I just watched the video of the theme song for the Beijing Olympics, “Beijing Huan Ying Ni” (”Beijing Welcomes You”), on YouTube. And it is CATCHY.

With lyrics by Lam Jik of Hong Kong and music by Xiao Ke, of mainland China, the video features dozens of famous Chinese singers and stars. Look for Jackie Chan and Lee-Hom Wang (he’s one of the more famous graduates of Williams, my alma mater).

Makes me nostalgic for my study abroad in Beijing…

A meeting with my Chinese friend/tutor on Saturday turned to a very interesting discussion about China, Tibet, media bias and media control. She is from Nanjing, is in her twenties and graduated from HPU last semester. Like many young Chinese, especially those now living outside China, she is frustrated with the characterization of the Tibet conflict in the foreign press as a “crackdown” by Chinese police on innocent Tibetan dissidents.

She’s not alone. The recent protests in Lhasa, which began on March 14 on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising, spurred intense feelings of nationalism among young Chinese and a debate that continues on YouTube and Facebook.

A few of my Chinese friends on Facebook have posted a link to anti-CNN.com in their profiles (full disclosure: I was an intern at CNN’s Beijing bureau in spring 2005). The site, which includes several videos, is dedicated to pointing out anti-China bias in the foreign media. One friend’s Facebook profile picture is an image of a T-shirt that reads: “I LOVE CHINA.” Facebook groups that are variations on the “Free Tibet” movement have been joined by a number of groups supporting “One China.”

For example, the group “Tibet WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China” has 20,167 members and seems to be adding members by the hundreds every week. Not all comments posted on the group’s wall adhere to rules outlined in the group’s profile (”NO RACIST REMARKS” and “NO HATE TALKS”).

My friend believes foreign journalists are misrepresenting the conflict, and that is exacerbated by a view in America, popularized in part by the Free Tibet movement, that the Chinese government is oppressing Tibetans. The way she see it, she said, the People’s Liberation Army’s entrance into Tibet in 1950 was not the “invasion” it is often said to be; rather, the army entered a country that was backwards and still relying on a feudal system, and helped Tibet to modernize.

Regardless of what you may think about Tibet’s complicated history, I was interested in her frustration in explaining her views to others. We started using the word “brainwashed.” For many young Chinese, the biggest problem in explaining your opinion to your foreign counterparts besides the language barrier is the fact that many people simply EXPECT you to be in support of your government and without sympathy for Tibetans.

“Of course you think the Communist Party is right,” they nod and say, as if to a child. “You’ve been brainwashed by your government and your country’s education system.”

My friend is not naive about the ills her government has committed over the years, unlike some young Chinese I met in Beijing for whom it seemed large chunks were missing in their understanding of their country’s history. My friend only learned certain details about what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989 after she left China and moved to the United States. She is well aware that the government exercises more control over the media in China than in the United States.

In the end, though, media bias is not media censorship. This is not to excuse the media that have been accused of anti-China bias, but to point out the irony of anti-CNN’s creators spending time rooting up evidence of foreign media bias when media censorship stares Chinese citizens in the face every day. Censorship of topics like Tiananmen and human rights is still heavily exercised in China. Earlier this month, a Beijing court sentenced Hu Jia, one of China’s most prominent political activists, to 3.5 years in prison. Hu had written controversial articles on web sites and made comments in the foreign media about human rights.

Even what Chinese citizens can read in newspapers or watch on TV about what is happening in Tibet is limited.

It may just be stirrings of nationalist sentiment, but Chinese netizens have attacked foreign media bias with a zeal that suggests objectivity and journalistic integrity are at least of some importance to them. Now if they could only do it in their own country — imagine what would happen.

———————————————————————-

Related reads:

Danwei: “The Internet wages war on the liberal media.” (April 14)
Matthew Forney in the NYT (op-ed): “China’s Loyal Youth” (April 13)
EasySouthWestNorth: translation of Chang Ping’s “Where does the truth about Lhasa come from?” (April 3) [Chang, an editor with China’s Southern Metropolis Weekly, created controversy when he posted this piece on his blog]
The China Beat: “The Taelspin on Tibet: The Chinese Response to foreign media coverage of the 3.14 unrest” (March 27)
CNN: “Transcript: James Miles interview on Tibet” (March 20) [Miles, of The Economist” talks about being in Tibet during the unrest]

photo: www.anti-cnn.com

A interesting article in the New York Times on Thursday about the measures US Olympic athletes are taking to prepare for Beijing’s notoriously bad pollution.

I took the above photo in January 2005 from an overpass on one of the grayer days in Beijing. On the worst days, you wouldn’t be able to make out the tall buildings in the distance because of the “wuran” (pollution).

When I lived in the city, the “wuran” was definitely something you noticed. Returning from a short walk to the Carrefore down the street, your clothes would smell foul and if you blew your nose, the tissue would turn black. Lovely.

Some researchers say that pollution levels on an average day in Beijing are as much as five times above World Health Organization safety standards. Many athletes with asthma are worried that the bad air conditions will exacerbate their breathing difficulties.

Trainers are telling athletes to avoid training in Beijing if at all possible and are even working out ways for them to possibly compete wearing masks or other super-secretive breathing devices that would give them an advantage over the competition.

Many news sources are really zeroing in on this issue of Beijing’s pollution. Beyond the danger to Olympic athletes, however, the article also mentions how any masks or other gadgets used by American athletes to protect themselves from the pollution could become a political issue:

The I.O.C. spokeswoman Sandrine Tonge said the international federation for each sport made the rules on what athletes can and can’t wear in competition. So it is conceivable that some athletes will wear masks during their Olympic events, but Mr. Wilber [the lead physiologist for the US Olympic Committee] said no Americans would do so.

“I think it would be a huge political issue and an embarrassment to the Chinese people and to the I.O.C. if American athletes wore masks in the event itself,” Mr. Wilber said. “If that image was beamed around the world on TV, it would cause nothing but problems.”