Media Montage · Watching the Olympic Games
I
One day in September 2000, when I had just finished class, I passed an old canteen near an old teaching building of Peking University. Suddenly, there was a loud shout of joy. It was about a table tennis or badminton final in Sydney Olympic Games. Students gathered in front of the lockable TV cabinet. The canteen played the function of watching sports, but the people who played the role of eating were somewhat discouraged. "Oh, my motherland!" I put my hand on my chest deliberately, mimicking the lyric tone, causing my classmates to smile with understanding.
Early autumn is indeed the best season in the capital. After several rains in August, the sky of the motherland suddenly rose. The heat has long gone, and the autumn tigers have taken a nap, but there is not much cool in the evening air. Instead, watching a live broadcast of the final game of ball games is enough to make people sweat. On that day, I did not lean to any picture tube TV in any canteen of Peking University, but rode along the West Third Ring Road to Beishang. As soon as I sat down in the restaurant at the gate of the school, my friends who were on the appointment told me the score of the victory of the Chinese team. The TV news on the bar showed that China had won several gold medals in less than an hour of my cycling. The next award ceremony, when the national anthem rings, will it be in Central 1, Central 2 or Central 5? The boss doesn't know which channel to change. Inside and outside the store is filled with unbelievable excitement.
China at that time was different from today, and the "world" (and Australia) at that time was also different from today. The gold medal winning trend of the Chinese team has occupied many "Western" pages. One of the 15 days was named "China Day" in the Olympic review video of the Olympic Organizing Committee. The muscle show of the Chinese men's gymnastics team and Liu Xuan's beautiful/symbolic smile appeared on the cover of news magazines outside Shanghai. The Australians interviewed by the Central Committee 5 wish China a success in its bid for the Olympic Games. The performance of the Chinese team is so good that Tian Liang, a teenager with the potential of becoming a star ("entertainment variety"), said to Zhang Bin (and by 2021, there will be him!) of CCTV at the victory party that whether we have won too many gold medals or not, the Olympic team should have pressure in the future.
However, history has proved that Tian Liang made a big mistake: first, the number of gold medals of the Chinese team in the subsequent Olympic Games easily exceeded that of the Sydney Olympic Games until the slight drop in the Rio Olympic Games (while the number of gold medals of the Chinese team in the Tokyo Olympic Games has exceeded that of 2000 so far). Secondly, since then, ordinary Chinese audiences have not had much gold medal complex and obsession, but they have not realized this.
Many changes, especially changes in cultural mentality, have been made clear through constant recognition. Since then, at each Olympic Games, there have been many domestic media people talking about "Chinese people have relaxed their mentality and don't need gold medals to prove anything". Unexpectedly, there will be such arguments in 2021. It feels that the script is consistent for more than ten years. The "gold medal only theory" has become a target and is killed every four years. But in fact, among the audience, the gold medal is dazzling but does not have to be "supreme". To be honest, even among sports fans, who can fully remember all the Chinese gold medal winners and their specific events in an Olympic Games? (In the 1990s, when China's gold medal was 16, there were really boring boys who didn't attend cram schools in summer, such as me, who remembered everything in the bombing broadcast of advantageous events on TV...) When there were so many excellent athletes competing in such rich events on behalf of your recognized motherland, your watching style also changed. And the media is changing.
II
On the night of next year's Olympic bid, I was backpacking in Hangzhou. In the first few hours, Yang Lan was still helping to correct the English pronunciation of Beijing municipal leaders, but the result was too fast, not at all breathtaking. Unlike the hero of the small gangster watching the live broadcast of the Olympic bid on the street in "Let's Go", I went to an Internet cafe next to Zhejiang University. No one seemed excited. In other words, college students and small gangsters all felt silly like that. But vaguely, "everyone" knows that the historical cycle starting from this may affect "everyone".
However, another group of college students, about from Beijing Sport University and Beijing Normal University, were ordered to celebrate at the scene: in the impression, the Century Monument and Tiananmen Square were different. That night, Jiang really appeared. The students of Beijing Sport University shouted, "Say something!" But he was very happy but did not speak (in fact, he had already delivered a congratulatory speech to the camera before his appearance, but the students did not know).
After the start of school, a professor said that the young people in the square cheered for the success of the Olympic bid. They only shouted "ah ah", but there was no language (except "Niu X"). No slogan. There is no group naming. There is no political direction.
When a collective confidence is rising, it may be very empty, without language and without historical substance. It doesn't know its own outline and doesn't want to know. It is waiting for its language, timing and content. When it has a contour, a kind of self-awareness comes tentatively. When it comes to such recognition, it is too late to do anything: history always has a delay, and history is also forgotten.
