Not Zero-Sum: Perspective of an Ordinary Chinese American
In the era of Trump/Putin/Xi, an ordinary Chinese American's hope for solidarity (Chapter Six)
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Chapter 6: 2008 - Two Proud Moments
I graduated from college at the end of 2007 and started my first full-time job in early 2008. I was fortunate that if I had graduated a year later, the job offer would likely have been rescinded, along with the stability of the world financial market. While I haven’t forgotten the bleak news that churned out—each day seemingly a new catastrophe, a new company on the brink of collapse—my luck in timing afforded me the possibility to remember 2008 as a whole differently. Instead of memories dominated by the dark clouds that gathered over Wall Street, what I recall most vividly are two proud moments: the Beijing Olympics in China and the presidential election in the US.
Beijing Olympics
Growing up in China in the early 1990s, the summer Olympics was a big deal. Every four years, three generations of family gathered around a small TV in the living room undeterred by insufferable heat. An electric fan whirled overhead, while paper fans rotated rhythmically in our hands. Giant watermelons were cut in halves and then served in slices to keep everyone hydrated. This wasn’t just a tradition in my family, but across most households. I knew this because China’s open living allowed me to witness it. Through our half-opened windows, I could hear neighbors chattering in the next building and spy on the vendor shops that lined the neighborhood alleys. When 8pm arrived, the streets emptied, and everyone’s attention was glued to the TV. It was fun being part of this larger commotion. The allure of the Olympics wasn’t just because Chinese people loved sports, but there was also a keen interest in anything international, reflected in the proportion of international coverage during the 7pm central news program that was part of many families’ nightly ritual.
So in 2001, when Beijing found out that it had been selected to host the 2008 Olympics—the first ever Olympics in China—the preparations started almost immediately. 12 new sports venues were built, including the “Bird’s Nest” stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies would be held. An eclectic group of performers assembled with director Zhang Yimou, known for his cinematic effects, taking the helm. The central government tackled Beijing’s notorious pollution by halting constructions, shutting down manufacturing industries for months ahead of the games, and cutting the daily volume of passenger vehicles on the road by half through alteration of odd and even license plate numbers. Outside the city, farmers played the role of weather guardians, launching silver iodide rockets at heavier clouds to induce rain, so that the inner city could stay dry during the games. Unlike most Olympics, cost was not a factor. China basically signed a blank check to ensure this monumental event would be awesome.
The only hiccup came from the torch relay on a route that passed through six continents. Human rights protesters converged on Western cities like San Francisco, Paris, and London, forcing the path of the relay to be altered and the torch itself extinguished—much to the chagrin of the Chinese government. For as long as I can remember, human rights have been a blemish for China at the Olympics, and when it came to NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, China and human rights were practically synonymous.
Despite 5,000 years of history, for most of China’s residents, individual rights remain a rather new concept. Compared to the West, Chinese culture has always been more collectivist like an ant colony, prioritizing common good over individual interest and championing a “stronger together” mindset—it’s easy to see why the concept of communism might have been appealing.
During its long, eventful past, China had endured lengthy periods of unrest, with one particular warring episode lasting over 250 years. Generations of ordinary people suffered the cost of war, until the brutal but capable Qin Emperor conquered the other six independent states, finally uniting China and bringing about peace. Such extended struggles influenced the people’s appreciation for unity due to its association with stability—perhaps at the cost of individuality.
The wu-xia movie Hero offers good perspective: the assassin, an orphan from Zhao state whose parents had been murdered by the Qin army, realizes in the midst of his revenge / assassination attempt that he could not kill the Qin Emperor, because it would prolong the war and lead to greater suffering for all people. If the American Civil War had lasted 250 years, we would still be fighting now, and we may rethink issues such as states’ rights, the right to bear arms, and perhaps even freedom of speech—if it leads to secession.
In addition to history, China’s immense population also weighs on its perspective, moving the needle toward both economy of sharing and deemphasis of individuals. When you inhabit a single dorm room with five other students, it can be rather challenging to maintain privacy or assert your personal desires.
Beyond cultural and historical factors, the geographic positioning of ethnic groups in China adds further complexity. Like the United States, China is home to multiple ethnic groups—56 to be exact—with Han being the dominant group by far at over 90% of the total population. However, unlike the United States, China’s minority ethnic groups are often naturally segregated by geological features and near the borders, and the Hans have only begun in recent decades to settle in these regions at the urging of the government.
