Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

There's no China in team

I love the Olympics. It’s a great reminder that there are no shortcuts in life. Because shortcuts, also known as cheating, is explicitly not allowed in Olympic competition. To reach a goal, there’s only the consistent grind. People love to see the end results of a triumphant victory, but behind that are countless sweaty sessions in a training gym. Successes are overnight only because on the television is the first time you’ve seen of some of these athletes.

The running joke regarding my mother country of China is that they perform superbly at individual events, but fail completely when it comes to team sports. If an event involves more than two people at once, it’s not going to go well for China. Doubles ping pong and synchronized diving? Not a problem. Football and basketball? A country of 1.4 billion souls can’t even qualify.

I have a theory on why this is so. In a way, Chinese culture is kind of selfish. For very good reasons, to be sure. The devastation wrought by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution created an ingrained atmosphere of not enough to go around. The zero-sum pie is very small. Therefore, for the common Chinese citizen, whatever you can get for yourself, you hang onto it for dear life. There’s no honor is sharing, because that means you yourself won’t have enough to survive.

There was a time when public bathrooms in China did not have toilet paper. Any stock would be stolen very quickly. You’d have to bring your own.

The saying goes: there’s no ‘I’ in team. A team of selfish athletes isn’t going to go very far. When the glory of personal accomplishment (and the financial rewards) overshadow pride for country, it’s obvious to see how China continues to fail at team sports on the world stage.

Easy.

Spend spend spend

The 2024 Summer Olympics starts this week in Paris. If it seems like it’s only been a short while since the Tokyo Olympics, that’s because it was held in 2021. Thank you, Covid pandemic. We hardly think about you these days. Due apologies to the long Covid sufferers.

I keep hearing the term “revenge travel” these days. Coming out of the pandemic, people are eager to travel, to make up for the lost time. My only question is: “How the French are people affording to travel?” I flew out the country twice this year (already, though no more plans to do so) and honestly I had some trepidation about spending the money. It was all worth it, obviously. In these days of high inflation I would prefer to have a bit more buffer in the bank account. You just never know when the cost a thing (that you absolutely need, of course, like YouTube Premium) will suddenly spike in price.

Though, word on the street is that Japan is currently relatively cheap to travel to. Because the Japanese yen is weak point against foreign currency. Weeaboos rejoice: your American dollars will get you more things in Akihabara.

Maybe the revenge part of revenge travel is on bank accounts. Swipe it on credit cards, pay it (much) later. If a chance leak at a lab in Wuhan, China (allegedly, probably) can trigger a global death event without any warning, wouldn’t you live life with a more short term view? Let’s cram all the fun things we want to do now. Who cares if we don’t have the means to pay the tab - we might be dead in a few years anyways. (DJ Khaled voice: “Another one.”) In America, debt of the deceased dies with them - next of kin bears zero responsibility, unless they (stupidly) co-signed on the debt.

Sometimes I feel like a crazy person, still concerned with thinking for the long-term. YOLO is a good BTS song, not a protracted life strategy. Travel to Paris for the Olympics? Not in this economy of the $200 per night common hotel room.

Oasis.

Beijing 2022

The Winter Olympics is happening right now in Beijing. It feels weird because we’ve only just had the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, even though yes that was delayed for one year due to the ongoing pandemic. Perhaps the Beijing winter games should have been postponed as well, seeing as spectators at events are still severely limited, and the athlete’s families aren’t able to travel with to China. The show must go on, I guess.

It certainly does not have the same awe-inspiring feel as the 2008 summer games, also held in Beijing. That was the first time China got to host an Olympics. I can remember how proud I was of my motherland as I watched the opening ceremony. Tears of pride gathered at the corner of my eyes as the Chinese national anthem played to the raising of the flag of five stars. The 2008 Olympics was indeed a coming out party for China on the world stage.

In contrast, the 2022 Beijing Olympics has an air of controversy clouding over it, especially if you’re watching from a western country. The NBC broadcast here in the States began with a discussion of the massive human rights violation happening in the Xinjiang region of the China. The Biden administration is diplomatically boycotting the games. Then there’s also COVID: a second straight Olympics with practically zero fan attendance seems like a failure of governance and policy.

Nevertheless, I tuned in to the opening ceremonies last Friday. You can always count on the Chinese to put on a great show (Zhang Yimou directing, too, once again), and indeed the ceremony did not disappoint. Perhaps this second time around was always going to feel less pomp and circumstantial than the first. The emotions of seeing my mother country hosting these winter games just isn’t as strong as the experience of 2008.

Because if the pandemic never happened, I might be in Beijing right now to take in the games in person. A once in a lifetime opportunity derailed by the COVID. Now that’s something we can all commiserate in.

Spring is here.

Travel is back, baby

A coworker just returned from vacationing in Greece. He said there are no quarantine requirements, provided you have proof that of full vaccination, and a recent negative COVID test. I don’t suppose other European countries are any different. Hell, Britain is opening back up fully from the pandemic today. Travel is back, baby!

Too bad I have no desire to go to Europe. At least not right now. I yearn to go back to Asia, but sadly quarantine restrictions are still in place in places like Japan and South Korea. The athletes and surrounding cottage industry of people flying to Tokyo right now for the Olympics? They have to quarantine before being let out into the general population.

A population with low vaccination rates. It’s not good at all when Olympic athletes are already catching COVID, even whilst fully vaccinated. The delta variant is no joke, and it is rather shocking to see Japan going forward with the games, despite all the signs pointing to at the very least another prolonged postponement. Remember: the grandstands are going to be empty!

Stubborn pride of Japanese, perhaps? Having the entire world come to your doorsteps, while a global pandemic is still very much happening, can’t be a good thing.

It will certainly delay any relaxation of quarantine requirements for foreign travelers. Good thing I’m not pining for Japan as much as South Korea and Taiwan. Hopefully I will be able to visit either of the latter two countries during Thanksgiving week. More likely it’ll be South Korea as the vaccination program there seems to be going well. Fingers crossed!

Urban decay.

Chinese winter is coming

At this point, I would not be surprised if the Tokyo Olympics gets delayed.

As we head into the third month of the coronavirus disaster, I think we’re starting to see the economic ramifications from the global supply chain being effectively shut down. China is such an integral part to practically everything the world runs on that sooner or later the consequences of the country-wide lock down will start showing up. Apple have already served caution for its next quarter’s revenue due to production delays and lack of demand in China. The world’s largest mobile phone show - Mobile World Congress - is cancelled, probably because the huge contingent from China is unable to travel to Barcelona. The Formula One grand prix in Shanghai is heading towards cancellation.

My brother, who works at a Toyota dealership, tells me there’s currently a huge shortage of hybrid models, presumably due to disrupted raw material supply in China for the batteries. The situation is not ideal for him and Toyota because the company’s hybrid cars are some of its best sellers.

The stock market in the States is still at all-time highs, though I suspect with the looming cliff of quarterly reports from companies since the coronavirus outbreak, the markets might not look so rosy in a few months’ time (I’m not a professional advisor; please do your own research).

I think we take for granted how crucial China is to the smooth running of the rest of the world, so quick and easy it is to hate on China because of its communist one-party rule, that we don’t think of what can happen when that gets taken away. Unfortunately, we’re all about to find out soon enough. Personally I’ve already eliminated any thoughts of traveling abroad this year; until the corner is turned on the coronavirus, going to Asia is effectively impossible.

I suspect holding the Tokyo Olympics on-time will largely hinge on this.

Porsche really hit it out of the park on the styling of the current-generation Panamera sedan.