Public relations, communication and interesting times in China.
Now: China's gold medal team. Their talent is not to be doubted. Their ages...perhaps:
Then: The 1956 US national squad:
Things sure have changed. And not just the fashions.
Yes, indeed. It's kind of hard to prove though when the government is the one issuing their passports. My wife's actual birth date differs from the one on her Chinese ID card.
The Associated Press apparently did some digging and found that nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13.
In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games.
Of course, right after this was found, Xinhua removed access to the page but AP saved a copy.
In other words... Busted! (or in the case of an under-age female gymnast, perhaps just the opposite).
These Chinese girls have worked so hard to be where they are. And yet Bela Karolyi, their main competitor's team coordinator's husband, goes on US national TV and calls the girls "half people", "babies in diapers" and whip up an international hysteria and witchhunt against the girls.
There simply isn't conclusive evidence. Asian women tend to have smaller frames than Caucasians. Female gymnasts tend to have delayed puberty due to the strenuous workouts. And since when did Xinhua and China Daily become such great sources of accurate information? Should we believe everything they say or should we only believe when the information is what we want to hear?
Without conclusive evidence, Bela Karolyi and our international gang have convicted the Chinese girls as cheaters. This is just so in line with our American spirit -- guilty until proven innocent!
After blocked access to sites and controlled (might we say modifiedd?) information, when something like this happens, we take a mysteriously missing webpage is a sign of guilt.
Maybe it's just down for maintainance or some legit reason, but it sure looks like guilt.
@ Wawa
So, let me get this straight, you're saying that Xinhua, the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China, should not be believed? Why then, should any other official agency of the PRC be believed when they deny the girls are under age?
And are we to believe that the website page that had this information, and only that one page, out of all the posted Xinhua pages over the last nine months, is suddenly and mysteriously down for maintenance immediately after the AP investigated that very same page?
Seriously now. I understand the need for someone to be loyal to their country and their leaders, but given the evidence at hand, and the rather amateurish efforts being made to cover it up, any rational person, no matter how nationalistic, can only come to one conclusion.
Or are you one of those people who still insists there were no tanks near Tiananmen Square in June of 1989 because the government tells you so?
PingBack from http://www.beijingolympicsfan.com/2008/08/14/gymnasts-then-and-now/
Koko TSURUMI, 16, on Japanese women's gymnast team is 4'7" tall and 75 lbs. He Kexin is 4'8" and 73 lbs.
You never compare a 16 yr old gymnast with a 16 yr old *normal* girl. You should only compare them with other 16 yr old gymnasts of the same race, then you will see they are very comparable.
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/BIO/Team/9990373.shtml
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/BIO/Team/9990717.shtml
If Koko TSURUMI is 16 yr old, why is it impossible that He Kexin, a inch taller and 2 lbs lighter, is too?
Also take a look at what happened at the press conference when they faced an age-eligibility test:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7721354
After reading the above I would give them the benefit of the doubt. It'd be awfully hard for Deng to be able to give the correct answer to the Zodiac question in that situation if she were only, say, 13. Most people (I know I do) have to
look up the sequence of the Zodiacs to find out what's the zodiac 2 or 3 before their own.
The birthday question also makes me wonder how extremely quick witted (and scary) a young girl will need to be in order to be able to lie and completely make up the answer on the fly. You can tell them to prepare for media questions
but how do you be so prophetic as to predict the exact questions they will ask?
@Dave from Chicago,
I am American. As for June 4th, as a child, I marched twice (once before the crackdown and once after the crackdown) with my family in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington DC in support of the students.
My point is, Xinhua and China Daily are not conclusive sources of ages of Chinese citizens. You cannot use double standards when using information from these sources. When the information doesn't support your point, it's Xinhua and China Daily are government arms and not to be trusted (haven't they been constantly ridiculed by the western media for their less than truthful reportage?). But if the information supports your point, then they are definitively and conclusively accurate (hey who knows, maybe whoever wrote that piece was a lazy bureaucrat wannabe and didn't do proper research).
I wouldn't be surprised at all if the page has been taken down. Put yourself in the shoes of the bureaucrat in charge at Xinhua. If the age information is accurate, yeah, he is probably pressured to take it down. But if the age information is not accurate, he would be under even more pressure to take it down. His superiors will probably go to him, and say, look at the trouble you've caused us. So either way, it doesn't prove anything!