This homogeneous setup increases the likelihood of secession when ethnic conflict arises—imagine if all Asian Americans lived in Washington State when Trump tweeted “kung flu”—so the Chinese government needs to walk a fine line between greater integration and discord arising from the increase in contacts. Perhaps integration isn’t the answer, and instead of Asian Americans living in the State of Washington, Native Americans living in autonomous reservations is a better analogy.
Given these contexts and the present ban on free media and aversion to rule of law, it does open the door for the Chinese government to leverage the collectivist culture and achieve its objectives in the name of greater good, potentially committing injustices against both individuals and groups purportedly to maintain harmony in larger society.
During my time in China from birth until age 11 and casual visits thereafter, I did not witness specific or systemic human rights violations with the exception of internet censorship. However, from the perspectives I’ve encountered—ranging from ordinary citizens who, like me, have never experienced human rights issues and may thus question the validity of Western accusations, to those from minority ethnic or religious groups who revealed harrowing stories of oppression—I suspect there is a darker side of China, hidden from the view of most citizens. It’s only when you are part of the outer group on the receiving end of injustice, that you wake up to the flaws of the system.
However, despite these potential shortcomings in Chinese society, an overly critical approach from America is not productive. When the US highlights human rights issues during the introduction of Chinese Olympic athletes, it risks not only misaligning with the Olympics' spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play, but also alienating the Chinese people. Given Eastern culture’s disposition toward subtlety, direct criticisms during such a global event can raise doubts about American intentions, feeding the Communist Party’s narrative of a hostile America.
Moreover, from the Chinese government's viewpoint, its treatment of minority groups is seen as comparatively favorable against the backdrop of America’s earlier treatment of Native Americans or Western conduct in the aftermath of the Opium Wars. In this light, the Chinese government perceives its policies towards minority groups as part of a historical cycle, and American interference is just another example of the US moving the goalposts.
If America seeks linear progress then, it will need to take a different approach. An appeal based on ideals won’t work either due to ironically the failure of Communist ideologies in recent history. Instead, the US could pursue a more practical angle, for instance, a bulleted list of concrete benefits that improved human rights would bring—long-term stability, better alignment with the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan, and innovations should sit at the top—as well as detailed recommendations mapping out where the incremental improvements may come from (e.g., how would we interact differently with Native Americans if we had a second chance).
A more compassionate advance would help too. It wasn’t so long ago that the US had its own share of human rights issues—slavery, Japanese internment, the controversial use of nuclear weapons (more controversial in the US than in China likely due to its utilitarian root), the cover-up of Japanese Unit 731, segregation—and still has issues such as mass incarceration, racial and LGBTQ equality. The US could also acknowledge that its version of individual rights isn’t perfect. We face challenges such as mask mandates, gun control—issues in the name of individual rights vs. greater good but are against common sense, like yelling fire in a crowded theater. As is the case for most topics, the US and China can learn from each other.
In addition to being the first Olympics hosted by China, the 2008 Olympics was special because of modern history. Ever since the Opium Wars and the century of humiliation that followed, the Chinese people had been searching for a path to redemption. The Beijing Olympics served as a platform to showcase not only China’s growing prosperity but also its past traditions to the people around the world. If American exceptionalism derives from its self-government and multi-ethnic society, then Chinese exceptionalism derives from the sophistication of its culture, refined through 5,000 years of history.
I remember watching the opening ceremony in my shared apartment in Boston. Bright colors of lights and fireworks decorated the Bird’s Nest. There was a buzz in the stadium, a palpable energy that circulated the atmosphere. Sitting in the midst of open summer air, the audience wore loose clothing, chatted merrily, and waved Chinese national hand flags. World leaders looked relaxed and personable, ready to cheer on the athletes representing their countries. It felt like one big celebration through the TV screen.
Later, thousands of performers awed the audience with their sheer number and flawless coordinations—the drummers countdown, the machine-like printing press, the tai-ji-quan masters—guiding the viewers through a grand journey of China’s culture and history, assisted by a giant LCD screen of modern technology. The joyful glows on the performers’ faces mirrored the audiences’ in the stadium and mirrored my own. I remember the intense feelings that swelled inside me and made it difficult to speak. It was an emotional moment for generations of Chinese people around the world, connected by our common heritage and shared pride.
