What's Gold Got To Do With It: China's Post-Olympic Identity

While the U.S. continues to usher in an era of economic sturm und drang, China faces its own transitional crisis: the age of post-Olympic discovery.

After all, while it's true that to the victor goes the spoils (51 gold medals is 51 gold medals is 51 gold medals), it's also true that nobody remembers pyrrhic victories (by globalization standards, 51 gold medals ranks a distant third to human rights infringements, and putting drinkable milk on grocery store shelves).

But as is usually the case with China, symbols transcend results. Winning more golds than anyone else is exactly the kind of paradoxical achievement that enables New China to keep marching to the beat of its own hollow drum -- trumpeting one-note nationalism while still keeping the high hat and the snare of individual athletic prowess intact. The proof is in the pudding, and for everyone else at the table (read: other international powerhouses), humble pie was served.

It's no wonder, then, that Chinese authorities and their appointed media shills have been working overtime to keep the sports-as-life-metaphors in an extra air-tight Ziploc. At the state-owned television channel where I work -- an enigma wrapped in a microscosm of middle-class China wrapped in a riddle -- employees now face the burden of inflated expectations, both individually and collectively. Shortly after the Olympics ended, I received an email from one of my superiors, asking me to help translate a typically garbled piece of Confucianism into English. Only, this time, there was a nifty Olympic tie-in: "Having faced the challenge of the Olympics, did you perform to the utmost of your abilities?

You don't have to be well-versed in Chinglish to read between the lines -- the athletes did their job, now what about you? The build-up to the Olympics was fraught with devil-may-care smirks and a nearly congenial sort of fatalism. With the whole world watching, waiting to poke holes in the paper tiger, disaster seemed imminent, and blind nationalism mere moments away from its comeuppance. So when the opposite happened, when 51 became the new rallying cry, when track megastar Liu Xiang's shattered ankle became just an afterthought, when the enduring image of men's basketball became Yao Ming fist-pumping his way through a rout at the hands of the Americans, hope didn't just float, it made a beeline to the finish.

The new jingle for Post-Olympics China, then, has become pushing the limits -- or reining in common sense, depending on whom you ask. Life at the television station is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. Since the Olympics, old programming protocol has been dropped like old, bad habits, which, needless to say, merely makes way for new, bad habits. Weeklies have become dailies overnight, and time slots are being shuffled about like a game of cards where the entire deck is wild -- all without the slightest explanation or hesitation. Never mind that by all early indications, ratings across the board have suffered. Or that we haven't added anyone new to the payroll since July (which means everyone is working twice as hard, only to get half as far). From top to bottom, the age-old mantra "know your place" gets passed down, but with a twist: buy enough of what we're selling, and maybe someday we'll let you be shareholders too.

You see, when you're an employee of China Inc., it always feels like you're a day late and a dollar short, working toward an arbitrary payoff decided by arbitrary, fickle powers-that-be.

Every now and then, though, a clear directive does manage to make its way down from the ivory tower. Enter the 2010 World Expo, when all eyes will be back on China. In contrast to the Olympics -- which from the start, was wracked with questions about accountability, about the ROI of overinvestment, about playing by the hard, fast rules of a new world order -- the Expo affords China the opportunity to play to its greatest, most indisputable strength: grow, baby, grow. Taller, better, faster, stronger makes for a "better city, better life" (the Expo's official motto), even if expectations of China's middle class are being forcibly raised to match the height of its skyscrapers.

No architect, though, can possibly measure up to the social, ideological, or cultural dimensions of his planning. Nevertheless, build it and they will come, right? Unless, that is, what you're building is actually a bridge to nowhere.

Like most things in China, Chi's blog is currently under construction (but coming soon!). In the meantime, he can be reached at [e-mail].