At the end of the day, the people who are hurt the most are the Chinese girls, who have worked so hard to be where they are and yet their reputation is soiled forever.
@Wawa
I think my point is, if it's a double standard to assume the information from Xinhua was accurate because it supports my point, then it's also a double standard to assume the information from another government agency claiming the girls are 16 is accurate because it supports your point.
No matter how many facts are on the table, as long as someone is willing to step forward and offer a different version of reality, regardless of how unlikely that version of reality may be, then someone else will claim that makes the results "inconclusive."
Current presidential candidate Barack Obama is a practicing Christian. Hundreds, if not thousands of people have seen him attend church and practice his religion over the course of decades. However, all it's taken is one or two conservative bloggers to write "Obama.. That sounds like a Muslim name. Barack Obama must be a Muslim!" And all of a sudden the statement "Obama is a Christian" has become another case of "results inconclusive".
Very little is 100% conclusive, especially when it comes to politics and the media. So, faced with opposing statements, I can only draw on my sense of reason to point me towards the most likely conclusion.
In the case of the age of these gymnasts, I'm going to completely ignore their physical appearance and simply go with the following:
1: How likely is it that the Xinhua journalist got the girl's age wrong? The article was pretty detailed on the events that occurred when she competed 9 months ago. No one has called any of the other facts reported in the article into dispute, which means the reporter likely did his research. I find it very hard to believe that he made up the girl's age, or got it wrong by a factor of 3 years. Nor do I believe a 16 year old girl would lie and say she was 13 years old, since there is no benefit to be gained by doing so.
2: If there is no controversy, no cover-up, then why was this article taken down as soon as the Associated Press caught a glance at it? If it is a simple mistake, if there is nothing to hide, if the facts aren't in doubt, then there is no need for the reaction that has occurred. If my 2 year old has crumbs on his face and I ask him "Did you take a cookie without permission?" and his response is to suddenly stuff something into his pocket, hide his hands behind his back and yell "No!", chances are he's making a crude attempt to hide the evidence, because the innocent don't react that way, be they a hungry toddler or an official government news source.
@ Dave
If your 2-y-o takes a cookie without permission he's still innocent... because he's a 2-y-o... hope you didn't yell at him.
Point taken but you can't compare an innocent child with Xinhua. They are completely, erm, incomparable
I never followed sport until this year (and not really paying much attention this year either), but isn't this the most politicised Games in recent years?
Personally, as I wrote above, I don't think the girls' talent is in any doubt. They're astounding athletes. The American coach said they were prepared to take on all comers, regardless of age, so they live and die by that sentiment. Congrats to the Chinese team.
But I've lived in Asia a long time. Frankly, the some of the Chinese gymnasts just don't look 16 by anyone's standards, hormonal issues or not. I look about as 16 as some of those kids, albeit from the other end of the spectrum. I could, however, be wrong.
But the Chinese haven't done much to earn trust on the issue. As for the Xinhua article, you correct an article that's wrong. You bury an article that's correct but undermines your current story.
"Without conclusive evidence, Bela Karolyi and our international gang have convicted the Chinese girls as cheaters. "
No. They've expressed the opinion, shared by anyone with two non-nationalistic brain cells, that some of these girls were too young to compete under Olympic guidelines.
The girls are not to blame (we can only imagine the programming that their young heads have undergone) so much as the coaching staff and authorities who chase gold medals not in accordance with any moral values, but through the belief that breaking rules is OK if you can get away with it. And they have.
If there was an envelope containing a definitive answer to the question of these girls' ages, I'd bet the house that, at the very least, two were too young to be competing. It's a no-brainer. It's also cheating.
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200808b.brief.htm#020
"No. They've expressed the opinion, shared by anyone with two non-nationalistic brain cells, "
Uhmmm ... how about we change that to "No. They've expressed the opinion, shared by anyone who sympathize with sore losers "
I think we are going to see a lot more of these from the Yanks.
@Peter My two year old knows how to program Tivo and surf YouTube. He may be innocent in many ways, but he's downright diabolical in other ways. When it comes to purloined cookies, I can assure you, he's not only weighed the moral consequences, but he's likely scouted the crime scene in advance and hired his older siblings as lookouts. ;)
As for the age of the girls. I overlooked one important bit of evidence in this case. Let me walk your through this step by step.
1: Xinhua reported He Kexin's age as 13 back in November 3rd of last year.
2: He Kexin's birth date is listed as January 1st.