III
Before the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, in the master's dormitory, different from the undergraduate, everyone had their own computers. I have learned to watch TV on campus network. Eros at the opening ceremony was so amazing. Our group of liberal arts students are reading the canon of ancient Greek gods. Will political philosophy go far? Liu Xiang is too fast. On some channels, the host and audience have already started cheering, while on another channel, he is still leaping, and some computers plugged in the network cable are stuck, so it might be better to turn to live video. In the post game interview area, when Liu Xiang was going to say the word "Asian" or "yellow", the microphone of the South Korean media poked more forward than that of the Central 5.
At that time, there was also Zhang Bin. In the evening gold medal reception hall, he typically urged Liu Xiang to sing a song for the "national audience", but Liu Xiang actually sang it. Liu Xiang is so cute. The post-80s generation is too good. Liu Xiang is 83 years old. In addition to Yao Ming, who throws towels angrily and likes to enter the top eight, there is a wonderful intersection between the life breakthrough curve of the post-80s generation and China's new international image.
Before the Athens Olympic Games, Coca Cola's Chinese advertisements were full of Liu Xiang, as if knowing that he would become a world-class sports star. My cousin is a student of sports. He said that major international companies have their own evaluation and prediction systems for competitions, which are quite accurate.
There are too many projects. Since 2004, panoramic and parade style Olympic watching has become technically possible and a new demand. If you change channels, you will see an interesting event that you did not know before. Then, if you watch it for a while, you will find that the Chinese people also participated. Their ranking is not important, but their representativeness, their appearance, has become a beautiful intermediary of sports.
IV
I went abroad to study in 2006. At that time, during the intermission of sandstorms, the capital would paint the slogans of "New Beijing, New Olympics" and "One World, One Dream" all over the city again and again. On TV, Liu Xiang sometimes appeared in the classic Nike series advertisements, and sometimes spoke for the Olympic Committee, reciting Coubertin's famous words (the most powerful one is the heart). By June and July 2008, I was just returning home, and overseas students were still moved by the earthquake relief, but I have noticed that local friends in Beijing are tired of the Olympics. Until the opening of the Olympic Games, everything seemed to be worth it again. Unfortunately, I have already arrived in New York again, preparing to visit France. As a result, I had my first experience of watching the Olympic Games on NBC (the exclusive broadcaster in the United States). The host of the opening ceremony repeatedly said that, look, there are people under all Chinese characters. The foreign heads of state came too much and were crowded. The Bushes were very comfortable. At that time, he said that it was not easy for Hu to govern a big country. He also saw the soul in Putin's eyes, but it was during the Olympic Games that Georgia took up the sword. On the opening ceremony, Zhang Wuchang's comments (or praises) soon spread on the Internet. When the news of children's lip synching came out, the Los Angeles Times said "justice": Father Pavarotti also lip synched at the Winter Olympics in Turin.
At that time, China was different from today, and the "world" (and the United States) was different from today. The footage of Phelps learning Chinese through video games in the Beijing Olympic Village is popular with the Chinese and American public. NBC hosts (several of them, like Zhang Bin, are still working this year) went deep into the community, played table tennis with Chinese aunts and uncles (the war situation is conceivable), and experienced acupuncture. Such reports are welcomed by the Chinese and American public. Lang Pingyi, the head coach of the American women's volleyball team, appeared in the stadium. There was overwhelming applause and great respect. The camera swept. The Chinese president was also in the audience, wearing only a white shirt instead of a tie. The United States finally won the group match - a scene that was welcomed by both Chinese and American people.
After the Olympic Square entered the night, these hosts danced with the volunteers (while the Canadian Dashan went back and forth between the live studios of the United States and Canada - that was the first time I heard him speak English). After a rain, American journalists are embarrassed to worry about the air quality in Beijing, because the blue sky in August is rising. Some Chinese netizens even said that NBC broadcasts are more beautiful because the colors are fresh and beautiful, but the color of Central 5 is boring. Really? At that time, there was no "hell filter", but as an overseas student, I was already familiar with the gray means of political reporting in China by the American media. Of course, I can't forget that in the NBC studio, the American gymnasts who won silver medals satirized the Chinese women's gymnastics team's figure "as if it were not developed".
The first American who praised the Chinese Olympic Games to me was a black repairman in the "slum" where I lived. The first European who said to me that "China is really amazing on its way to the opening of the Olympic Games" was a classmate from Paris and a descendant of North African immigrants.
As for my students in the doctoral class of American comparative literature, when chatting, they also came to "our country must be the first" (although they are a little ironic). That is to say, in the 2008 Olympic Games, I found that the US media are all ranked in the medal list, so the US really ranks first (I'm not ironic; I think the total number of medals is quite real).
