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Apparently there was a lot of commotion last night between Susan and some German guests who were having trouble with the police. I seem to have slept through the whole thing. It was a good thing because I had to be up early to prepare for my talk, the session for which began at 8:30. Despite the early hour, there was a good audience, which made me happy because the paper had a timely and relevant message. It was titled "East to Olympia: Re-centering Olympic Philosophy between East and West" and basically it looks at Olympism from the contrasting perspectives of ancient Chinese and modern Western philosophy, showing that the Eastern approach is more compatible both with the Olympic Games' ancient Hellenic heritage and their global future. Due to time limits, I had to cut many of the Confucian and Daoist quotations, but I think I got my point across because there was an excellent discussion following, and many people came up to congratulate me during the break.
I was also intrigued by another paper in the session entitled "Olympism: A Western Liberal Idea that Ought Not to Be Imposed on Other Cultures?" Its author was a native of Sri Lanka and she brought an authentic perspective to the issue. I was pleased to discover that she did not judge Olympism to be merely a Western idea (as is often assumed), but she thought that it had value for fostering peace and understanding even in non-Western developing countries. Furthermore, she quoted my own work on sport and peace extensively in support of her argument. I'm just getting to the point in my career where people are quoting me in their papers. The feeling is like being in a giant scholarly pyramid: I have been standing on the shoulders of the scholars I cite and now other scholars are beginning to stand on my shoulders-I feel the weight, but it's satisfying to have said something that others find meaningful.
Meanwhile, the torch has arrived in Beijing, but we are having a heck of a time figuring out how to go see it. Security is super-tight. They have listed starting and finishing points of each day's leg, plus the districts it goes through, but there is no map or time coordinates that we can find. One participant found out it would be arriving at the Forbidden City the other morning at 6, so he got up at 4:30 to make his way down there early. Apparently he was among the first to the scene, but eventually he was swept back behind a few rows of official invitees before the torch arrived. Anyway, he got to see it. On the TV coverage, you can hardly see any normal spectators on the side of the road; everything looks private and staged.
It's such a contrast with Athens 4 years ago. We were just standing around Syntagma Square, when a truck pulled up and started passing out flags and balloons, then a minute later the torch was passed, not 5 feet away from us. There were security guards, kind of like a secret service, but no barriers. The big difference is of course the attacks on the torch during the international relay last spring. Dick Pound told us he didn't think there would ever be an international torch relay again. This is a really sad conclusion. The torch is such an inspiring spectacle. How can it do its work if people can't get near it? The media coverage is nice, but the Olympics need to be more than a made-for-TV event; half of the excitement comes from real people's reactions as they witness what's going on.
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