Comments

[MidaFo]

Actually, even for the most patriotic, the American century lasted barely two years.
Please recognise this is not anti-American. It is your friends who have constantly pointed out that this appellation is best applied to the many Americans who voted G.W. Bush into power.
America is collapsing from within just as my country South Africa did before Mandela was released. Just as we are successfully struggling into the future, so will you. Like us, your grass roots have been burned and diseased. This, far from being an ennobling experience, commonly results in an ugly life leading to earlier death.
Cruelly, the very people who did it and managed by luck or malicious judgement to escape the impoverishing consequences, from their enclaves of wealth, will comment destructively on your hard-earned positive efforts while they seek, nefariously and often successfully, to increase this wealth.
Radical change is needed, for fundamental change has already been foisted onto to you by so-called conservatives and 'believers'. This 'conservative' influence has quite apparently and purposefully destroyed your language. Public debate has sunk to the level of play-ground insults. The sources of Public Diplomacy, a propagandist's term for propaganda, are deeply involved in this ostensibly but cruelly 'public spirited' process.
Sadly it must be said that, from here, both main parties and their presidential candidates look hopelessly square in this regard.
But then so do our leaders often look useless, and yet somehow the best does often happen.
Good luck!

[Pdubya]

a booming economy AND gold.

damn, i'd take just one of those right now.

[MagisterLudi]

"..expectations of China's middle class are being forcibly raised to match the height of its skyscrapers."

This is a bad thing????? Wow I wish this would happen in the West. Instead of ever increasing amount of " How to have a family dinner for $10" articles.

[jitsusoji]

This sounds like someone who is frightened or intimidated by China's sense of direction. As someone who splits time between Dallas (USofA) and Tianjin (PRofC), I don't see China's 21st century vision as a threat to its people - it's more of a challenge. You don't rise to great accomplishments by setting the bar comfortably. China has accomplished some truly extraordinary things in the last couple of decades, and it's determination (not despair) that has driven these accomplishments (and will continue to do so).

[MagisterLudi]

"To keep marching to the beat of its own hollow drum -- trumpeting one-note nationalism while still keeping the high hat and the snare of individual athletic prowess intact."

Looks like the Chinese State is using Pro Tools 8 and Digital Performer 6. You're still working with MIDi and Roland TR-707. And way too much aliasing in your samples. Must be American made.

[MagisterLudi]

I grew up in a socialist country and I intimately understand how cool it is to attack the squares in power. We all did it and felt good about it. One famous East European bard sang about the indecisive intelligentsia who oscillates between licking the jackboot and biting it.
Not as easy to transcend the "squares" titanic achievements (and failures) though: the economic freedom, peaceful country; lack of hunger; good education; building an enormous economic and industrial potential etc.

[kapo]

China stands to gain enormously from the US collapse if it does not suffer a major shakeout also. But the export dependence of the economy means such a shakout is very possible as external demand for its products falls. Based on communist party responses to opposition, China seems a fragile society where serious conflict could result from a major economic fallout. It has shown a pattern of such conflicts going back long into its history. To avoid this China needs to turn around its economy and produce more for its domestic market. This latter statement is quite obvious now, but it was equally obvious five years ago when the country had already reached such a level of export dominance in low wage manufacturing that it was clear its economic model needed changing. Turning an economy in a new direction is a massive task taking years to achieve, but recent reports of the closing of half its toy exporters and slowing in its raw material imports means that it is not being given that luxury. China's vaunted central planning system could end up leading their economy over a cliff even more efficiently than America's acclaimed free market ideologues have done.

[pfc1369]

Through a blizzard of confusing rhetoric I can discern the vague outlines of a chronic discontent.

As a waiguoren who lived and worked for the government media in China for the decade of the 90s, I too grew weary, in my case weary of the dizzying physical changes.

The blogger appears to be more concerned with changes of the spirit.
I still have great respect for the people of China, and wish them well.

And I remain disconsolate that on the path to modernity, the leadership was compelled to destroy much of the old civilization.

An irrecoverable loss.

[Kassandra]

Wow! great post. A necessary insight. I guess the Chinese government is trying to give all it's people a feeling of inferiority. Somebody needs to tell the authorities the "New World Order" is bankrupt already.
What'd it last? 10-12 years? Anyone?