Yao Ming and Olympic Dreams

If you've ever walked the streets of any major Chinese city and happened to mention that you were an NBA fan, you've almost certainly heard fired back at you the question: "You like the Houston Rockets?" At which point, you anticipate where the conversation is headed and jump right to the chase: "Yeah, that Yao Ming (姚明) is pretty good!" After rubbing the collective ego with that reply, I've sometimes felt impressed to actually share a personal opinion. I do not recommend doing so. It's a waste of air for the most part. "I'm actually a fan of the Boston Celtics." Blank stares... "You know, Boston's home team." (crickets chirping)... "Boston...it's near New York." At which point some nervous smiles and head-nods are thrown around. Like a lot of American's fleeting affairs with Lance Armstrong and cycling, one gets the sense that the majority of Chinese interest in baskestball is solely because one of their own is in the mix.

Yao Ming is NBA's tallest player and China's best-known athlete. He was born in Shanghai where he began honing his skills as a teenager with a local club, the Sharks. His height and skills later helped win Shanghai's veteran squad a CBA (Chinese Basketball Assocation) championship. In 2002, he entered the NBA draft and was selected by the Houston Rockets as the first overall pick. He has since started seven times in the NBA All-Star Game and has been named to the All-NBA team five times. In so many ways, he is the fortuitous symbol of China's modernizing aspirations, representing the superior athletic prowess and physical dominance that China's populations possess. Known as the "Great Wall of Houston," his successes are an appropriate prelude to Beijing's 2008 dreams of demonstrating on the world stage their athletic superiority.

By many accounts, the Beijing Olympics were a huge success. China provided the world with an army of capable volunteers and translators, showcased some of the world's most daring, new architecture and proved their superior athletic might by seizing the most gold medals of any participating nation (51). Furthermore, doubts about potential terrorist attacks or media altercations fizzled out with the extinguishing of the flame on August 24. China achieved its goal of hosting the world and showing off its progress while graciously treating and safely protecting its guests. With the success of this 29th Olympiad, however, have come a series of criticisms--some old, some new--that point to a number of blemishes on this pretty face of things: the violation of open media access, violation of human rights, boycotss, pro-Tibetan protestors, religious persectuions, surveillance of foreign hotels, manhandling of foreign journalists, protest zones, secret arrests, imprisonment and harassment of protestors, etc.

Questions:

(1) Why do nations pin nationalistic hopes upon their athletes?
(2) How do the different ways in which the Olympics were portrayed demonstrate the persistance of an East-West cultural and political divide that contradicts "One world, one dream"?

Links:
* Great Wall of Houston
* The Year of Yao
* 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies
* Official Olympic Song (You and Me)

Secondary references:

* Xu Guoqi. Olympic Dreams: China and Sports 1895-2008. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2008.

*Susan Brownell. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.

*Rowan Simmons. Bamboo Goalposts. London: Macmillan, 2008.