So are the media just being a little mean to China? It does at times feel akin to if coverage of the Atlanta Olympics were focused on the failings of the U.S. health care system and the plight of the American Indian. One foreign correspondent for a major American newspaper agreed, telling me, "In Athens the traffic jams were presented as the outgrowth of a hip Mediterranean lifestyle. Here they become yet another product of state repression."...
If you've ever done business in China, you know what fangwen (an "official visit") is all about—a kind of formal tour that is meant to show how great the host's facility is, while the guest says admiring things. China was hoping the Olympics would be a nationwide version of fangwen. Instead, it is mostly getting fangs...
China's idea of what makes for a better Olympics for foreign consumption—tightened security and cleaning up marginal elements—is exactly what makes Western reporters crazy. If you're showing off for the fangwen, you want to clean things up, but the West wants to see the dirt, not the rug it was swept under. It's the dishonesty, as much as the substance of what's wrong in China, that seems to get under the skin of Western reporters.
-Tim Wu, from Slate.com
Really, really good article on Slate dealing with the criticism China's received during the Olympics and the cultural differences that are playing into it.
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