Watching the Olympics as Education
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A 13 year-old watching a 13 year-old compete
My grade 7 teacher played on VHS a recording of the opening ceremony for us during class. The year was 1992 and it was the last time when both the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year. It must have been the Winter Games, because by the time the Summer Games started, schools were closed.
Having spent my childhood much closer to the equator, I was not familiar with the Winter Games. But what was strange was that we were watching the opening ceremony instead of clips of impressive gold matter winning moments.
HK participated in the Olympics, but did not get much attention until 1996 when they received the first and only gold medal so far. Instead, most of us HKers cheered for China, the gold medal powerhouse. It was satisfying in the most usual way to watch ‘your’ country win gold medals. Canada was ‘my’ team too, but it was no fun not getting gold. To me, the Olympics were about gold medals.
I was bored and confused watching the opening ceremony in class. But I do remember that I was surprised as classmates took turn to cheer as their home country team entered. It was still a fairly Euro-North American event, but already over one third of the 64 nations were outside that circle. Even our buddies from the Caribbeans had the Jamaican bobsleigh team to cheer.
We were all excited to count around a dozen country of origin in our class. We were a bunch of kids from around the world sitting together in the same classroom (and not getting into fights).
As I grew older and learnt of the shady sides of professional sports, especially the brutal winner-takes-all children sports bootcamps, I became less sentimental and nationalistic in my enjoyment of the Games. An amazing and scary fact: during that year 1992 when I learnt the term ‘sportsmanship’, a Chinese athlete the same age as us, 13, won a gold medal in diving. Do we know what we are cheering for when tween athletes bring home highly competitive sport medals?
I was well into my 20s when I began to appreciate the procession of athletes into the Olympic stadium, to see faces glow as representatives of their countries, and also as a testament to their effort. I guess watching the Olympic Opening with classmates during grade 7 had a lasting impact on me.
Post script: Having returned to Canada, and having my world turned upside down over the past two years, my sense of ‘home’ and ‘home country’ is being rebuilt; I have some form of attachment to at least 3 countries on top of Canada. Yet, I find myself slightly cynical, cheering for athletes more than countries.
