BEIJING—“Of course I’m excited, how could you not be?” It’s a brisk day in Beijing, but here in the dining hall of Peking University, nothing can cool marketing student Jackie Yu’s enthusiasm for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games. “I’ve never seen Chinese people so excited before, everyone is behind the Olympics,” says Yu. Signs of this fervor can be seen across the city. Crowds swarm the official Games merchandise kiosks at shopping malls. Subway commuters stare agape at flat-screen TVs playing educational videos about the various Olympic sports, many of which they have never seen before, such as equestrian events and kayaking.
For Yu and many other Chinese, interest in the Olympics has little to do with sports. Hu Ming, a computer science major at Beihang University, says it’s about showing his homeland to the world. “There is still a lot of misunderstanding about China—that we’re some underdeveloped people with long plaited hair and bound feet. So everyone sees this as an opportunity to show the world what the new China is really like.”
Of course, China’s path to the Olympics has been fraught with controversy. Despite promises to clean up its human rights record and improve air quality before the start of the Games, the government has continued to face protests and complaints, most notably for its ties with the Sudanese government, its continued occupation of the Tibetan and Xinjiang Autonomous Regions, and pollution around its Olympic venues.
While the central government has tried to appease foreign observers with piecemeal concessions, the mood at home seems decidedly resolute. “Personally I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about,” says Li Qing. As a political science and philosophy student at Qinghua University, Li is well aware of the arguments being put forth by human rights activists. He simply disagrees. “I think China just has a different understanding than the West of what it means to uphold human rights. Would it be better to go back to the old Tibetan feudal system where the peasants were treated like slaves to the Dalai Lama? Or to have offshore prisons like the American Guantanamo Bay?” He adds, “The government is like a person, they don’t always do everything perfectly, but overall we think they do more right than wrong, especially after the Sichuan earthquakes where they acted so quickly. How can you say they don’t treat their citizens right after that?”
Indeed, many see the May 12 earthquakes in Sichuan province as a turning point in Olympic preparations. The Games took on greater symbolic meaning: Not only do they unveil China’s grand debut as a world power, supporters say, but also the country’s strength as a survivor.
Serious concerns arise that this intensely renewed nationalism has allowed the central government to get away with imposing questionable policies. The Olympics have brought a host of new regulations that range from the more innocuous “social courtesy” program of instructing citizens on Western norms—to line up, not wear pyjamas and slippers in public, and avoid noisily spitting on the street—to more contentious measures that some call social cleansing. The latter call for stricter controls on the flow of itinerant workers, police registration of migrant travelers, and crackdowns on such “unseemly” sights as homeless panhandlers and street vendors. To U.S. expatriate Weiling Wong, the measures are attempts to cover up ugly urban realities. “The government is hiding the children under the bed while company’s over,” Wong says.
Li, the Qinghua student, still stands by his government. He argues that the controversy is overstated. “We are the most populous country in the world. One city here has more people than some European countries, so of course our government has to take certain policies that you Westerners find terrible, but without them, we would have total social chaos.”
Though some locals are ambivalent to the Games or oppose them altogether, there is a general recognition of this as a historic moment. “We are ready,” goes the theme song for the one-year countdown to the Olympics. The propitious date of August 8, 2008, holds high hopes for a country that has hurled headlong into modernization—and for protestors demanding social and political change. Let the Games begin.