The excitement from the opening ceremony carried over to the rest of the games. Michael Phelps punctuated his 8/8 bid with an extra butterfly stroke, and team USA would not let him down in the men’s 100m freestyle relay race, where a 33-year old / Olympic dinosaur Jason Lezak chased down the French world record holder in an improbable comeback. The US men’s basketball team led by Kobe redeemed themselves, temporarily reopening the gap vs. rest of the world. Usain Bolt broke his own 100m world record in style. Selfishly, China winning the most gold medals and the US winning the most overall medals was the best outcome.
At the time, the count of medals meant something, offering further proof of China’s return to status and gaining mian-zi (face) for the host nation. 14 years later, what I remember most is the genuine joy displayed by the thousands of performers from the opening ceremony that accurately reflected the emotions of a people. I can’t imagine how hard they must have trained, day after day, month after month, year after year, practicing the same motions and movements, committing physical acts into muscle memory and group coordinations into subconsciousness, pursuing perfection so that for those few hours in front of the global audience, they could represent the potential of the Chinese people to its full capacity. While outcomes such as GDP growth and gold medal count often garner all the headlines, it was the enduring process of self-improvement and the resilient spirit of the people—the dedication of the Olympic performers—that had brought China back.
In 2008 though, as the spellbinding performances enthralled millions of viewers, my own chi-ku spirit was in regression. The original foundation of work ethics erected during elementary school had mostly eroded in the last couple years of high school, as I practically slept through all of my classes. By then, my English had gotten better, basketball skills improved, and I even gained some budding popularity among the Asian students at my high school in the Houston suburbs. With the initial struggles behind me, I became more laid back—especially about my studies—a nod to the fact education wasn’t part of the popularity metrics. I told myself the goal was to exert the least amount of effort and still get As, and felt clever when I scored 88 on the French final exam, which led to a final course grade of 89.5 that rounded to an A on the report card. It seemed like a good compromise that satisfied most stakeholders, except, I had a suspicion that it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted. Somewhere buried beneath the nonchalant poses that I didn’t care, was doubts, a voice that said I should care, amplified by examples from others, who stayed true to themselves.
I would rediscover my Chinese diligence freshman year in college. Something had clicked after a challenged first semester. While I would like to think it was because I finally found the will to lead my own path, more likely it was due to an amalgamation of other factors too: good influence from friends, harder coursework, a more diverse environment, and inspired in no small part by what my mom said “girls like guys that are capable.” For almost three years, I unsubscribed from distractions such as AIM and fantasy sports, stuck to a rigorous schedule of studying and exercising, and called the Perry-Castañeda Library my home away from home. While following this proven path, where there was a strong correlation between inputs and outputs, I steadily gained confidence—true confidence that stood the test when circumstances changed—and life felt simple.
However, if I had been lucky to stumble upon the process early in college, I was less fortunate that it took many more years for me to recognize its significance. It also didn’t occur to me that life had been simple only because I had ignored some of its tougher questions.
When I applied for undergraduate study, I had seen it as a means to secure a steady income, and I chose to major in electrical engineering mostly because it was hard. There wasn’t a passion or personal relevance that I could trace the decision to. This somewhat soulless approach meant that once I had the grades, the internship experiences, and the interview know-hows to land a full-time job, I would begin to leak purpose. I tried to forge a new sense of direction, drawing inspiration from late night conversations with friends, but I was also becoming afflicted by complacency, hubris, naivety, and some form of senioritis.
So in 2008, as I started my career in a well-paying 9-5 job in Corporate America—the outcome of my Chinese diligence—I was soon plagued by the question: what’s next? I think to some extent, it’s the same line of questions that the Chinese people face. When you strive to get back on track, when you have finally proven yourself, when survival is no longer top-of-mind, where does the motivation come from now?
But for one spectacular summer night and the few weeks that followed, the questions could wait—it was time to celebrate.
