San Francisco Asians fret over insult to Olympic torch

In today’s Front Page, The San Francisco Chronicle writes about “S.F. Asians fret over insult to Olympic torch.” If you haven’t been hiding under a rock the past month, you know that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Torch relay will be coming to San Francisco this Wednesday, April 9th – the only appearance in North America. With the recent crackdowns in Tibet by the Chinese government, there have been increasing calls for nations to boycott or protest in some manner (i.e. not attend for the opening ceremonies).

I’ve been to one Olympics – the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, and I definitely felt the Olympic spirit, and certainly understand that the protesters are not protesting against the Chinese people or Chinese culture, but the Chinese Communist government. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), did grant Beijing the 2008 Olympics partly to cajole China to improve its human rights and greater democratic freedoms to its citizens (much like what actually happened in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in South Korea). Chinese-American organizations and Chinese-Americans in San Francisco are concerned about what kind of message protesting against the Chinese government will really accomplish:

“San Francisco is the only city in North America to host the torch, and it should not be a political issue,” said Lui, the adviser to the Chinese American Association of Commerce, which represents 140 local groups. “Whatever disagreement the protesters have, it is not the time and place for it.” “We understand your rights of free speech, by all means, but be a gracious host, be sensitive to the fact that in San Francisco one-third of your inhabitants are Asians,” said attorney Edward Liu. “Many of us, Chinese Americans, in the city, we may not be supporting the Chinese government, but to politicize this game and to use this torch relay as a platform to bash China to me is unacceptable.”… [Ling Chi Wang, professor emeritus of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley] who has opposed the protests during the torch relay, said the contrast between how the torch is received in San Francisco and other countries will “embarrass not just the disrupters but sully the image of San Francisco – and America.”

Well, with all due respect to Professor Wang, he is wrong. Today, London had their 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay and there were, as expected, protests. Massive protests. You can read more about the protests in London in The Times, “Beijing Olympics: hopes swiftly extinguished by violence and farce.” Here is some video from the Associated Press:

I am all for protesters to protest peacefully. Attacking the torch relay runners to try to extinguish the flame is nothing something I condone. Hopefully things in San Francisco will turn out better than in London, which looked like a complete disaster. Paris is the next stop, and I’m sure there will be a lot of protesters there.

Protesting aside, there will be many Chinese American organizations that will be welcoming the Olympic torch relay. The Northern California Chinese Cultural Athletics Federation is mobilizing about 1,000 volunteers from the Bay Area, who will gather at Justin Herman Plaza on Wednesday and welcome the torch relay team with a public tai chi performance.