The Korean American students told me that China's hosting of the Olympic Games was not influenced by the "Western media", which is unimaginable in South Korea. In fact, the concept of "Western media" is not tenable, but people in all regions of East Asia love to use this word and attach too much importance to how "the West" views themselves
2008 is the era of blog. The discussion about Liu Xiang's retirement from injury led to many blog articles. 2008 soon became the autumn of financial crisis. Shortly after the Olympic Games, China began to save world capitalism (then what is the G2 theory, Chimerica，stakeholder，symbiotic competition， Couple theory, returning to Asia Pacific... all the way to the present).
V
At the beginning of the London Olympic Games in 2012, I was living in a precarious place. I had just graduated and was about to start working. I moved between the old house and the new environment. The opening ceremony was broadcast live online on the Boston New York bus. This session is a thorough online viewing for me, and also close to social media viewing. The Internet ecology of the Chinese world is growing savagely. On the platform of online live broadcast of various TV signals (besides the Central Committee 5, there are also mainstream channels in English, French and German), when asked on Douban, everyone can give a lot of information - although all of them are illegal. This is different from the previous campus network IPTV, some of which can also be fired - this is my first contact with it. In addition, 2012 was also the year when I began to use smart phones in an all-round way (I used Microsoft's system of Lenovo's mobile phone for 10 years, which was almost funny indeed). Panoramic, ceremonial and social media style Olympic watching has really been realized by means of small screens.
On the Chinese social media of the London Olympics, public sports are really popular. Because Liu Xiang failed again, the crusade against the national system reached another climax. Then came the fight against sports nationalism. But in the United States, I saw the media praise the British national system and the gold medal harvest. The American media were deeply moved by the British national feelings: the British, who had been divided by economic and social problems, had settled their differences in the past half month, surrounded themselves under the flag of meters, and used the Olympic Games to express their strong feelings of mutual love and support - even the portraits of Olympic champions were as big as "Mao Portrait", which became "positive energy". British netizens read the US report and followed the post saying that in the past half month, they are "proud to be British". Others said that it was a good feeling to have rice flags flying all over the street. What is particularly interesting is that with the surge in the number of gold medals in China, New York Times wrote a column criticizing China's sports nationalism, while the report on the sports page was cheering for the team members, excited about the track and field team's efforts to turn the tide and let Team USA surpass China. This kind of public opinion is not the first time, but in the era of forwarding, it can especially mobilize people's emotions. Even I have written an article, and since then I have become a mobile Internet user.
The sediment of social media discourse may really delay our appreciation of the physical and mental beauty of sportsmen in competition. On the last match day, I saw the Chinese players win the silver medal in the men's triathlon, and I really felt inspired. I always think that if there are Chinese and East Asians in the top eight in all sports (medals aside), our perception of sports and our imagination of human nature will be different.
On the screen of bullets, the "Chinese compatriots" who have never met or met in the vast online universe do not know how to say goodbye and end the time of watching the Olympic Games together. Complaining and joking took a break, even a little embarrassing. Suddenly, an ingenious person said, "The last sentence: Diaoyu Island is ours!" This game attracted countless copies and pasting.
VI
In 2016, I had learned to look for "spiritual opium" in station AB (station A seemed to be alive at that time) when my work was not smooth. Rio Olympics, I am not in the mood to look closely. There is TV, but there is no subscription to NBC. If in 2012 even Americans had to laugh and say that you would think that only one country participated in NBC, then later some sports fans complained that NBC only inserted competition clips in its advertisements.
However, in 16 years, the coverage of all media, streaming media and we media has been approaching a saturation in the near and far. Olympic spillovers include podcasts, circles of friends, animation, short videos, ghosts and animals, and various unexpected hot spots and surrounding areas. It is difficult not to watch. The sports stars are either on the live broadcast, or being edited by the up masters, or they find their own short freshmen in the expression pack. Everything needs to be presentable, performable, and topical, and must form a barrier to use network language as a pole vault for traffic. Of course, the media and we media are shallow, but the water itself is deep.
So this is the first time I watched the Olympic Games through the Internet. Some stems, topics and screenshots are still fresh in my memory, but this kind of Internet memory is also like a plow mark of "forgetting" in the barren mind. Now, I am also embarrassed to "dig graves" for my historical senses.
The mentality of Chinese netizens also drifts around, like watching a hall meeting that they are not unfamiliar with. If there is no excitement of algorithm playing in the mind, it would be better to "let me go first, let's break up". Many people begin to think that the Olympic Games held in the back garden of the United States is more like the self entertainment and self moving of the "West". When the American sprint relay applied for a rematch, everyone's reaction was "I wish you were happy". The netizens in Jianzhong viewed Brazil and its hosting performance as if people in developed regions were shocked by the backwardness and ugliness of the third world. They don't care about medals. "They all said that" the Chinese team will come back safely and happily. There is also a bit of subtext, perhaps a subtle sign of political mentality: if this is a game dominated by others, then I don't have to play it; My dignity, happiness and "good days" need not be proved through participation or winning.
