a telling tale

I had assumed you weren't posting a lot because you were busy preparing for your reunion! But I can imagine how hard it was for you to watch the games. I watched very little (I don't own a tv), but one event I saw was the men's marathon. It began with a huge loop around Tiananmen Square, and as I looked in fascination at the aeriel view of the site, which was utterly devoid of people, I thought of you and what you witnessed there. The U.S. is loaded with sites which recall for me and many others similarly painful memories of injustice and tragedy, though not always on the same scale.

Coming from a Chinese person

Coming from a Chinese person such as yourself, this is all the more courageous and credible.  I think a lot of Westerners have seen through the facade, but have felt it politically incorrect (and unprofitable) to come out and say it.

 Between Thailand and Burma, spanning the Moie River is the "Friendship Bridge."  It is the one place in the northern provinces where tourists are free to enter Burma from Thailand.  They are carefully navigated through a minuscule section of "prettified" Burma, while within a couple of miles, the Burmese Army is using toddlers as human minesweepers to clear the way for new roads (also built under forced child labor.)

The "window dressing hose job" seems to be the modus operandi for most oppressive regimes...the Far East is just the example I'm most personally familiar with.

 Alas....we're pretty complicit in the whole process.  We even have people like Franklin Graham coming back with glowing reports of how much religious freedom there is, while Christians in the 'underground" church are regularly being carted off to the Bamboo Gulag, which supposedly no longer exists.

 The story you told of the monk/prophet has a close parallel with Nathan the Prophet and Kind David.  (I won't post the whole story here..but here's the gist.)

2 Samuel 12

 1And the LORD sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.

 2The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:

 3But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.

 4And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

 5And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:

 6And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

 7And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;

 8And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.

 9Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

 10Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

 11Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

 12For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.

 13And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.

 14Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.

Sigh! I was thinking of you,

Sigh! I was thinking of you, Belle, while watching the games, and "The Painted Skin" parallels my impression of the entire display. 

I'm worried about the one Chinese diver out of eight who was bested out of a gold medal by an Aussie.  I'm worried about what will happen to the underage female gymnasts if the IOC's investigation results in their disqualification and medal stripping.  Like Jessica, I'm worried about the injured track and field star who couldn't compete.  And what will become of the female beach volleyball players who lost out to the Americans in the gold medal competition?

I wasn't fooled by the elaborate PR machinations and the showmanship, but I'm concerned that others might be.  The "best" dictatorial regimes always cover up their heinous misdeeds and human rights abuses by putting a pretty face on them.  As disgusting as I found the swapping out of the child singer in the opening ceremonies with a supposedly cuter lip syncher, in a way, it was appropos, to the extent that it telegraphed to otherwise naive viewers how things really work.

To be fair, China doesn't have a lock on this.  Nor does Myanmar.  In Jordan, the road between the international airport and the Dead Sea five-star hotels and conference center is state of the art.  That is because the World Economic Forum holds a conference at the Dead Sea every few years.  So the big wigs and the media hordes see only that and think all is well in the happy kingdom, when the truth is that most people are impoverished, the regime stays in power through oppression, and the human rights track record is abysmal.  Yet we are complicit in this, for our government funds it, and our leaders choose to turn a blind eye.  :-(