from my forehead and right knee banging into concrete. My teeth hurt a bit, too. There’s a welt on my head and a bruise on my leg.

But… it was worth it. I guess.

Someone went to me and asked to exchange tickets because he wanted to sit with his wife. I said my aunt would exchange, since she had an L section ticket. He gave her his B-category ticket for her D, and let’s just say the difference was stunning. The above photo is about the place my aunt watched the Closing Ceremony. Contrast that to my view.

More on Zou Shiming

August 24th, 2008 • The Tao

My fascination with Zou Shiming, China’s great hope for boxing gold, continues. I can’t believe I just found this New Yorker profile of him written by Evan Osnos, who earlier this summer penned the best China article I’ve read all year, “Angry Youth .”

Excerpt from “The Boxing Rebellion”:

Teacher Zhang stood close to Zou’s face, spoke softly, and tipped a trickle of bottled water into his mouth. When the bell signalled the start of Round 2, Zou sprang forward and buried a left-right combination to even the score. He set his stance farther apart than before and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. He scissored his legs, an homage to his idol, Muhammad Ali. His first round, it seemed, had been a warmup. He glided around Paraschiv, pausing only to flick a combination into the Romanian’s padded brow. Every time Paraschiv slung his fist, Zou eased out of the way and counterpunched. Paraschiv, pivoting and swinging in vain, did not score another point in the round. Or, for that matter, in either of the two rounds that followed.

Zou rarely knocks his opponents out. He batters them and darts out of reach, like an angry sparrow. Sometimes he holds his fists so low that they drop below his waist, a caricature of Ali. Zou is a light flyweight, the lightest weight class in the Olympics. But, even among boxers his size, Zou is known for exceptional speed. After he beat the Irish fighter Paddy Barnes, I asked Barnes what had happened. Zou’s left hand, he replied. “It’s that fast. I could hardly see it coming.” When the American Rau’shee Warren was on his way to losing to Zou in the 2004 Olympics, in Athens, Warren told his corner that he couldn’t keep up: “I’m telling the coach, ‘Dang, he can move, and I can’t catch him!’ ”

Women’s volleyball semis from Capital Gymnasium

August 22nd, 2008 • The Tao

Today was hot by any standards but felt even more so because we just had two nights of rain and uncannily cool weather for August. This, of all days, was the day I chose to wear jeans and boots, partly because I wore shorts and flip-flops through rain yesterday and was not very comfortable. To make things worse: I was at Bird’s Nest through the morning going on two hours of sleep. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m in the comfort of an air-conditioned home right now.

I want to sleep. I want to read. I want to write about the Bird’s Nest and women’s volleyball. I want to find out what exactly happened with the U.S. track relay teams. I want to catch replays for U.S.-Japan softball and U.S.-Brazil women’s soccer, which I missed, or U.S.-Cuba in baseball later this evening, and definitely the basketball games. I want these Olympics to not be ending this Sunday .

Anyway, I was at Capital Gymnasium yesterday — as I mentioned before — watching China take on Brazil, the world’s No. 1 women’s volleyball team. Afterwards I wrote a piece for ESPN The Magazine’s website.

Game photos:

Chinese gymnasts not legal, officially (sort of)

August 21st, 2008 • The Tao

It seems a new blog called Stryde Hax has blown the cover off the Chinese gymnast age controversy. A brief summary to bring you up to date, in case you haven’t been following:

The New York Times first reported that members of China’s girls’ gymnastics team — the one that won Olympic gold — may have been underage, two years below the legal limit. Documents were uncovered. They were deleted. Passports were reissued. Hullaballoo created. Cries of Western media bias. Jokes. The IOC didn’t care.

Enter Stryde, who hacked into Baidu, which is Chinese Google, and found a cached spreadsheet showing gymnast He Kexin’s real birthdate — before it was changed and the documents made unavailable — as 01/01/04, making her 14 years old. Check out Stryde’s discovery (and screenshots) here .

In a second post, Stryde writes :

What is this post really about? I don’t really feel that it’s about the gymnastics age limit, or even really about whether fraud occurred. At this point, I believe that any reasonable observer already understands that age records have been forged. This story now is really about Internet censorship, the act of removing evidence while at the same time claiming that the evidence is wrong. For the first time I watched search records shift under my feet like sand, facts draining down a hole in the Internet. Will this stand?

An excellent point, if you ask me.

As for whether this is sufficient evidence for the IOC to take away the girls’ medals, I’m not sure. It would be an absolute shame, but if it really is true that the Chinese team cheated, they deserve to get punished, especially since we’re not just talking about the team but the Politburo, which had railed against cheating while imploring its athletes to “stay clean.” This would be an embarrassment of monumental proportions.