Then, when everyone's interest was waning, the women's volleyball team went against the trend and won the championship. Like a meta myth of the spiritual history, it inadvertently draws the end of the next generation for itself, more as if everything is self-evident.
In fact, the "self-confidence" of cultural politics has already been completed invisibly. There are also visible delays and language lateness. However, not everyone likes and accepts the final form of self-confidence. But it really exists.
As soon as the Rio Olympics ended, I had the opportunity to visit Tokyo in person. At the end of August in Tokyo, the grand cicadas reminded me of East Asia. After the meeting, I traveled with teachers in China. Senior professors still recognize the quality of the Japanese, but lament that Tokyo is far less tidy than before (littering everywhere). In Akihabara's hand-operated shop, friends of the same age admire the "waste firewood" and are even so scrupulous. On the other hand, these friends are unwilling to send out the "in Tokyo" circle of friends, because there will be too many relatives and friends who want to pick up goods. The whole Akihabara and even the whole Tokyo are almost occupied by Chinese consumers. Some compatriots are too tired to stand up and sit down with various shopping bags. Kawaii's light advertisements illuminate their bodies. Consumption power is indeed one of the realistic sources of self-confidence. Late at night, we walked into a fast food restaurant in Wenjing District. As a result, the ordering was not smooth, and some of our peers shook their heads: "Even the young people who served at the front desk were so poor in English, how could Tokyo host the Olympic Games?!" Of course, no one could imagine at that time that the Tokyo Olympic Games were postponed for a year, and not only did not have a large number of foreign tourists, but also athletes had to be approved to leave the village, Accompanying journalists are also prohibited from eating out - the situation we were worried about has no chance of happening.
VII
What is Olympia Sports?
It is "model" (mod è le; the power of model is infinite). It is "embodiment" (or Darstellung, as the German Romantics put it), which reflects the various forms and remarkable possibilities of people in the situation.
It is an intermediary.
It is the wholehearted and diversified efforts of individuals and partners to realize the enlightenment of human "human nature" at the moment of the scene. Through this intermediary, the viewer also enters into the potential associated with concrete and human nature.
It is also the "representation" of sports. The game rules of sports start from the most basic physical and mental conditions to develop a meaning generation mechanism, which is non utilitarian but consistent with the purpose of being human. In the "representativeness" of competitive minority, the meaning of mode also gurgles.
It is also a "sense of tragedy" without script and myth. (It has nothing to do with grief, bitterness, etc.), in the relationship between viewers and participants. It is a surprise, sudden turn and discovery in the sense of Aristotle. At the intersection of embodiment and representation, we are aware of the existence of individuals and become communities. There is purification and beauty in the Greek tradition.
But there is another side to the Greco Roman tradition. In Nietzsche's Homer on Competition, competition is bound to be cruel, anti formal beauty, and arrogance between mortals, heroes and gods: how does Achilles treat Hector's body? Nietzsche also told us through Homer that both heaven and people hate the first place. In the metaphorical relationship between sports and international politics, have we also witnessed this?
On the one hand, the individual heroism sports star system in the United States revived the Roman arena, and derived the market of cultural identity, value agency, and "lifestyle". On the other hand, at the limit of the community potential of Chinese sports patriotism, the sense of physical and mental form of competition is bound to be intertwined with the global cultural and political "war".
What about the way of watching?
Olympic sports, as an intermediary, is also a media history. It is watched through the media and becomes historical memory/forgetting through the evolution of the media. Frankly, in the media saturation and hot search mood, watching the Olympic Games may now be as addictive and consumable as in the era of information overload. We need to retrain ourselves and explore the sense of meaning of watching under media conditions.
Then, in the interface of the media/mediation subject interaction, it is advisable to restore at least a little. Before the end of the Olympic Games, we should focus on the physical fitness and "strong mind" related to us. Athletes are all human beings. As some Dou You said, after one or more Olympic Games, they will also "graduate", enter the society and enter a new stage of life. They will encounter similar troubles and difficulties as "ordinary people" before even waving a hand, and may not be able to reach the end of self-improvement on the ordinary road. But at a specific moment of the Olympic Games, it is their whole heart that truly mediates the connection, expansion and renewal of competitive individuals, communities and universals.
OK, let's watch the Olympics again.
(I would like to dedicate this article to my uncle, cousin and cousin, who are all sports majors, and will certainly think that I write too romantically; and also to my friends who watch the Olympics.)