The 2008 Election
By early 2008, Barack Obama was not a surprise candidate. Catapulted by the Audacity of Hope speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama had risen steadily in esteem among Democrats. Primary polls on the ground consistently showed that he belonged in the conversation or had even pulled ahead of Hilary Clinton. However, for non-Democrats, the rest of us were just catching up. First came the Iowa Caucus result that was unexpected only to people who hadn’t been paying attention, and that was when “a skinny black man with a funny name”—as Obama introduced himself—popped up on my radar. Given that African American represented low-teens percentage of the overall population, my disposition toward probability & statistics, and my own lens mostly from living in Texas, the outcome was borderline shocking. It piqued my curiosity of who was Barack Obama, what was his story, and how was he able to pull this off.
Obama turned out to be younger than expected. I had imagined someone more like Morgan Freeman, winning people over with undisputed wisdom. However, the more I listened to Obama speak, the more I realized that his message resonated with me.
Up to that point, my knowledge of politics had been very limited. The subject didn’t seem that relevant given I couldn’t vote yet, and like most teenagers, I was self-absorbed. In intermediate school, I had a vague impression that Bill Clinton was smart when it came to the economy, but he was done in by a sex scandal. By high school, I had surmised that Bush was a decent person but lacked depth, his decisions often based on rationales that seemed no more sophisticated than my own, which I thought didn’t bode well given our vastly different responsibilities. By college, I found Austin a welcoming change for ethnic diversity, and it coincided in solidarity with my fellow Longhorns that Travis County was then the only blue county in Texas.
Whenever political discussions came up at UT, there was a popular saying that I parroted: “If you are a Republican when you are 18, you are heartless, and if you are a Democrat when you are 40, you are not very successful.” Truthfully, political organizations, campaign process, policy details were all beyond my grasp then. Outside of tax implications, the only awareness I had was that Democrats were more favorable toward diversity—a topic of sufficient personal relevance—and it inclined me to lean left. When I heard Obama speak a few years later, it was the topic of diversity, once again, that caught my attention.
“It doesn’t matter whether you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian…,” Obama’s inspiring vision contrasted with the corporate all-hands speeches and the subsequent Q&As predictable in both contents and participants that I sat through. Thinking that perhaps I had found a role model, I sought and consumed much material to learn more about the self-assured senator from Illinois—his background, the path he had taken—hoping that it would shine more clarity on my own path.
To my surprise, I found familiarities—a multicultural upbringing and a love for the game—in Obama’s first book Dreams From My Father. During the high school years, the basketball court had been a place of refuge for both of us, where appearances faded as the game progressed. However, that’s where the similarities would stop. Whereas I had unknowingly followed a more paint-by-number approach in college, unconsciously pushing the more personal questions into the background, Obama had embarked on a connecting-dots pilgrimage that was closer to the soul, a journey that would lead him to the initial calling of a community organizer with the impulse of building a community where he could “put down roots” and “test his commitments,” a community that would “offer collective redemption” and “admit his own uniqueness…”
Though the path I had taken was quite different, I found much of Obama’s reflections relatable and inviting. It prompted me to reexamine my own life more closely, uncovering memories that I had left unexplored. His experiences also opened my eyes to the possibilities of American democracy, how the constant dialogues among its citizens molded the conscience of society, as surely as the ebb and flow of waves rounding the rough edges of beach pebbles. For perhaps the first time in my life, I began to believe that anyone can make an impact—began to believe in change.
“What unites us is greater than what divides us.” This simple yet powerful message, it turned out, had been validated by my own experience while I was still in college. UT Austin, like the fictional city Zootopia, was a bubble in the heartland of Texas, boasting the second highest number of college students in the nation and decent diversity such that just about anyone can find their own niche. However, because of my tendency to drift toward the middle, I found that I didn’t really belong to any one group: engineers that studied, engineers that played sports, ABCs, international students from China… Instead, I saw pieces of me in each of these groups, and I was the most comfortable camping at the boundaries, where my social circles overlapped.
During freshman year, I had been introduced to a new sport called Ultimate Frisbee, and it would expand into an activity where my friends came together. While the name may sound daunting, the key act of the game was simple—catch a 175 gram frisbee—an act that any new player could complete and leave an imprint on the game.
One of my favorite memories of college was from Black Friday, when my friends and I would get together to play Ultimate on a soccer field in Sugar Land, an opportunity to relieve our guilt from the Thanksgiving feasts. It made so much sense that it eventually became an annual tradition that would outlive my participation.
