i’m irked with myself for constantly sourcing SFGate/Chronicle news (we all know of its dubious quality – for example, big headline today: “Thousands Turn Out For Anti-China Vigil” – what crap sensationalistic wording), but it’s easiest and “closest to home” so i begrudgingly defer to it. um, yeah. guess that’s my way of being apologetic.

as you can tell, i’m pretty much engrossed with this hot topic. i don’t see how you can’t be. as a chinese american, a san franciscan, and someone who was in china while it was ramping up for the olympics, this is riveting and conflicting as all hell.

yesterday, my friend/coworker mentioned the idea of wearing our olympic pins (that i bought when i was there). depending on your perspective, today is the best, or worst, day to don beijing 2008 commemorative paraphernalia. i admittedly wonder what message it sends, whether or not it’s “appropriate.” well. i’m a superficial person. i bought these pins cuz i thought they were awesome, funny, handsome, and straight from the motherland.

i wear mine:

my friend wears his:

busloads of chinese folks are coming up to sf as we speak to show their support. another friend/coworker commutes on caltrain, and she said on her way in there were hordes of mainland chinese all over the place. i really wish i could be out there in the wild to witness all this. i think we’re going to go to justin herman plaza during lunch to check it out.

here’s an article titled “China doctors the news of Olympic torch relay.” it features these interesting quotes:

A middle-age woman surnamed Feng was less optimistic about the U.S. reception and less willing to give her full name…said the tension was noticeable among guards in the embassy district where she walks her dog. She said she expects China’s international reception to continue to be rocky as the torch moves around the world. The (Chinese) government is worried; we’re all worried,” Feng said. “We’ve been preparing for these Olympics for eight years.“

“It’s just bad, bad, bad,” retired army officer Wang Guanghai said of pro-Tibetan demonstrations that marred the torch relay in London and Paris. Wang, who chatted at a fruit stand in a downtown Beijing neighborhood, said he was certain the United States would be more welcoming when the torch arrived in San Francisco. Although protesters had hung pro-Tibetan freedom banners from the Golden Gate Bridge hours earlier, the news had not been published in China.

with that said, here are photos that peg took last night at the vigil in UN plaza. yeah, of course san francisco is more welcoming!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under asia, events, yay area. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.