3: A second paper, China Daily, wrote an article about He Kexin on May 23rd of this year and listed her age as 14.
You get where I'm going with this?
Her age was listed as 13 last year, and, after her birthday, a second news source listed her as 14.
So, not only do we now have to believe that both these newspapers got the facts wrong, but we have to believe they got the facts wrong in spite of the original ages listed making chronological sense.
Hmm, what are the odds?
As a caveat on this story, let me just state that I in no way want to disparage the heart and talent of these young Chinese girls. The fact that they were the best team at the event is not in dispute. And without a doubt, Bela Karoyli is a pompous attention seeking whiner. That being said, rules are rules, and in this particular case, the evidence is piling up that the rules were deliberately broken.
Of course, I'm a realist. Even if the wealth of evidence indicating that the girls were underage became indisputable, even if He Kexin went on live, international TV and confessed, the IOC doesn't have the balls to disqualify China. They might if this were synchronized swimming, team handball or some other sport no one cares about, but disqualify the host country's pint sized national treasures? Not a chance in hell.
In a perfect world, you would wish it wasn't the hideous Bela Karolyi making these accusations, specifically in the ugly way she made them.
You would wish that the various global agencies which look out for the welfare of children (I'm looking at you, UNICEF!) would take up this fight -- if indeed there is a fight.
My rule? No child under 16 should _ever_ perform _anything_ before an audience composed of anything but their friends and family and/or school-age peers.
The "roar of the crowd" is way too powerful -- and fickle -- a thing to expose a child's emotions to.
Of course the long list of stable and emotionally undamaged child stars, child beauty queens, and child musical prodigies somewhat undermines my rule...
PingBack from http://www.funenclave.com/other-sports/olympics-games-2008-beijing-results-expectations-21060-4.html#post151911
Xinhua, China Daily, and the Chengdu Sports Bureau:
Link
(Find 何可欣.)
[Will's note: Long URL provided by Micah embedded under word "link" to preserve formatting.]
Ok, let’s say He Kexin is under 16. So what have we achieved in this elaborate international exercise to out the Chinese girls? Have we advanced democracy or humanity? Good triumphed over evil? Should we pat ourselves on the back since we have made the Chinese government look like a bunch of ass, but then again they do that pretty well even without our help. Maybe we have shown Chinese athletes are liars or maybe we have shown the Chinese as a people are liars and cheats.
And shall we examine the collateral damage to our success – the six Chinese girls? There is the American coach’s husband calling the girls “half people” purely by judging their looks; an ABC news program analyzing facial bone structure of the girls, WTF?! Are they cattle or dogs? Various videos, articles posted online calling the girls cheats. I guess as long the purpose is to demonstrate the Chinese government is evil, it’s okay to strip a few girls of their humanity along the way.
If He Kexin is really under 16, the Chinese team should be stripped of its medal. But I would not jump up and down in joy and scream “busted”, I would only feel immense sadness for the girls…They've been used by their own government to whip up nationalistic fervor and they've been used by the freedom loving West in its obsession to discredit the Chinese government.
@WaWa: I agree with you completely: The athletes are victims in all of this. A fourteen year-old girl is not the culpable party in this. I wouldn't be happy to see the Chinese team stripped of their medals, and I wouldn't be particularly thrilled to see the US team get default gold medals in the mail (and neither would they, I'd bet).
But I have no problems with people digging into this and making it a scandal, hurtful though it might be (especially if the allegations are true). When teams cheat it should be a scandal. If you dismiss cheating, or evidence of cheating, because it involves particularly cute and precocious athletes, then you might as well abandon any attempts to set a rulebook. The IOC has been too gelatinous make issues out of anything involving China (and I say this as a supporter of the idea of having the games in China). The media might as well go ahead.
Further to all of this, a nice roundup of Chinese media reports by David Bandurski at China Media Project:
http://cmp.hku.hk/2008/08/15/1177/
"But I have no problems with people digging into this and making it a scandal, hurtful though it might be (especially if the allegations are true)."
And what if the allegations are not true? And what if only He Kexin is under 16 and the other girls are not?
If the allegations are not true, then no one has anything to worry about and the team can bask in their gold. And wonder why the Chinese media reports on their future stars are so oddly and consistently inaccurate.
And if only He Kexin is under 16 and the rest are not, then the Chinese Gymnastics Association has a lot of explaining to do to everyone. Especially the rest of the team.
Asian women generally appear younger than their actual age.