In the heat of the game, as 20 college kids ran wild on the grass field, each representing different ethnicities, talents, and life stories, as the frisbee glided through the air from one pair of hands to another, progressing toward common goals, and as we blocked out everything else, becoming completely absorbed, I would often experience a larger-than-life feeling like the slow-motion scenes in a movie. From past knowledge, I knew the wonder of human bond was secretly performing its magical spell, the subtle transformation from acquaintance to something more. The game ends, we pause collectively, still immersed in the good feeling, trying to prolong it with our silence. It made me realize that all of us have an innate desire to be part of something bigger. By building connections through our common interests and values—perhaps as simple as our shared passion for sports, or our ideals to make the world a better place—we buy time to ultimately understand our differences.
In a sense, the Ultimate Frisbee games were an abridged version of what Obama spoke of in his book on building a common community—the camaraderie from communal experiences. It’s not surprising that I would come to share Obama’s vision for unity, or rather his vision happened to be the perfect summary of the fragmented thoughts that were floating in my head then. Except I would also like to extend its application beyond Americans to people around the world, I think President Obama was necessarily constrained by his job title:
It doesn’t matter if you are from a small nation, large nation, developed economy, developing economy, the hutongs of Nanjing, the alleyways of Sydney, the calle of Buenos Aires, the streets of Boston, the rue of Paris, the mtaani of Nairobi—our shared values as human beings are far greater than our differences.
From what I have observed, President Obama’s message inspired the Chinese youths too. However, I think they were perhaps disappointed by what actually transpired during his presidency in terms of America’s relationship with China: the pivot / rebalance of American military and diplomacy to Asia, the Trans-Pacific Partnership that excluded China. I recognize the challenge President Obama faced—the Chinese government had blocked him from speaking directly to the Chinese people—and while his good intentions may appeal to the ordinary Chinese people, they don’t carry the same sway with the Chinese government. I understand the desire to contain that same government, but I recognize it means containing the aspirations of the Chinese people too. I think the US, as powerful as it is, overestimates its ability to hold back a nation, and in turn, its people. As we have seen in Afghanistan, Iran, and in other nations time and time again, transformation needs to take place internally, and it’s often necessarily slower than we would like, but the US can show the way by setting good examples. And while I understand the hesitancy, the mistrust toward the Chinese Communist government, let’s give credit to the same government that has lifted 800 million people out of poverty.
I would love to see China becoming more free, more respectful of individual rights, learning from the US’s brightest spots (would also love for the US to do the same from China), and I don’t believe such changes can’t coexist with the current Communist Party. I personally am optimistic that those changes are inevitable as Chinese society progresses, that it would be in the interest of the Communist Party to adapt. I hope the CCP will reach the same conclusion rather than run counter to human nature and raise conflicts between the government and the people it represents. But I’m also not in a rush. I understand the importance of stability—the need for gradual changes starting with the continual improvement of education that encourages individual judgment—and the distinctiveness of China’s culture and history that will shape its own path.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me instead bring it back to 2008, to the night of the election, when the electoral map had turned blue like a tidal wave, the flipping of states that hadn’t voted Democrats in decades. As President-elect Obama gave his victory speech—the iconic “yes we can” journey validated through the test of time—hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Chicago Grant Park, proud and hopeful witnesses that an ethnic minority has been elected president of the United States for the very first time. I thought I recognized the emotions on their faces, the same emotions I felt that night and a few months ago, and the same emotions I had seen on the faces of the Beijing Olympics crowd thousands of miles away. It felt like we had achieved the collective redemption that Obama had written about. It felt like progress.
Chapter Seven: Progress Zigzags →
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Chapter Six End Notes:
Weather guardians at the Olympics: [MacLeod, Calum (2006-06-29). "China rolls out the big guns, aiming for a dry Olympics". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-11-15.]
Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama. I was immediately hooked by its multicultural background and depth of character. The book also offers a window into President Obama’s life before politics.
2008 was a good year for China despite issues with Tibet leading up to the Olympics. Everyone in China and the region was pretty upbeat at the chances and potential China could go given how they presented themselves in the Olympics, especially at a time when people were souring on the USA due to Bush's antics. Obama's election was also a good step, even though the damage done to the USA by Bush was too extensive for Obama and the Democrats to sort out.
Being an Asian-American in the USA at that time wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst.