Chinatown Olympics Celebrations

Went out with the Gay Luck Club gang Friday night for a celebration the local Chinese community is throwing. I've to say it's great to feel the spotlight on our community. Everybody is really excited that China is hosting the event, somehow it makes us proud. I think a lot of us don't identify with the existing Chinese government but we identify and unite as a "people" nonetheless. It's hard to explain it but even though we are so different and far apart, there is no mistake that we are Chinese, we look the same and we experience the same tradition and culture. When a country has a history as deep as the Chinese, the existing political trend seems temporary and bearable.

The street fair is a little half-assed, I think they were trying to clean up or renovate the gate before the event but somehow something happened but did not finish on time so the scaffolding are still surrounding the gate. (pst, contractors...) There's a stage with a jumbotron on it for the opening ceremonies that we're all gonna be watching. Young kids are demonstrating karate and performing some cultural dances. The whole block is closed of where in different section there are vendors selling souvenir merchandises, a Tai Chi corner where older ladies are doing slow steps, a soccer net where kids are kicking balls around, rowing machines, gymnastic mats, ping pong tables, baseball corner, and some dragon/lion dance. There are people selling kabobs too, but that's kinda strange given it doesn't have anything to do with China and there are tons of Chinese pastry shops and restaurants just next to the sidewalks. (But they do add some sensory intrigues to the street fair, ooh the smell.)

OK. I have to confess about a dark side of me. There's something that provoke my violent side, I don't know what childhood trauma I have to invoke to explain this one but - people in plushies mascot outfits just turns my gear. Well, it doesn't make me angry and turn me to the hulk, but it's pretty much putting themselves in a trap suit and I just like to trip them over and start kicking. Whether it is Spongebob, Big Bird, Mickey Mouse or just putting a bucket over your head, it just provoke my urge to "jump" that person. Am I just terrible? Funny, coz' it doesn't work for people in regular Halloween costumes or Santa, just plushies with things covering their heads and heavy getups that ensure they won't be able to run far.

That brings me to my point of the current Olympic mascots, aren't they the most hideous ones in the history of Olympics or is it just me?


I mean seriously, WTF?

I thought it's so unnecessary to have all 5 of them, and are they kids, animals or what? And I thought it was the 5 Chinese elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth) but then it turns out to be Sea, Forest, Fire, Earth and Sky which makes no sense whatsoever and each of them represents a sport and an Olympic ring. Each of them is an animal other than the red one who is the Olympic torch, their names spell Beibei, Jingjing, Welwel, Comecomes, Youyou. (not really, but you get the point) Yuck! Over-designed and over-complicated.

After a great Chinese dinner, all 8 of us headed back into the flag-lined street and stepped right in front of the jumbotron waiting for the opening ceremony to came on. There is a deep comradery even the people filling the street are not completely Chinese. And then the show started, and the crowd was cheering. Being in a good mood with my Asian friends, I joke with them that they are going to shoot the people who didn't move at the exact same pace, that the 56 little girls carrying the Chinese flags from the different tribes in China are all orphans they found on the street who were abandoned because they were girls, and I mocked that you can hear the propaganda hammering your head when they played the Chinese national anthem, and that the controversy will come when they find the bodies of dozens of protesters in a warehouse somewhere two weeks after the Olympics, but deep down inside I was happy and excited just like everybody else. Half an hour into it we left because the signal was really shabby (damn evil Comcast) and I curse my forgetful self for not recording it on my DVD so I can watch it again and again. But all in all, I've had a good night.


Karate and the Crowd


Lion Dance (BTW, isn't the guy on the left a cutie?)


BeiBei Trying My Patience. (and yes, there's a person inside.)


Demonstrated Here - The Death of Yingying. (children cried.)


The Jumbotron and Its Sucky Digital Signals.

(Apparently the controversy already started with the death of the family of a coach, also they had technical difficulties with the American national anthem when Michael Phelps took the gold for the 400 meters individual medley. WTF China? Shape up!)