Posted on 08/16/2008 4:46:29 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
The Kung Fu pupils in the opening ceremony of the Olympics have spent the last year cooped up in a military camp outside Beijing. Conditions have been bad. "They weren't even given enough food," says their trainer. This news adds to the criticism of the Beijing Organizing Committee.
Viewers from around the globe marvelled at the Opening Ceremony last Friday. One of the most spectacular features was the martial arts display by 2008 pupils from the famous Shaolin Centre in Henan province. With coordinated movements, they showed the Tai Chi variant of Kung Fu; a popular way to relax for many Chinese people.
(snip)
Many of the martial arts performers feel abused and ignored by the Olympic organizers. For the last year, they have been housed 50 to a room, more than 70 kilometres from the Birds Nest National arena. This is where they have slept, eaten and spent all their time.
Leaving the compound around the barracks was strictly forbidden. The dormitories are crammed with bunk beds. Between 30 and 50 of the teenagers spent the night in each room. Only a few of the showers work and the toilet facilities have been bad. The winter was icy and in summer, the pupils had to battle against mosquitoes and the heat.
(snip)
Everything had to be perfect. As result the performers had to practice up to 16 hours a day. "The test performance of the opening ceremony was worst of all. The pupils had to remain in the stadium for 51 hours. They were hardly fed. There was nowhere to sleep. Some managed to sleep on the seats, but they didn't get more than a couple of hours at most," says Liu.
(Excerpt) Read more at aftenposten.no ...
Olympic ceremony training, totalitarian style.
Made in China Abused Martial Artists PING!
It’s the ChiComs Olympics, after all. We’d be disappointed if the ChiComs did anything other than behave badly. That’s why they are ChiComs, after all.
snicker...
its probably the same thing for alot of the folks participating in this farce. i wonder how many of those young people who don’t acheive for the government will be punished in some way. maybe that is why they look so grim when they don’t win a gold.
I didn't see the demo.
More training might help.
It was Tai Chi they were actually doing. I would have preferred to see some hard core Hung Gar or Shaolin Five Animals, but oh well.
What the show lacked in genuine creativity it more than made up for in stupendous magnificence.
Only in a country where 25,000 people can be conscripted, starved, deprived of personal liberty, not paid, treated as cattle, and tortured for untold hours of precision rehearsel could this have been possible.
It was a showcase for collectivism.
It’s no wonder that dancer fell, and is paralyzed now - I wonder how many hours had gone by before she attempted her fateful leap... After 48 hours awake you’re hurting pretty badly - especially if you are trying to perform perfectly in those conditions.
People are nothing to the ChiComs - what do they care if these kids get hurt? NOTHING. If they did care they would make sure they had enough food, rest, and not feeling like they were in prison! THIS is exactly the reason why China should never have been awarded the Olympics.
I think the liberals in the USA need to spend substantial time in the socialist “paradises” they eschew the world over...China, Sudan, Russia, etc.
Could they possibly give up what they have and receive in the “bad, old USA” for the enlightenment and tranquility of their “socialist utopias”?
Aaaaaah.....communism!
They only want to be in charge of a commie state, not live in one.
Any society which has to TELL their people when and how to freakin’ SMILE—even having to order them to do so—must be hell.
This is what the Left wants for us.
Pray for W and Our Troops
There will be a book about all the Chinese shenanigans.
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