Why no Winter Olympics
Travel to any godforsaken place on Earth (including some places with names you can’t even pronounce) and you will probably find people watching the Winter Olympics on TV.
In some places, they are watching their national teams and athletes compete; in some cases, they are dreaming of competing; in some places dreaming that their countrymen or countrywomen might some day compete.
Not in Taiwan.
Turn on the TV in the past week and you can watch a replay of last year’s Deaflympics and World Games. I recall eagerly turning on the TV to see the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics and at the very same moment the opening ceremony in Vancouver was starting, Taiwanese television was broadcasting the opening ceremony — of the Deaflympics in Taipei last year.
It was almost as though we were being fed a cheap imitation of the real thing, a fake, a rerun instead of the original, though you had to watch closely to notice it was not the right opening ceremony. The rest of the week was reruns of the World Games in Kaoshiung.
Pathetic.
Some people might argue that since Taiwan does not field a team at the Winter Olympics — there was one athlete from Taiwan — what’s the point?
As I mentioned, because there is no interest in anything that takes place outside of Taiwan, there is little chance for young Taiwanese athletes to dream “outside the box.” It is the longing of these youngsters that makes dreams become reality and by eschewing great events outside Taiwan — aside from those that take place in Hong Kong or China — Taiwanese are missing out on the opportunity to proclaim the nation’s greatness to the world.
Even if you have never skated, watching great skaters is fascinating. Even if you have never played hockey, watching great hockey matches is exciting. Even if you have never gone skiing, watching downhill races or ski jumping is exciting.
I bet if the Winter Olympics were being held in China, we would have it on TV here 24/7.
When I saw no broadcast of the Winter Olympics on Taiwanese TV, it gave me a truly odd feeling in my stomach.
How is it possible that a nation can have such low expectations and such little interest in the world around it?
LEE LONG-HWA
New York
A response to my article (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” Aug. 12, page 8) mischaracterizes my arguments, as well as a speech by former British prime minister Boris Johnson at the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei early last month. Tseng Yueh-ying (曾月英) in the response (“A misreading of Johnson’s speech,” Aug. 24, page 8) does not dispute that Johnson referred repeatedly to Taiwan as “a segment of the Chinese population,” but asserts that the phrase challenged Beijing by questioning whether parts of “the Chinese population” could be “differently Chinese.” This is essentially a confirmation of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formulation, which says that
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