In 1990, when Beijing was hosting the Asian Games, I lived in the city for a month. Because I didn't know much about sports news, the newspaper I was with at the time assigned me to cover "non-sports news." This meant news about Chinese politics, economics and society. But, during the Asian Games, there weren't any topics hotter than sports news and any non-sports news was kept under the Communist Party's tight control. So, I found myself with time to kill -- roaming streets lined with antiques shops and drinking China's famous Qingdao beer.
Even though it was boring, the trip proved to be a rare and unforgettable experience. The most memorable event happened on the day of the opening ceremony.
In order to avoid traffic, a colleague of mine and I decided to take the subway to the stadium. As we were leaving the exit of the Dongsishitiao (東四十條) station, we suddenly came upon an apple tree at the intersec-tiom. full of red, ready-to-pick apples.
I grabbed my companion and remember saying, "China is really different! The people are so law-abiding -- put this tree on a street corner in Taipei and the neighborhood kids would strip it clean." My colleague readily agreed.
When we took a closer look at the tree, however, we were startled to find that each apple had been tied onto the tree with red, plastic cord.
This discovery flabbergasted us and left us with a deep feeling of having been cheated.
Upset, I said, "Since they've deliberately made a bogus tree, why not make it even more bogus, and tie even more kinds of fruit onto it -- such as tanger-ines, tomatoes, pineapples, bananas, peaches, or even durians? As long as it's a fake, why not go all the way, right? One tree that can grow different kinds of fruit -- now that would truly be something miraculous -- definite proof of how outstanding the Chinese people are."
Demoralized and silent, my colleague and I made our way to the Workers Stadium where the opening ceremony was to be held.
Glancing around us as we walked, we found it surprising that in all the apartment complexes lining the approximately 1km stretch of road leading to the stadium, each apartment had five perfectly spaced pots of flowers resting on its balcony. We assumed that this very tidy floral display must be the result of a directive from Beijing officials. A pluralistic, democratic society simply couldn't be so uniform and standardized -- or have such a well-behaved, docile populace so willing to cooperate.
Eleven years have passed. Today, Beijing is busy mobilizing all its strength and preaching its most fundamental creed -- nationalism -- in an all-out effort to secure the Olympic Games.
Frankly, only the Communist Party's bloodthirsty, autocratic regime knows for sure how much faking, how much fooling of the people and how much cheating of the world, has occurred during this process.
Regardless of the results of the International Olympic Committee's vote in Moscow tomorrow, I sincerely hope that hence-forth, China's government will never again try to hoodwink the public, bury its head in the sand, or cheat the world.
Only a country that honestly faces up to itself and does the right thing, and offers its people the protection of basic human rights, will earn the respect of others.
If China's communist regime fails to see the truth, it doesn't matter how many Olympic Games Beijing holds -- all will be in vain.
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