The girls on China's gymnastics team may not be as young as you think.
Two media sources and one hacker have apparently discovered discrepancies in the reporting of the girls' ages on the Internet:
- A New York Times article three weeks ago raised initial suspicions about the underage gymnasts. The Times reported that even though He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan are listed as 16 on their passports other sources state otherwise.
- The Associated Press also found evidence on a Chinese state media Web site identifying He as 13 only nine months before the games.
- A blogger apparently discovered on a Chinese sponsored state Web site Wednesday that several of the Chinese gymnasts are under the Olympic age limit.
Two points I would like make:
- The criticism has mainly come from western media.
- The proof has come from online sources.
The United States may be making an embarrassing mistake; the same mistake I made four months ago.
I often questioned the ages of women I saw in China while I studied abroad in Asia for five months at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
When I first arrived in Hong Kong, I often mistook my classmates as high school or grade school students. I believe Asian women hide their age better than Caucasian women.
I traveled to Shantou in Southern China to teach English in March. I knew I was supposed to teach high school students, but they seemed like eight year olds instead of 16 and 17 year olds.
I asked one young girl, "How old are you?" She thought for a moment and said, "18." I had thought she was closer to 10.
The more time I spent in China, the more I realized that Chinese women show age differently, mainly on their necks and hands.
Before U.S. media condemn the Chinese, maybe they should step back and make sure they are not making the same mistake I did.
You can read more about Jessica's travels in Asia in her blog at http://reportingfromasia.blogspot.com.
Questions? Comments? E-mail Jessica at jdavis08@gmail.com.
3 comments:
I disagree with your assessment that western media is making the mistake based on what we culturally think a 16 year old should look like. The controversy has much more to do with whether or not China decided to play by the rules when they agreed to host the Olympic Games. Nobody has complained about the Japanese gymnast Tsurumi Koko, who turns 16 in September of looking too young to compete. Seen here (http://www.daylife.com/photo/0ddd8av4dngNV) last year when she was barely 15 she appears both thru puberty and older than the Chinese gymnasts who competed last week.
The decision about creating an age limit for competition was about the health of the athletes competing and helps level the playing field. E.M. Swift, senior sports columnist, when asked about the difference age makes, recently said “It has had an impact. Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she won in Montreal in 1976. Four years later, she did well. She won a couple of medals but did not win the all-around medal and she was not the dominant gymnast she was as a 14 year old. So there is a physical advantage to being smaller, more flexible and quicker. We see this in figure skating, which has the same rule. The hips, when they have not developed, spin quicker. That enables the competitors to do more complicated routines. In gymnastics, it's flips. If you are smaller, you can flip more.” (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/em_swift/08/14/underage.olympians/index.html) So by allowing younger girls to compete with the older ones places China at a competitive advantage and puts them above the rules of the Olympics.
We already know that China has had problems with accepting the “open” policies of the Olympics. They have not waffled back and forth about whether or not they would allow NBC, the BBC, CBC and other networks to broadcast from Tiananmen Square, denying them at first (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/business/media/24square.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) and then relenting under international pressure (http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/2008/06/19/olympic-broadcasters.html?ref=rss). They failed to allow free access to the internet (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/sports/olympics/31china.html?hp) for during the games and only allowed access at the last second(http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,569531,00.html) , but it still isn’t totally unrestricted (http://opennet.net/blog/2008/08/oni-analysis-internet-filtering-during-beijing-olympic-games-week-1). Not to mention that all of the protest applications have been withdrawn (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=avA2Ju0K9Atk&refer=asia) and that a number of Americans and a British reporter have been detained for trying to protest or cover a protest (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/21/AR2008082101975.html AND http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brit15-2008aug15,0,5207332.story).
The institutionalized cheating that has gone on in international gymnastics competitions is nothing new, but China in agreeing to host the Olympics, told the world it wouldn’t do that. It’s not just that articles have been dug up from news sources abroad listing the ages of the gymnasts as 13 or 14 instead of 16, but that since then the news agencies have gone back and tried to correct this “mistake.” This Globe and Mail article from August 16 makes the point that “in the end, it's not the Chinese gymnasts or how old they are that counts; it's the Chinese censors propagandists and professional liars, and what they're doing, that tells the tale.” (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/GAM.20080816.OLYBLATCHFORD16/TPStory/TPComment)
Full Globe & Mail Link
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/GAM.20080816.OLYBLATCHFORD16/TPStory/TPComment
You're right Jess...The US has been very quick to jump to conclusions without concrete evidence. As an Asian American woman, I am often mistaken for a high schooler despite my actual 29 years. When I was 16, I looked like I was 12...it's just being Asian. Those young Chinese girls look less than 16 to a Western audience, however, to most Asians...they looked 16+.
I'm not taking either side. I want solid proof proving either point. Until then, lets not diminish their great accomplishments. Unless proven otherwise, they deserve their moment of glory.
--Angie Chau
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