Baby Gate Tips
“Babygate” being the best sounding label I can come up with for this controversy.
First, interesting posts from the Stryde Hax blog on “Google hacking” information about He Kexin. Essentially this involves using Google’s advanced search features to target very specific kinds of information. His queries on Google.cn and Baidu lead him to cached versions of spreadsheets from the General Administration of Sports of China that pretty clearly list a 1994 birthday for the golden girl of Chinese gymnastics. The Baidu cache versions (here and here) were still live when I looked. Interestingly, however, the files started evaporating from Google.CN’s cache more or less as the Stryde Hax blogger was doing his digging.
What does it mean?
In fact, in the comments to a prior post, Iâve raised the point that
Chinese parents change birthdays of children quite often for a variety
of reasons or advantages, to older or younger, hence the possibility
that things could go either way with He Kexin. He really could be 16,
yet still nobody would want to come out and explain the age changing in
local competitions â thatâs just another can of worms. Anyway, this
certainly isnât proof of anything nor is it great news. The point is
simply that, before jumping to conclusions on something having to with
China, it is worth considering the other possilities, and at the least,
consider that other possibilities do exist.
That last thought is definitely worth bearing in mind. Nevertheless, Imagethief had the good luck to be in the stands for the finals of the women’s uneven bars on Monday night, which meant I had the pleasure of seeing He, her only slightly less microscopic teammate Yang Yilin, and American Nastia Liukin (who seems gigantic by comparison) compete. All the Chinese female gymnasts are tiny. He is teeny tiny. If it’s a stretch to accept her as turning 16 this year, imagining her any older is downright impossible. Still, it was thrill to watch all three of them perform. They’re all great athletes and they all deserve recognition.
While He has got most of the attention, both because she’s a pint-size medalling machine and because the controversy hovers most closely over her, Yang has come in for her share of attention as well. I was interested to see a commentary from the AP that is constructed around the theme of Yang as helpless victim:
How fragile she looked, like a baby deer in the headlights of an oncoming SUV. Little pink hearts and the word “love” in blue letters decorated her hair clips.
The glitter on her forehead twinkled under the lights. Chalk was
encrusted where the skin met her slender fingernails. So thin, so
uneasy, so out of place she seemed, in a downstairs room in Beijing’s
National Indoor Stadium. She’d just won an Olympic bronze medal in
all-around gymnastics, one of the toughest sporting tests there is.***
[A little hesitantly], Yang started to
answer the questions. And the more she said, the more shocking it was.
The answers were brief, spoken without heart. What emerged was a
picture of a young girl who has been kept largely cut off from family
and the outside world for more than a year, so she could be intensely
trained to win medals for China at its own Olympics.
I have no doubt that China’s gymnastics training regimen is brutal, and the cold mechanics of China’s national sporting machine definitely deserve scrutiny. I also think the evidence of an age scandal is pretty compelling. Perhaps Yang is a victim. But she, along with He, is also a talent and should be celebrated as such. The rest of the world, America included, has had its grim training stories, especially in sports like gymnastics and figure skating for which the feedstock is young girls. This article has a whiff of the old cold-war double standard. Ours=plucky, heroic achievers. Theirs=manufactured robots/slaves/dopers.
Perhaps she’s a victim of the Communist Sports Machine. Perhaps she’s just a teenage girl who is a spectacular gymnast, who’s had a hard year of training, and who is uncomfortable talking to the media. As Nimrod wrote on that Fool’s Mountain post, consider that other possibilities do exist.
Hat tip: Adrian.
Golden girls.
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Safe
Kids Watauga County is teaming up with Boone Ford, Lincoln, Mercury
for a child safety seat inspection. The free inspection, called
“Staying Sweet,” will held at Boone Ford on New Market
Boulevard in Boone Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. N.C. certified
technicians will conduct the inspections. Anyone transporting a child
is encouraged to stop by for an inspection and information regarding
the appropriate seat for a child’s age and weight. For more
information, contact Watauga Medic Aaron Miller at 295-5218, or Safe
Kids coordinator Tammy Nelson at 264-9486.
PERRIS - Sheriff’s deputies will be at a Perris elementary school for four days next week to conduct child safety-seat training clinics for parents and children who attend the school.
Deputies will be at the Enchanted Hills Elementary School at 1357 Mount Baldy from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Danny Lingo.
The training on the proper way to buckle a small child into a safety seat will be given only to those parents whose children attend the school, as well as students, Lingo said.
Perris police will hold other training clinics throughout the city in the future, Lingo said.
