Bear's Blog New Zealand (Beta)

Go New Zealand!

What a great night it was! 2 gold, one silver and 2 bronze, 16 August 2008 is truly a historical day for New Zealand Sports.

My congratulations to all the medalists, and all the antheles who represented the country in the games.A special congratulation to Mahe Drysdale. To us, you've just won a gold medal.

New Zealand a small country in the world, but we are sure big in the sporting world.

not bad, but just that.

It's weekend so I didn't mind to spent pretty much whole night to watch the Olympics opening ceremony.

I didn't expected a lot out of Director Zhang Yimou（张艺谋）,so I must say it was better than I expected.

It got lots of things in it, Four Great Inventions of ancient China, the great voyage of Zheng He, teachings from "Analects" ... etc.

I don't know, non-chinese may think them as very interesting, but at least I think, the performance lacked "real substances", just 2008 people wearing ancient chinese dress or tai-chi suit running around - without a objective.

TV ONE didn't prepare well for the live coverage, it lacked commentaries. Even I found it difficult to understand what are all those people running around suppose to mean; for people who have little or knowledge on Chinese history, I imagine there is no possibility that they well ever understand any parts of the ceremony.

What I liked was the first theme - use of drums to count down.  Great light effect, very majestic, yet it is still closely linked to Chinese culture - well, if my memory serves me right, drumming in the night, or dusk traditionally is a gesture of sending the deceased on the final journey, the road to burial.

Anyway, it's not too bad  though, TV ONE should have highlights today, have look if you got time, or here.

Pro-china rally in Aotea Square today

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the news.

I do not held a point of view on this kind of events. We are living in a free country so everyone has the right to get on the street and make his/her voice heard.

However, I do have an opinion on people who put themselves into this Tibet debate and protest thing. Whether they are pro-china or pro-Tibet; it is in my opinion that people from both sides are fundamentally the same - extremist, ignorant, and both sides believe they are representing the holy truth - the only difference is that they have different religious belief.

If you thought Chinese are non-religious people, you sure need to know a lot more about this country.

Anyway, I still just enjoy to use my camera to record everything down.

Photos below are thumbnails... If you click on them in this webpage, you will see a larger size photo in lightbox; if you are reading this from a rss reader, you will see a new window with larger size photo.

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Carrefour in China

As you may heard in the news, Chinese national extremists are boycotting Carrefour in China as the response of  protests of torch relay in Paris.

Now here's a chance to see how the boycott in happening in China.

I've always said, Chinese, especially those extremists are no threats to the World. Why? Those people only dare to throw bottles and rocks to shops in China and their chinese owners, oh, and chinese who shopped in Carrefour recently.

But wait, what kind of patriotists can throw bottles and rocks to against their fellow countrymen?

That's only because they know they won't be punished for being "patriotic" in that way. They dare to boycott Carrefour, but no one's willing to protest the Chinese government's deal with Airbus, which is another French company.

If my memory serves me right, in the past ten years, only one protest application was approved by the Public Security Bureau in China. I think that was in anti-japanese raid around 2004, in Beijing.

All other protests you saw from news reports, are "illegal", and those protestors know that there's no way that their protests can be approved.

There's more report on the situation in China in Bear's Blog Chinese.

About ... Beijing Olympics

Although some people always say that sports games should not to be politicised, but let's face it, it's impossible to separate two apart - people mix sports and politics all the time.

I can throw you a dozen of examples to prove this: 1936 "Hitler" summer Olympics, 1980 winter and summer Olympics, which America boycotted the games, Munich massacre and to NZers, the recent visa restrictions that stopped number of Fiji sport teams ... and much more.

Whenever there's a protest broke out, the Chinese official's stand is "any attempt to politicise the Olympic games will ultimately fail because it againsts the will of sports-loving people."

However, what I saw is, if there was anyone attempting to politicise Olympic Games, the first one must be Chinese government itself - this game is far more than a game for Chinese Government, it's a event where it attempts to buy global respectability.

The games was also used in propaganda campaign inside China and excuses to force ordinary people to sacrifice their freedom of speech or property.

It is so politicised that the government won't allow any flaws of this game to get exposed to the World, just like this accident most of you probably have never heard about it until now.

The point is, just like commercialisation of Olympic Games, it will also get politicised from time to time. Every one has the right, the freedom to express their opinion and execise what they think like boycott the game or praise it, so I don't think it's wrong to get politics involved in the Olympic Games, and I am very disappointed on New Zealand's attempt to stop kiwi athletes from commenting on political issues.

The choice of whether to comment on the game and/or related political issues should up to each athlete's individual conscience, the last thing we need is a nanny state telling Kiwi Olympians what is right or wrong.

However, I'm not saying which side in this highly disputed game is right: only the time would tell who stands on the moral high ground.

New 2008 Beijing Olympics cartoon

I felt unable to laugh on this one like the one before

It is unclear that who is the author of this cartoon therefore I'm unable to provide the original source.

I have a very grave concern about author's personal safety if he is living in China.