Went to the women's gymnastics finals this morning and it was an amazing show of national pride. The Chinese gymnasts are very strong and the home-town crowd came out en masse to see them. Every time a Chinese gymnast stepped up to compete, the crowd roared. And between rotations, they changed "China...China...China" while waving flags of all sizes. It was easy to get caught up in it and I almost found myself rooting for the home team as well. They went into the final rotation with China up only one point over the US girls, and the final rotation was China versus US on the floor routine int he center of the stadium. Hmmmm...wonder if the rotation was scheduled that way???
You can almost sense the palpable national pride continuing to expand as the games go on. The Chinese athletes are performing very well and the citizens are rallying behind them. I'm sure it's a combination of the favorable medal count and the fact that folks are seeing the end of the tunnel in terms of the non-permanent disruptions to their lives that the Olympics have caused. But truly, they're proud that the Games are going off so smoothly (deservedly so) and are ecstatic that their athletes are performing so well. Financially, purchasing Olympic tickets is outside the means of much of the citizenry and so to them, the Games are more of a burden than something they can enjoy themselves. Yesterday, I offered up a pair of table tennis (ping pong, which is big in China) tickets that none of us was going to use to a worker in the main press center and when he saw they were 300 yuan each (one-fifth the most currently-available average Chinese monthly wage), I had to work hard to convince him that it was OK to take them.
I'm noticing more and more the subtle differences in culture and it's all so interesting.
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