Li Na Stumbles, China Goes Quiet

China tends to be overly zealous when one of her stars undergoes a bit of success. The tennis player Li Na is a good example. After winning a major tennis tourney, she was touted in the Chinese newspapers as the second coming, a look at things to come. After her victory, there were post victory interviews then re takes of those interviews and then post post interviews and then retakes of those and then photos and then more ink and then heart warming dialogue and the bbs overflowing…..but you get my point.
So when Li na was beaten by a wild card in the latest tourney, china, in typical group think fashion, went silent. The news papers scrambling for something to report, have thrown up articles about how much the wealthy in china are spending and then they post the occasional anti usa or anti Japan article for good measure.
I kinda feel for these people as they try so hard to have something to be proud of. Its as if they know that being governed by a thuggish communist party leaves them as pariahs in many places in the world and thus they seek to seem jut like the rest of us. Its as if they say, ‘well sure we can’t use facebook and youtube and yeah sometimes the land gets taken-allegedly , without adequate compensation, and yeah a lot of our ancestors who were intellectuals were ruined in the 50’s, and of course our lawyers cannot defend those who complain, but hey did you see Li Na’s tennis match?….”