Kể từ khi cô 15 tuổi, Eileen Gu (Gu Ailing) đã có mục tiêu sau lưng.
The US-born freestyle skier of Chinese heritage announced in 2019 she would be competing for the People's Republic at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a decision met with enthusiasm in China — for obvious reasons — but intense animosity on the other side of the Pacific. On social media, vile comments flooded in calling her every name under the sun. Gu was ungrateful, they said, and had spurned the country they felt was entitled to her labor.
That already venomous response shifted into overdrive this week, when Gu, now 18, won gold in women's freeski big air. Her miraculous run included a career-first 1620 in competition, barely edging out her nearest opponent and sending her name into the stratosphere.
Nhưng điều đó cũng có nghĩa là báo chí đối địch sẽ phải giám sát nhiều hơn, và việc lên án diễn ra nhanh chóng. Các phương tiện truyền thông lớn yêu cầu được biết chi tiết về quốc tịch của cô ấy, và một số nhà bình luận táo bạo hơn đã gán cho cô ấy một chiếc áo khoác quay tay hoặc lính đánh thuê.
I'm afraid my initial reaction can't be printed in a family newspaper. Regardless, I have no interest in mincing words here: These people are scum.
Gu's connections to China should not be in doubt. Her mother, Gu Yan, is a first-generation immigrant; she introduced the younger Gu to skiing and nurtured her budding sports career. Eileen Gu is fluent in Mandarin and in pre-pandemic times made annual trips to Beijing. She may have been born and raised in the US, but has maintained a strong enough link to her mother's homeland to consider herself both American and Chinese. This is in no way unusual, yet here we are reading incredulous reports about it.
One fact has gone deliberately unmentioned in most of these "just asking questions" articles and their bile-filled comment sections — if the situation were reversed and Gu were competing for the US, she would be hailed as a hero. There would be no end to columnists waxing poetic about how she struck a "brave blow" against the "dastardly Chinese", or something to that effect. The hypocrisy would be stunning if it weren't so tediously commonplace. Instead, they are treating her decision as an extraordinary snub, as if she owes her talent to the US by virtue of being born there.
Meanwhile in the land of reality, this sort of thing happens all the time. To illustrate, let me move to a sport I actually know a little something about: Soccer. For much of the 2010s, the US men's national team was managed by German legend Jürgen Klinsmann. Under his stewardship, he and the team recruited a number of players who were born in Germany. This was possible in large part due to a continuing American military presence on German soil — which, to me, should be a much bigger moral outrage than anything getting dredged up about Gu — but that's a whole other can of worms.
Một vài trong số những cầu thủ này, như Jermaine Jones và John Brooks, đã được gọi bởi quê hương của họ để chơi ở cấp độ trẻ. Nhưng cuối cùng họ đã chọn đại diện cho Mỹ trên đấu trường quốc tế. Thông lệ đó có bị báo chí công ty tạo thành một vụ bê bối không? Những người chơi đó có được mệnh danh là kẻ phản bội không? Họ có vô số mức độ khinh miệt đối với họ? Tất nhiên là không rồi. Một số người khó hiểu, nhưng hầu hết đều hiểu đây là cách mọi thứ dành cho thể thao quốc tế trong một thế giới ngày càng toàn cầu hóa, đa văn hóa.
These infantile attacks — made by people who could not begin to fathom her or anyone else's inner life — have only served to vindicate her decision. With so many viciously branding her a sellout, what regrets could she possibly have? In China she has a staggering level of support that will only grow as the Games continue. In the US she faces slander and charges of betrayal, behavior that chillingly echoes atrocities from the not-so-distant past.
Accusations of "dual loyalty" were and are a common refrain in hate speech, most notably in the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Those wounds have not even begun to heal, and they're festering again thanks to a pandemic-fueled spike in hate crimes against Asians of all ethnicities.
These perceptions of Asians as a disloyal fifth column didn't spontaneously emerge. The tenor of US rhetoric against China has shifted considerably in recent years, taking on more vulgar forms as it flows downward into the population at large. No longer is China portrayed as a friendly rival or competitor; in many circles it is now commonly perceived as a profound existential threat.
Việc gia tăng sự nghi ngờ đối với công dân Trung Quốc trong giới học thuật và các lĩnh vực khác hiện là vấn đề của chính sách và là đòn đánh duy nhất của các phóng viên tiểu sử - cấp cao, những người thích tung tin về mối đe dọa gián điệp Trung Quốc trong khuôn viên trường đại học và trong đời sống công cộng. Hàm ý bất thành văn rất rõ ràng: Một điệp viên Trung Quốc đang rình rập khắp mọi ngóc ngách, và bạn phải khiếp sợ. Đương nhiên, những con số tương tự này giả vờ sốc và báo động khi kết luận hợp lý về thế giới quan của họ dựng lên cái đầu xấu xí của nó và những người bình thường phải đau khổ vì điều đó.
At its core, this is a refusal to accept an athlete at the top of her game might genuinely have an attachment to her homeland and a sincere desire to represent it. The possibility isn't even entertained; there must, simply must be some ulterior motive at play. We see this tactic used time and time again to discredit anyone who steps out of line — whether it's Westerners with anything positive to say about China or the Chinese people themselves, who in independent polling regularly declare high levels of trust in their government.
This whole shameful affair shows the US' much-ballyhooed belief in pluralism is nothing more than window dressing. Commitments to free expression are only valid, particularly for members of minority groups, so long as they align with the consensus spearheaded by Washington. After even the slightest diversion, any notions of agency go straight out the window. These attacks rob Gu of her very personhood. They reek of colonial paternalism.
Her reasons for making this choice are her own, and hers to share — or not share — when she sees fit. It's not the business of you, me or anyone else to interrogate her motivations or engage in armchair psychoanalysis.
Nhưng nếu bạn vẫn cảm thấy cần phải nổi cơn thịnh nộ, hãy cứ tiếp tục.
I doubt she'll hear you from the top of the podium.
