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That's the headline of a New York Times story about the controversy surrounding a now much-talked-about photo of the men's Olympic basketball team from Spain (See: "Spain's Olympic Basketball Team: Racist? Or just stupid?" for details). Oddly, the story has nothing to do with any possible punishments the Spaniards would face (honestly, we can't think of any — the bad PR and embarrassment should be punishment enough), but the story does offer a little bit of insight as to why the Chinese don't appear to be too bothered by any of this. We are also treated to some rather awkward quotes from the Spanish players trying to explain away their actions. José Calderon even broke out the “Some of my best friends are of Chinese origin" line!
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What dumbasses those Spaniards are, the coaches too! They might be the first team to get booed at these Olympics.
Let me do some contribution to spread the China bashing fire and help you get the gold for it. Here is my bid, a lesser one than BBC which
did a better job and offer the opportunitists a better photo opportunity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7558031.stm
Before the 2012 games in London, if a non-Caucasian team wears face paint and dresses up like English soccer hooligans or a Chinese team takes a team portrait while pulling their eyes to appear occidental or pulling their noses to look like a dabizi, no one will care.
I am glad that at Shanghaiist at least they are lookit at this in a reasonable way. Not like The Guardian or the even worse New York Times. This last newspaper surrounded lately by scandals and inventing news that now rather than inform feel legitimate to judge and pledge.
Thanks,
Àlex
You are completely right. This should be taken as it is, a joke. Making such a fuss out of it is stupid, where's our sense of humor?
From the nytimes piece mentioned:
As a Chinese-Canadian living in the US, I can offer myself as a counterexample to this theory -- the joke doesn't bother me at all, though I don't find it particularly funny either. Western media has taken for granted that the Chinese should be offended by this, but I don't think most Chinese are operating under the same cultural assumptions. I have a better explanation.