Just Nod Your Head and Smile

I tried to discuss the Olympic torch relay in class last night. My goal was to try to get students to focus on the meaning of the Olympic flame itself and some of the motivations 外国人 (waiguoren) might have for taking part in such protests. I pointed out that it had been a foreigner responsible for one instance of the torch's being extinguished.

"No, there were no foreigners--Tibetan's children," they insisted. I said that many of the protestors (such as those who hung the handcuff Olympic rings, those who chained themselves to the Eiffel Tower, and some of those who caused the torch to be extinguished) were foreigners, not Tibetans. "Children of the outside countries, not Tibet's children," I clarified.

My students then showed me the one picture published in the newspaper, saying, "See, Chinese woman want save flame, Tibetan terrorize flame, Chinese, Tibetan, China, Tibet," pointing back and forth between the two figures. "What about other pictures?" I asked. "You're saying this picture isn't real?" they accused me. "No, just that there are other pictures," explained; this one incident isn't everything. They didn't believe me. So, for the record (on a blog that can't be accessed in China without a proxy), the guy below is whiter than I am.

And this guy's pretty pale too.
And I don't think I need to point out that there aren't many Chinese as dark-skinned as the guy in the middle of this picture.

Again, though, my students can't easily get ahold of such pictures. I had to go to the New York Times and BBC to get them, and Chinese searches just don't route that way. And of course my students wouldn't think to do an English search on the issue; after all, the Western media always lies. (As an interesting side-note, yes, Chinese police do dress as indicated the one page in the youtube clip, but the 保安--bao'an, or security/paramilitary guards that monitor my neighborhood certainly do dress in camouflage and boots; who knows which are actually being shown in that clip.)

So, I'm done raising such issues in class. It's too much to hope for that people will be able to put aside the People's Daily and Xinhua official lines long enough to even complete a sentence.