San Francisco Asians fret over insult to Olympic torch

By John | Sunday, April 6, 2008 | View Comments

In today’s Front Page, The San Francisco Chronicle writes about “S.F. Asians fret over insult to Olympic torch.” If you haven’t been hiding under a rock the past month, you know that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch relay will be coming to San Francisco this Wednesday, April 9th – the only appearance in North America. With the recent crackdowns in Tibet by the Chinese government, there have been increasing calls for nations to boycott or protest in some manner (i.e. not attend for the opening ceremonies).

I’ve been to one Olympics – the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, and I definitely felt the Olympic spirit, and certainly understand that the protesters are not protesting against the Chinese people or Chinese culture, but the Chinese Communist government. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), did grant Beijing the 2008 Olympics partly to cajole China to improve its human rights and greater democratic freedoms to its citizens (much like what actually happened in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in South Korea). Chinese-American organizations and Chinese-Americans in San Francisco are concerned about what kind of message protesting against the Chinese government will really accomplish:

“San Francisco is the only city in North America to host the torch, and it should not be a political issue,” said Lui, the adviser to the Chinese American Association of Commerce, which represents 140 local groups. “Whatever disagreement the protesters have, it is not the time and place for it.” “We understand your rights of free speech, by all means, but be a gracious host, be sensitive to the fact that in San Francisco one-third of your inhabitants are Asians,” said attorney Edward Liu. “Many of us, Chinese Americans, in the city, we may not be supporting the Chinese government, but to politicize this game and to use this torch relay as a platform to bash China to me is unacceptable.”… [Ling Chi Wang, professor emeritus of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley] who has opposed the protests during the torch relay, said the contrast between how the torch is received in San Francisco and other countries will “embarrass not just the disrupters but sully the image of San Francisco – and America.”

Well, with all due respect to Professor Wang, he is wrong. Today, London had their 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay and there were, as expected, protests. Massive protests. You can read more about the protests in London in The Times, “Beijing Olympics: hopes swiftly extinguished by violence and farce.” Here is some video from the Associated Press:

I am all for protesters to protest peacefully. Attacking the torch relay runners to try to extinguish the flame is nothing something I condone. Hopefully things in San Francisco will turn out better than in London, which looked like a complete disaster. Paris is the next stop, and I’m sure there will be a lot of protesters there.

Protesting aside, there will be many Chinese American organizations that will be welcoming the Olympic torch relay. The Northern California Chinese Cultural Athletics Federation is mobilizing about 1,000 volunteers from the Bay Area, who will gather at Justin Herman Plaza on Wednesday and welcome the torch relay team with a public tai chi performance.

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Toro

I could see myself having this conversation with my mother. It’s always about appearance. What will the neighbors think. The neighbors will think I’m a bad mother. I’m quite sure we could have this conversation till I was blue in the face and never come to any agreement.
Toro

I could see myself having this conversation with my mother. It’s always about appearance. What will the neighbors think. The neighbors will think I’m a bad mother. I’m quite sure we could have this conversation till I was blue in the face and never come to any agreement.
Ben

The Communist party leadership has shown that it could care less about pressure from foreign governments, foreign NGOs, the UN, its promises to the IOC, and certainly even less about the welfare of its own citizens.

One thing that they do care about is loss of face, so disrupting the Olympic torch relay and embarrassing the Chinese government on the world stage is one of the very rare opportunities to get their attention.
Ben

The Communist party leadership has shown that it could care less about pressure from foreign governments, foreign NGOs, the UN, its promises to the IOC, and certainly even less about the welfare of its own citizens.

One thing that they do care about is loss of face, so disrupting the Olympic torch relay and embarrassing the Chinese government on the world stage is one of the very rare opportunities to get their attention.
http://itsbo.blogspot.com Bo

I may be in the minority but I hope every single Olympic Torch procession is interrupted in very non-violent but ubsurdly public and disruptive means. London and Paris set excellent examples. The Chinese gov’t will try to use these games much as Nazi Germany did in 1936 to paint a false, glossy, pretty picture of a country that is marred in horrible human rights violations. These protests are one of the rare public outlets for the world to express their outrage at the horrid gov’t policies of communist China. Embarass the bejesus out of the communist leadership, I say. The protesters and the cities won’t appear poorly – China will. And the whole “saving face” argument…do you really want to save face on something like human rights violations?

BTW, little known fact – the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself as a PR gimmick. Well, you can’t say that the IOC hasn’t made mistakes in the past.
http://itsbo.blogspot.com Bo

I may be in the minority but I hope every single Olympic Torch procession is interrupted in very non-violent but ubsurdly public and disruptive means. London and Paris set excellent examples. The Chinese gov’t will try to use these games much as Nazi Germany did in 1936 to paint a false, glossy, pretty picture of a country that is marred in horrible human rights violations. These protests are one of the rare public outlets for the world to express their outrage at the horrid gov’t policies of communist China. Embarass the bejesus out of the communist leadership, I say. The protesters and the cities won’t appear poorly – China will. And the whole “saving face” argument…do you really want to save face on something like human rights violations?

BTW, little known fact – the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself as a PR gimmick. Well, you can’t say that the IOC hasn’t made mistakes in the past.
http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com Ernie

The first images and sounds broadcast in space was of Hitler as well; doesn’t mean we shouldn’t broadcast images into space anymore. But anyway.

As an American of Chinese ethnicity (O RLY?) I think what kinda makes me uneasy is this one sentence quip that was in the article about the protests in Paris:

Outside, a few French activists supporting Tibet had a fist-fight with pro-Chinese demonstrators. The French activists spat on them and shouted, “Fascists!”

That breaks my heart, because violence was resorted over two sides, completely blinded by the others view. And I don’t have enough faith in humanity to say that won’t happen in San Francisco on Wednesday.
http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com Ernie

The first images and sounds broadcast in space was of Hitler as well; doesn’t mean we shouldn’t broadcast images into space anymore. But anyway.

As an American of Chinese ethnicity (O RLY?) I think what kinda makes me uneasy is this one sentence quip that was in the article about the protests in Paris:

Outside, a few French activists supporting Tibet had a fist-fight with pro-Chinese demonstrators. The French activists spat on them and shouted, “Fascists!”

That breaks my heart, because violence was resorted over two sides, completely blinded by the others view. And I don’t have enough faith in humanity to say that won’t happen in San Francisco on Wednesday.
http://www.8asians.com John

Bo – hey, John Stewart on The Daily Show just mentioned that fact – that the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself.
http://www.8asians.com John

Bo – hey, John Stewart on The Daily Show just mentioned that fact – that the olympic torch relay tradition was started in 1936 for the Nazi Germany hosted Olympics by Hitler himself.

8 Asians