I suspect, however, this story will fizzle in the coming days. The West always assumed the girls were underage anyway, and the Chinese… well, they’re not going to find out about this. Not officially, anyway.

UPDATE, 8/22: From ESPN News Services .

Congratulations to the Chinese ping-pong team

August 20th, 2008 • The Tao

Xinhua

Both the Chinese men’s and women’s table tennis teams won the gold medal this week, with the women beating Singapore 3-0 Sunday and the men trouncing Germany by the same count. China has captured 18 of 22 table tennis golds since the sport was introduced in the Olympics in 1988, a feat that’s absolutely incredible when you consider how many countries play ping-pong and how little margin of error there is at the game’s highest level. When the Chinese need to be perfect at the table, they are — almost without exception.

I’d also like to say that watching ping-pong on TV is absolutely awesome. I pity the viewers in America who just aren’t getting much coverage — or getting it on MSNBC at 4:30 a.m. During one point in a Japan-Germany semifinals match, a Japanese player returned a shot with his paddle over his head — the spike came in that hard — and ended up winning the point. I was out of my seat and agape.

The “beating Singapore” link is a recommended read, and not just because it makes mention of cutie Li Jiawei, a native Beijinger who emigrated to Singapore because she didn’t make the Chinese national team. She’s not alone: her two teammates on Singapore’s team are also Chinese. To give you an idea of how difficult it is to make the Chinese squad: the world’s top five female ping-pong players are Chinese (Li Jiawei comes in at No. 6), as are the world’s top four men, according to the International Table Tennis Federation ’s August rankings. Let’s just say that “wall of champions ” in Peking University is filled with Chinese names.

But Li, we still like you.

POSTSCRIPT: Wired on “the truth about table tennis .”

When it comes to bad, misinformed, baseless, lazy-in-its-purest-form writing about China…

August 19th, 2008 • The Tao

This one takes the cake.

Rick Reilly, you are officially a tool.

And if anyone needs me to explain why, you do so at the risk of making me mad.

A few words on China’s fallen hero

August 18th, 2008 • The Tao

The track where Liu Xiang will not compete.

My Monday ESPN Beijing Bureau post dealt with Liu Xiang. At this point not much more needs to be said, but if I can add just one thing…

Concluding paragraph from the ESPN post:

Later that night, at the conclusion of the day’s track and field events, the Bird’s Nest’s giant screens showed a highlight package that included Liu Xiang’s face. First it was from the morning, his expression contorted with pain and the initial stirrings of unspeakable disappointment. A little later he appeared again, this time as part of a montage set to the Olympic song “Forever Friends.” It was an image everyone here is familiar with: the moment the hurdler crossed the finish line in Athens, his eyes lighting up as it dawned on him that he’d just pulled the biggest shocker in his country’s sporting history, exertion giving way to pure jubilation. It was a poignant moment, and one people here will want to remember. Who knows when we’ll see it again?

Liu Xiang’s problematic heel has been bothering him for years, and it may not get better. Anyone who runs knows how painful a bum heel can be. Now imagine trying to run at world-class speed while hoping over a set of ten hurdles, landing on your heels each time. When people say Liu Xiang was in “excruciating” pain, I believe it.

The question no one here is asking but everyone should be is, Will Liu Xiang ever be the same? Will he ever contend again at world championships? Will he be a medal contender in London? I’m not so sure. At 25, his career may be over. He gave China one incredible, unforgettable moment — that instant he crossed the finish line in Athens — and now he may have to take his leave. It’s too early. I understand why people here want more: Liu Xiang is a once-in-a-lifetime athlete, the sort who has a combination of charm, intelligence, dedication, patriotism, good looks and natural ability. When will China get another Liu Xiang? For that matter, when will China get another male athlete able to compete with the big boys in the glamorous track and field events?

It’s a question no one’s asking, and for good reason: we may not want to know the answer.

Boxing at Workers’ Gymnasium

August 18th, 2008 • The Tao

I attended Olympic boxing Saturday night with Jiujiu and wrote a story for ESPN The Blog that was published today. I’ve reproduced excerpts of an unedited version below.

Let’s just say the bouts didn’t get good until the Chinese took on the French, in the fourth bout of our evening. Then hell broke loose in the arena.

“The Sweet Science.” It could mean many things yet nothing at all, and so it is that boxing is likewise hard to pinpoint. Is it a science for its technicality or art for the humanistic exhilaration of mano a mano battle? Is it sport or brutality? Is it competition or assault? Throw the phrase “boxing is called the sweet science because” into Google and you won’t come any closer to an answer (”Boxing is called the sweet science because thats what it really is when you watch the best fight” [sic]). The best you can hope for is to take a seat and soak it in.

