An aside about the Motherland before I start reading The Year of the Boar, and Jackie Robinson (Again)

Being of obvious Asian -- and then once you ask me, confirmed Chinese -- descent, I keep getting questions on how I feel about the Olympics. Do the comments the American press brigades there make bother me? Are you disappointed by the gymnastics scandal? The bad air quality? Are you horrified by the lip synching thing?

The lip synching and the gymnasts, I honestly could not even express to you in human languages how little I care. I mean, yes, it's crummy for an entire nation to come together and decide you're good enough, you're just not pretty enough to sing at the Olympics, and for that, she should be awarded therapy and have every copy of Seventeen or Elle Girl in her immediate vincinity burned so as not to exacerbate the situation. Otherwise, oh my God, must I remind you all about the SNL Ashelee Simpson debacle? It wasn't nice but it's not the end of the world. As for the gymnasts, as has been pointed out: if you can play the game, why not give them the freaking gold? If you can dive at 14, why can't you flip at 13? The Chinese gold medal girls Yang Yilin and Jiang Yuyuan were amazing, and they should be commended for having such extraordinary grace and skill despite being -- gasp -- a whole three years younger than everybody may or may not think. The air quality thing I've been harping on Beijing for years, so for everybody else to join in now -- the more the merrier.

As for the complaints about American media being too mean to China? Forgive the profanity, bitch, please. For full disclosure, I'm a proud member of the carrion-picking vulture class of newsgatherers. I'm not going to say there's never an emotional stake when you're covering news, but more often than not, you're carried along by the news cycle. Anyway! My point is: there's no such thing as the media is beating somebody up. Seriously -- you thrust yourself into the national cum international spotlight, you ask for it. Dear China: welcome to the world stage. Get better publicists. Love, reporters.

Now, the requisite to-be-fair graf: I came to the States when I was 3-and-a-half years old -- all the memories I really have of China are colored with not living there, being seperate, so the knee-jerk defense that I have of the country will always be tempered by the fact that I've watched from the in and outside -- that doesn't mean I'm less inclined to bash, it just means I do it with a little more intimacy.