I hope you set aside your cynicism long enough to enjoy the Olympic opening ceremonies on Friday evening; it was an unprecedented visual spectacle. Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that the Chinese government has acted in typical authoritarian fashion, displacing 1,500,000 residents, censoring media access, and rounding up dissenters to create the image of perfect harmony that we see. Fully recognizing that, I cannot help but be impressed by the magnitude of the "show.
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" They succeeded in making every previous Olympic ceremony look like a county fair and in terrifying London into wondering "How in the hell can we top that?" Every aspect of the coreographed performance was perfect, giving us the greatest hybrid of a circus, concert, and action movie ever made. Visually, they didn't miss a beat.
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Just look at the Beijing National Stadium and Swimming and Diving facilities. The Centennial Olympic Stadium from Atlanta 1996 looks like an Amish barn in comparison. Such is the advantage of a semi-authoritarian regime – they can command and direct the entirety of the nation's resources toward putting on a show.
One seemingly insignificant aspect of the ceremony really bothered me. Not because of what is says about China, but for what it says about us.
In the early portion of the ceremony, synchronized dancers formed the shape of a boat and oars to symbolize, Bob Costas pointed out, the ancient voyage of Zheng He. Without cheating, do you know who Zheng He is? I didn't. I had to look him up to discover that he was an explorer who sailed to a greater number of places than any famous European explorer – 100 years earlier – and is likely responsible for the spread of Islam in southeast Asia. Now, humility aside, I believe that I know a good deal more about world history than the "average" American, a simple function of the fact that I spend a lot of time reading about it. But I wouldn't know Zheng He if he blew me.
In reality, I don't know dick about "world" history. I know European and American history. In 21 years of formal schooling I have not once been exposed to any discussion of China. None. As I believe that I am representative of most Americans in this regard, the opening ceremonies made it clear that we know absolutely nothing about the largest nation on Earth.
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One out of every five people on the planet lives in China, the oldest civilization on the planet, and for all intents and purposes we Americans (and probably Europeans) know more about Albania.
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To us, China is communist, has a big wall, and gave the world Yao Ming, fortune cookies (which isn't even true), and General Tso's chicken. That's what we know.
This is corny, but I feel like China's stated mission of "introducing itself" to the world is an appropriate metaphor for these games. And "the world" – the overwhelmingly Eurocentric West in particular – sorely needs it. Maybe it doesn't need the cloying, coreographed, everything-is-perfect-and-harmonious face that China is presenting, but it does need to start paying more attention to the world's largest population, 3rd-largest economy, largest conventional military force, biggest industrial polluter, largest foreign holder of U.S. debt and dollars, and most prominent trading partner.
Perhaps I'm projecting my own ignorance, and in reality you and the rest of America are well-versed in Chinese history. Maybe Zheng He and his exploits are well-known to you and I'm a big dummy. It's likely, however, that you're in the dark too. Even though we can't learn much from China's idealized presentation of itself, I'm chastened by how little we do know.
AC says:
When I was a freshman in high school, I very distinctly remember one quarter of my world history spent on a great big overview of the history of China. I don't remember too much of it except for the craziness of the cultural revolution and the dynasties were an absolute bitch to know and memorize. Also, I think Chinese history came up again in a few of my other social studies classes too. I do wonder if this came about because I am a bit younger than you are, and maybe perhaps by the time I got around to high school, people were starting to realize China's importance. Both of my sisters (13 & 16) told me they had done units on China in the middle school and junior high too.
And yes, the opening ceremony was absolutely fantastic.
Also Ed, I'm curious to know whether you ever were exposed to discussion on other parts of the world besides Europe and America in your younger years of education. Was China the only pretty thing left out or did things kind of get ignored too?
vghoul says:
Not quite as academic as yrself, but fwiw:
1) Everything I know about the history of any Asian culture I've had to learn on my own.
2) A tiny sliver of "Art Through the Ages" [a staple beginning text in Art History curricula at the university level] deals with "non-western" art.
…and that's about it.
BK says:
Great post Ed. I consider myself to be someone who enjoys learning about hisroty – not a buff becasue I don't tend to dedicate the energy to keep most of what I learn committed to memory – and I realized halfway through your post that I am completely illiterate when it comes to asian history pre Vietnam.
If anyone is aware of some good resources – books, documentaries, etc.. – on the subject I would appreciate any info that could be shared.
Heqit says:
Really good post — it is beyond humbling to realize (again!) what I as a self-professed better-educated-than-average American don't know about the world's present and past. I suppose it should be comforting that I'm not the only one, but…yeah, it's not.
For the record, in my first twelve years of school we never, that I recall, touched on China, in world history or elsewhere. (BK, you may not know any Asian history pre-Vietnam, but I don't know any post-Vietnam, or earlier, or American history of that period either other than what I lived through, because no history class that I took managed to make it beyond WWI. The first international event I remember is the fall of the Berlin Wall; anything that happened before that and after 1920 or so I'm fuzzy on. And yet I got a 5 on the AP US History test. Yikes, indeed.)
In college I studied Religion and consequently did discuss China, at least in the context of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and East Asian History to 1720. Modern China? Nope. All I know is what I've picked up from random outside reading.