That’s why we were at Workers’ Gymnasium Saturday night, taking in eight pre-quarters bouts in the light fly (48 kg) division. Amateur boxing may be under fire for its scoring system, which awards points for punches deemed successful (”They way it is now, you might as well do fencing if they are going to judge like that,” Britain’s Billy Joe Saunders said after he lost his welterweight fight last Thursday), but that doesn’t detract from the excitement of being in the venue. One bout in particular comes to mind.

…

Yanez was gracious in defeat, congratulating his opponent and going over to shake hands with the Mongolian trainers. He exited with dignity, even as an unpopular decision — yet another in a string of many — left fans shaking their heads. Science? Hardly. If but only for the saving grace of sweetness.

Pressure claims its first Chinese athlete

August 17th, 2008 • The Tao

Li Du, gold medalist in the 10-meter air rifle four years ago, had a chance to win the country’s first gold medal of this Olympiad this morning. Instead, she placed fifth.

Tearful, she ducked the media and only addressed the media hours later, after, I’m sure, some agonizing self-reflection. Still visibly shaken — sobbing would be the accurate word here — she apologized, then expressed her sincere regret for her performance. It was heart wrenching.

Was it enough? That may not be the right question, because people have stopped caring. China is competing in too many events with too many chances to win gold — in fact, weightlifter Chen Xiexia did win gold soon after Li Du’s event concluded — so right now Li’s an afterthought, if even that. Her name has been relegated to the nether of just about every Chinese website. These are the stakes for China’s minor athletes: hero or unknown. Separated by the thinnest of lines.

An excerpt for you of this news story:

“I was satisfied by scoring 399 in the qualification round but I was not fully prepared for the pressure of shooting in the final at home,” Li said.

[Winner Katerina] Emmons expressed sympathy for Li.

“As far as I can see, there was too much pressure on her,” the newly crowned champion said.

“You media just swarmed around her even in her training.

“I can not bear that if I am in that situation, so I can feel what Du must have felt.”

Few can.

Good luck, Liu Xiang.

From Wukesong and the Olympic Basketball Stadium

August 17th, 2008 • The Tao

The shiny new basketball arena is a glittering achievement, more so when you step inside and realize they’ve imported everything you know about the West’s basketball product — including dancers and stunt teams — to Beijing. I elaborate in ESPN The Blog.

I was there for two sets of doubleheaders: Spain-China and South Korea-Brazil in the afternoon with Wang Kexue (which means “science”), U.S.-Czech Republic and Russia-Latvia for the nightcap with Zhang Peng.

Two thoughts that weren’t used in my ESPN entry:

1. Have you seen Brazil’s uniform? Let’s just say that when that team took on Australia a couple days later, it was a sight that could’ve made fashion designers blind.

2. For all the talk of this being a “sold out” Olympics, there were lots of empty seats for the opening of this basketball tournament. Granted, it’s women’s basketball, but still — I was surprised to see so many seats, especially for the Spain-China game, which turned out to be a thriller. In fact, three of our games were close — Brazil-South Korea went into overtime, and Latvia-Russia had several momentum shifts — and the other game, U.S.-Czech, was great for the way the Americans dominated.

Here was our view in the evening from our box seats:

Perhaps the best AP sports story ever

August 17th, 2008 • The Tao

The U.S.A.-China men’s basketball write-up, earlier this week that is. The lead:

BEIJING (AP) — In one heart pounding minute in the first half, LeBron James dunked off a nifty underhanded feed from Dwyane Wade. Then Kobe Bryant flew in and jammed. Then it was Chris Bosh’s turn to rattle the rim.

As the backboard swayed, some might have recalled the fabled Dream Team. The final score — U.S. 101, China 70 — might also draw comparisons.

Who’s worried about the 7-for-29 shooting from beyond the arc? Just toss it up and throw it down.

And because two people have quoted this excerpt back to me, I figure it’s worth sharing:

China has more than a billion people, but there’s not an elite point guard among them.

Nice job, AP.

Ah, peace

August 15th, 2008 • The Tao

From this afternoon:

Of course, I paid for it the day before by getting rained on.

The story of the inspirational archer and shooter, and more Olympic links

August 15th, 2008 • The Tao

Via CS Monitor, this story of Zhang Juanjuan got my attention:

Zhang came in ranked No. 27 in the world, less a machine than a mercenary. She might not always be the most consistent of performers (gasp!), but in knockout competitions – like the Olympics – she is deadly.

Just ask the Koreans. They had not lost this event since 1984.