I know of several 60 year old Chinese women who can pass for 45, without benefit of botox or surgery.
How old were the ladies on the American team in the picture above? They look like 30 somethings.
As it stands, nearly every piece of evidence points to the girls being underage (apparently, applications filled out to participate in past tournaments/events match the earlier ages as well).
Only the passports state the age of 16, and the passports are...
1: Issued by the Chinese government.
2: The only piece of evidence required by the IOC.
I'm sure the girls are innocent in this matter, and by innocent, I mean pawns. But what this means is that if cheating has occurred, it is government sanctioned cheating. And if the government is sanctioning cheating in one event, one must ask how many other events have been similarly sanctioned?
@Will,
You missed my point. If there is solid evidence, then there should be an investigation. And if it's proven that He Kexin is under 16, their medal should be taken away. But what I find unsavory about this whole affair is this mob like mentality from the west. We did not go into a frenzy out of concern for the welfare of the girls or fair sportsmanship; we went into a frenzy out of our eagerness to catch the Chinese government in another embarrassing gotcha moment. In the process, we forgot to treat the girls with respect and fairness.
It all started with accusations from the husband of the American coach purely based on the girls' looks. Instead of doing some fact finding and tell Bela to stop insulting the girls, we jumped on Bela's bandwagon and started to play armchair human anatomists and "convicted" the girls. What about some due process here? So many of us were so sure they were all under 16, but it turns out the smallest two girls are actually 16. I guess they are not certified child freaks according to the standards of our western armchair anatomists.
And you think if they are proven not guilty, then all's well? People operate on impressions, not facts. The girls were condemned by the western media mob way before any solid evidence emerged. Damage was already done and it really didn't matter from that point if they were really under 16 or not.
In China, it's not uncommon for people to have their birth date changed so that they can join a competition, get into a certain school, or do other age related activities. One of my current students had her birthday changed. I don't think it inconceivable that China would change these girls birth dates.
@Ann: Actually the pictures above weren't to contrast Americans and Chinese of similar age. I think it's fair to say the Americans above are all significantly older than 16. It was just an interesting contrast especially in terms how the emphasis in women's gymnastics has shifted to ever younger competitors. Hence the need for the age limit.
Yes, to a westerner, Asian women *sometimes* appear younger than western women of a similar age (controlling for economic status). But the Chinese women in my office were watching the individual gymnastics finals yesterday and expressing their disbelief that Jiang Yuyuan was sixteen. Jiang isn't the athlete in question here, but clearly it's not just a case of westerners befuddled by Asian physiology.
@WaWa: It all started with girls that looked underage and a pattern of reports in the Chinese media that supported that suspicion. Yes, the Western media (and perhaps even bloggers) take joy in catching the Chinese government out. As I wrote above, sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. I have sympathy for the girls. I have none for the Chinese government or sports authorities.
I don't think the girls have much to worry about from foreign media impressions. I think they *should* be worried about what might happen if the scandal becomes a domestic story in China. But that seems unlikely.
As for due process: That would be an investigation by the IOC. In the absence of pressure from the media, that will never happen. And it may never happen anyway, not because there is no evidence. There is clearly evidence in the form of a raft of Chinese press reports that indicate that some of the athletes were underage. Rather it will never happen because the IOC is one of the least applecart-rocking organizations in history, and it's hell bent on ensuring it neither disrupts business nor upsets its Chinese hosts.
I'm a westerner and I believe in the idea of the fourth estate. If media pressure helps to make sure the games are clean, then bring it on. And not just on the Chinese. Bring it on everyone.
Also, on that note, imagine for a moment that the situation were reversed and there was evidence to support the assertion that a gold-medal winning US team had cheated. How do you think the Chinese press --and blogosphere-- would react? I work with Chinese media and the Chinese Internet in crisis and confrontational situations. Restraint and scrupulous adherence to decorum are not among the traits that emerge in such situations. So we're not talking about some uniquely ugly characteristic of western media that's emerged here.
But I think it's safe to say that you, Dave from Chicago and I all agree that the girls themselves are essentially blameless. And I think we all agree that their talent and performance as athletes remains beyond reproach. Whether He Kexin is 14, 16 or 32, she's a phenomenal athlete.
@Will
As sort of a response and side note to your speculation on what would have happened if the situation was reversed, American basketball star Jason Kidd asked a similar question earlier in the week in relation to the unfortunate incident with the Spanish basketball team and their derogatory team photo.
