Good News or Bad News
For the last 3 years, while news reports told us of Bird’s Nests and high tech Bubbles, the man on the Beijing omnibus could not even glimpse the facilities, which were hidden completely by advertisement hoardings. Passing by the other day, the billboards (promoting bath room fittings of all things) have gone and the Bird’s Nest has emerged in all its glory. The result is spectacular. Earlier, having seen only artist’s impressions, I thought the stadium ugly. The oddly angled struts seemed to dominate and produce only an unpleasing approximation to a bird’s nest. The images of the construction phase reinforced the impression, with angular girders suggesting more tank trap than sports arena. Now, the finished structure is striking, with the stark lines softened by a curved profile that looks too perfect to have been created by mere mortals. The overall effect is breathtakingly beautiful and while I have no idea whether the building “works” as intended, it looks impressive when viewed from the nearby motorway.
Listening to the international media, I was disappointed by the kind of coverage that that emerged. The reporting of the Games, in general, seems to be driven by an almost Jeremiah-like willingness to prepare us for some, as yet unknown, issue which will make the Beijing games a disaster. A recent report I saw, which introducing the technically sophisticated swimming pool, drew our attention to a crack on the diving platform to point to unspecified “dangers within” which could still derail the Beijing Games. The local media errs in the opposite direction. For them there is no Darfur, no dispossessed farmers and householders, no underpaid migrant builders. Instead they smile benignly and unquestioningly along with the six rather anodyne mascots who collectively keep welcoming me to the Beijing Olympics. I like my media edgy and will put up with a lot in favour of a journalism which will disturb the comfortable, if not necessary comfort the disturbed. However, I get the feeling that the Beijing Olympics a filed under “Bad News Stories” and even when presenting a good news piece, some allusion to the Bad News core must be alluded to.
I come from a country where begrudgery is, or perhaps was, a national past time, (We even invented the word). More recently I heard of a variation, “What-about-ery” which ensures that good news cannot be heard on its own terms but must be followed up with the undermining and draining, “bad news” question that displays a determination to see things only in negative terms. I see, too, especially during Lent, that I carry within myself the same tendency, and it is no more attractive in myself than in the international media. My faith invites me to see the good in every person, and recognise Christ presence in every situation. By this, I don’t mean that one has to be ridiculously naive and incredulous. Rather, even in recognising the negative I am called to go on believing in the good, and to push past the “what about” question to a solidarity which can solve the problems together. I see the negative results of failing to do so in my own life and I also see it being played out in the Olympic coverage also.
The Birds Nest, in this writer’s opinion, is beautiful, it lifts my spirits just to look at it and I hope that it is the centrepiece of a very successful Olympic Games. When its all over, I hope the same optimism will unite China in tackling the other issues, the “what-aboutery” issues that still remain to be solved in this wonderful and ever fascinating Middle Kingdom (of God).