A note about Chinese athletes and the state sponsored program

After I wrote my last entry about how the government does scout athletes when they are from anywhere from three to thirteen years old and then trains them like crazy for gold at the Olympics. These kids go to specialized athletic schools and only see their parents a few times a year. Most westerners can’t understand why anyone could choose to do this. But the truth is, the Chinese government will not force a Kid to become an athlete if it is against their parents’ or the Kids’ own will.

Westerners may not think anyone would be willing to make such a sacrifice and do such hard training to win a gold medal, but thats because they simply don’t comprehend the ocean of difference between eastern and western cultures.
Western cultures(and especially that of the United States) is all about the individual and stresses the accomplishments of the individual more than the success of the team or the whole. In other words, western cultures is most about me, me, me. On the other hand, eastern cultures is far more focused on the community, group, or country, rather than the individual. Instead of being taught to go for individual glory, eastern cultures teaches kids that the most important thing is the community or the nation and not the individual. Because of this, people(and kids) are far more willing to make individual sacrifice for the glory of the nation. In fact, to many Chinese people, there is no greater honor than representing your country in the Olympic games. And its not like there are no spoils of victory. If you win Gold medals and win glory for the motherland, your more or less treated like a God back at home. This is a huge reason why parents and their young kids are mostly willing to send their kids and the kids are willing themselves to go to athletic schools.

There is another reason that parents and kids are willing. Most of the athletes come from poor country families. For these families and kids, the chance of getting out of impoverishment is small(if you don’t believe me, you haven’t seen the Chinese countryside). Sending these kids to these athletic schools may be the best chance they have of getting out of poverty. While they may struggle to fill their stomach at home, they do get three square meals a day in the schools, free tuition, and free room and board. Some of the better athletic schools have very good academic programs. So for many families, sending their kid to these schools is the best thing for the Kid and also gives the Kid a chance at winning glory for China, its a win-win situation in their eyes.

If you’ve only been listening to CNN or MSNBC or FOX about how the big bad China treats the poor little athletes, you need to get another view to get a better view and get a better grip of parts of the world that are not you.