So far, other than some wagging of fingers and some boos from the Chinese spectators, nothing has been done in response to the Spanish team's insult to the Chinese people. Kidd postulated that had the offending team photo been of the American team, the entire nation of China would have risen up against them and they would have been sent packing back to the States.
Personally, I think he's spot on in his assessment. I also believe that had the American female gymnasts edged out the Chinese for the gold, and evidence surfaced that some of them were underage, the IOC would already have launched a full investigation and there would be thousands of Chinese in the streets protesting while the Olympic security forces stood tacitly by.
"If the allegations are not true, then no one has anything to worry about and the team can bask in their gold."
I like you thinking, lets throw lots of mud at everyone to see if it sticks .. if it does, then you are justified otherwise there isn't anything to worry about.
How about we make mud throwing an Olympic sport ?
"If there is solid evidence, then there should be an investigation."
There is solid evidence; Chinese authorities have it; there will be no investigation.
What were the odds?
downunder - clearly you don't like that there is a case to answer here, and you are consequently making some ridiculous arguments. Your links to ESWN (becoming more nationalistic by the day) are meaningless; it's just more of the glorious State telling us that the girls are 16. What a surprise!
"There is solid evidence; Chinese authorities have it;"
You must be part of the Chinese authorities, otherwise how could you have know. Please show us the solid evidence in your posession, it would be interesting.
I'm not offering any arguments. I'm just taking the positions of some of the comments here one step further. If you think the result is ridiculous, i think i tend to agree with you.
@ Will,
Your points are well taken.
But if the roles had been reversed, and it was the Chinese media going after the American girls, I'd say the same thing: calm down, do some level headed fact finding first before you call them names and tarnish Nastia's and Shawn's reputation.
But I think we are viewing this from different perspectives. I kept on emphasizing the rights of the girls because I want to remind us in the West that the Chinese people are human beings first and foremost, they are not mere pawns of the Chinese government or 1.3 billion nameless brainwashed robots. In our critique of the Chinese government, let's keep their interests in mind too and not make the Chinese people the collateral damage in the process.
Anyway, it's been an interesting discussion. Thank you.
<i>"If there is solid evidence, then there should be an investigation." </i>
No, if there was solid evidence then there would be no need for an investigation. Let me fix that for you:
If there is ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO AROUSE SUSPICION, then there should be an investigation.
And it seems like there is enough. The Chinese Olympic organizers should stop digging themselves further into the verbal hole, and bring out MORE evidence NOW.
Not that I have any say in this.
I don't get all this talk about how the girls should be stripped of their medals - Team GB has a 14-year-old boy as part of the team and the majority of people here in the UK are supportive of his participation. As long as undue pressure is not placed on the kids to perform it is fine, and any undue pressure is not the fault of the athlete.
Hard to say if they are too young from what we know, but looking at the picture and comparing them to the pretty lady clad in blue to the left of them, isn't helping them look older. ;-)
@FOARP
As far as I know, the age regulation is specific to gymnastics only, whereas the 14 year old athlete from GB was competing in diving. Separate issues, especially given the effect age has on gymnast's competitive ability.
@Donwunder: Chill out.
@Peter: All the gymnasts are tiny. He is teeny-tiny, even compared to the other Chinese gymnasts. On the gold medal dais her head was even with Nastia Liukin's and Yang Yilin's.
@WaWa: Fair enough, and I respect the point of view. Thanks for taking the time.
Well, to hopefully put this one to bed, I went to see He Kexin (and Yang Yilin and Nastia Liukin and the other contenders) perform on the uneven bars last night. Although there was some grumbling about He taking the gold despite a tie-score with Nastia Liukin and an odd tie-break formula, there is no doubting that He, no matter how old she is, is a phenomenon and a joy to watch perform.
Many here seemed to assume that the Chinese authorities were in control of the Olympic games, its rules and enforcements. As far as I know every olympic game has its own governing body.
@TC: I didn't read that in any of the posts. I think what raises eyebrows in this case is that the Chinese authorities are in charge of both picking their team (since Chinese sports bodies are government-linked) and issuing the documentation to proves their eligibility to the IOC (passports). And a general suspicion that the IOC would rather die than rock the boat when it comes to the Beijing Olympics.
Will
Thanks for your explanation! It would seem to me that it is possible to have similar suspicion on any authorities of one's choice.
"Babygate" being the best sounding label I can come up with for this controversy. First, interesting
what are the rules in gymnastics