Joo Hyun-Jung entered the competition ranked No. 3 in the world. Zhang dispatched her tidily in the quarterfinal.

Yun Ok-Hee entered the competition ranked No. 2 in the world. She also held the record for firing the best recorded round of archery of any woman in the history of the sport. In May of this year, she fired 12 arrows at a target at an event in Turkey. Eleven hit the bulls-eye – 119 of 120 possible points. Zhang dispatched her, too, tying the Olympic record of 115 in the process.

Park Sung-Hyun entered the competition ranked No. 1 in the world. She was the defending Olympic champion and had set the Olympic record of 115 earlier in the day.

…With [Zhang's] nation watching, she was slowly turning the screw – no question of age or piling up medals in weak events. Just her nerve against the best in the world.

When her final arrow hit the target – a 9 – she had won by a single point.

The magnitude of this upset cannot be understated. Last month, the New York Times did an article on the South Korean archery dynasty, quoting one of the competitors as saying, “Our sensitive fingertips, descended from our ancestors, and our spiritual strength and willingness to fight until the very end — they are the secrets.” In other words, the success of South Korean archers is written in their DNA. How do you beat that?

Zhang, in taking the crown, took out South Korea — and the world’s — No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1 archers, in succession. Don’t know your opinions, but to me that’s mind-boggling.

Here’s another article about this. I’m still in shock.

I mentioned Chinese shooter Du Li in my ESPN The Blog article this week, saying how she could barely express herself through her tears after placing fifth in the 10-meter air rifle, an event she was expected to win. Well, she was in tears again Thursday after the 50-meter three-position rifle event, but under different circumstances: as a winner. She defeated Katerina Emmons, who won gold in the 10-meter event.

“The five days between my loss and this event were harder and longer than the four years between the Olympics,” Du said something to that effect in her post-event TV interview. “I didn’t want to leave the house. Everyone was so supportive, every time I heard their words I wanted to cry.”

She was in tears again. That was expression enough.

The pressure on China’s athletes

August 14th, 2008 • The Tao

ESPN The Magazine’s Beijing Bureau rolls along. Here’s Monday’s entry.

Also, I’d meant to post this picture with yesterday’s soccer post but forgot. Cheerleaders!

At the soccer game last night…

August 13th, 2008 • The Tao

Brazil vs. Nigeria in the final game of group play at Workers’ Stadium in Beijing, there was a spectacular goal that I just happened to get on my camera. Check it out:

UPDATE: Something about copyright infringement.

Maybe it’s the crowd — ours was announced at 51,112 — or maybe it’s because we happened to catch two good games with seven goals scored between them, but the experience of soccer at a live venue really is different from watching it on TV. I enjoyed the heck out of it, for tickets that cost 150 kuai each (not expensive at all). (Actually, Zhang Wei bought them for myself and Mingyu, so they were free.)

There were fans, excitement, marchers and Fuwas… what else could one want?

Later on the concourse I saw a poor, defenseless white girl holding a Visa sign get swarmed by hordes of picture seekers, most of them Chinese. The first person who did it probably truly wanted a picture of a foreigner, and this was an easy target. The second one was thinking the same thing. Thirty minutes later, well… let’s just say people were doing it to amuse themselves. The expression on her face said “Help me.”

I started taking video because this was much too hilarious to go undocumented:

The late game saw Sweden beat Canada 2-1. There’s not much to report — a couple really nice goals — except the pre-game offered something… different.

Because we all like cheerleaders, here’s the Beijing cheerleading squad dancing to Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” and a tune from High School Musical, “We’re All in This Together.” Time (surprisingly) has a better video for you here.

A fun night all-around.

From Fengtai Softball Field

August 13th, 2008 • The Tao

From a U.S.-Venezuela softball game on Tuesday. More on ESPN The Blog. (The early game was Taipei vs. Canada, in which the Canadian pitcher had a no-hitter through five.)

More pictures:

And… hey, look, it’s Jennie Finch!

I’d just like to say that I can completely understand why Finch is popular. She doesn’t always come off as the most articulate on TV — thus knocking her down a couple notches in my book — but she has an aura on the field that’s hard to capture, even on magazine covers. You just always know where she is on the field, who she is. It’s her long legs, the American blond hair, the way she struts on the field, claps her hand, winds up her hips — it’s all of that put together. I can imagine the first journalist to peer upon her and think, Hey, she would be great posing in a swimsuit. Then it happened, and that’s how a personality got launched. Now she’s the face of softball.

Is it better that she and not, say, Crystl Bustos, the Babe Ruth of softball, is the face of the sport? Well, it sure doesn’t hurt that Finch is darn good: she struck out five in four innings and didn’t allow a hit.