The hypersensitive folks are the ones who are able to feel other people being hypersensitive. You are the most hypersensitive human being on this board.
Considering that you dug up this thread after four months to tell me this and chase me around the interwebz to defend your homeland's e-pride, like a good little netizen . . . I find that doubtful.
I have to admit I am a little caught up in debate mode on this but whether the US brings its own food or not isn't that big of a deal and I'm not going to not watch the games over this. I still find the idea that the athletes on the US team aren't going to be eating food prepared the way they are used to or that because the PRC has imperfect sanitation means that the athletes village is going is a ridiculous proposition. The US olympic team has its own nutritionists and many individual athletes have their own. They will be supervising what they eat and how its prepared its just a matter of where the ingredients are coming from. As for sanitation considering the athletes village is a state of the art brand new facility its not like you're getting the same sanitation as a village in Shandong province. Again I highly doubt that. Consider if the Chinese team coming to a tournament here in the US did the same thing. I can guarentee you there would be griping about it. Nationalism is present in all countries and even minor things like these often end up as slights. Consider some of the panic over mad cow that annoyed the British and Canadians when the US banned imports. Consider how Americans got annoyed when the Japanese banned US beef over Mad Cow.
If the Chinese team brought their own food to Olympics in the U.S, there would be very little offense taken. Some people would ridicule it and probably interpret it as a laughable political snub. Some Americans would agree with the decision for the reasons you mention above. Others, because of our individualistic culture, would simply view it as a decision made by China. In a general sense, Americans care much less about what China thinks than what Chinese citizens feel about what the U.S. government thinks. That's just the way it is.
But how do you know that somebody won't cut a corner or pay somebody off or a mistake won't be made? It's China - one of their prized athletes, who as a member of the national sports team, lives his life under the considerable supervision - just ate some tainted food (despite the national interest in him not doing so) and he is gone for life. With the incredible amount invested in the Olympics, controlling nutrition is only a logical step. Like it or not, GI problems are naturally going to be an issue for athletes more so in China than at home, it has happened many times before. Even if you think it's bad manners or impolite to admit it, it's still true. Umm, which americans got annoyed when Japanese banned US Beef? I don't even remember it happening. I imagine beef exporters & their elected representatives got mad - but I missed the anti-Japanese backlash (I can only imagine the response if Japan pulled the same thing to CHina) But anyway you yourself have been called a traitor and a shame and a disgrace enough times by Pro-PRC posters to know that some people are more sensitive to perceived slights than others. It reminds me of when Yao moved to the US I remember his mother completely ignored the big, brand new giant american style kitchen with stainless steel range & oven and subzeros and all the rest - and instead had a Chinese style gas-burner put in the laundry room to cook his meals - nobody got upset that I know of.
You really have problem to look at an issue from different perspectives. We are strictly talking about the foods inside the athletes village here. I am not even interested in discussing with you whether you will get a diarrhea or not if you eat outside the village. From the way how they have prepared for this Olympics and how much efforts that they have put in to make everything to be done right as much as possible, anyone with half a brain would know the foods served inside the athletes village will be among the safest stuffs that anyone can put into his/her stomach in the world. Did you even try to imagine how big an international incidence it will be if tainted meat is found in the foods catered to the Olympians? Their 4 years of tremendous efforts will be marred and the whole Olympics event will be called a failure just because of it. I thought everyone was smart enough to see that.
So you are suggesting that before each athlete takes a bite, that some scientists comes over to take a sample and run tests on it? Dude, no worky. Food standards in China is wildly different than in most industrialized nations. One batch of food might be okay while the next is tainted. No way to control for that. We are talking about livestock growth with illegal growth hormones. Salmonella is an UNINTENTIONAL virus that gets into the food chain. Growth hormones is an INTSITUTIONALIZED and INTENTIONAL plan to grow their meat ...which has been outlawed all over the world however it's a widespread problem in China. Again, it is nice that you are giving China the benefit of the doubt on this. But based on what track record? The country has DEMONSTRATED gigantic lapses in human health related issues just in the last 12 months alone. So, if I've committed a LIFETIME of effort just to get to the Olypics, why would I risk it? #1: We know they have wide spread problems with using illegal growth hormones. #2: We know PRC regularly lies and/or covers up problems.
How do you know some one want cut a corner with US food? Again we are having our own problems with tainted food so our record isn't spotless. As for the case of the Chinese national team member claiming a positive steroid test due to tainted food I have yet to see evidence he was eating the food that is also going to be go to the Athlete's village or evidence ruling out that he wasn't taking steroids for a competitive advantage and blaming it on food. GI tract problems are often due to eating food prepared in a way they are not used or on unfamiliar microbes. The first can be ruled out by having team cooks and the second can be ruled out by having team nutritional inspectors inspect the food ahead of time. Here is a link regardign the beef ban. http://www.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/01/20/japan.us.beef/ This story doesn't cover very much the griping by American farmers and their supporters over Japan's ban but perhaps I remember it more than you because I live in an area where agriculture is more important to the economy. Anyway many US producers felt the Japanese were being overy paranoid especially considering the chances of Mad Cow are extremely remote and that US beef exports already met international standards. Did she bring all of the ingredients from China?
...I am not strickly talking about what happens inside the village. Have you heard of the word "context"? It's like you telling me that the Titanic is the safest ship in the world. Well, yes ...if it doesn't drive through ice burgs and/or the captain doesn't fall asleep. Fact is, there are LOTS of "ice burgs" in China and in such a busy time as the Olympics, the captain might fall asleep. You can't just say, oh China won't risk screwing up food in the village when in context they gotta navigate through fields of huge ice burgs and probably 5000 people will be handling the food before a single athlete ever munches it. That's a lot of unknowns from a country where illegal growth hormals is the normal ...not the eception (like is our Salmanilla outbreak).
Why not? The US does already inspects imports from other countries and other countries inspect US exports. Japan sends inspectors over here to check on food imports. I'm going to give you benefit of the doubt on this that you are unintentionally using Chinglish and not trying to be ethnically mocking. That is why you send inspectors to do an ordered and scientific examination. Even here in the US its impossible to inspect every piece of food but we rely on a scientific sampling system to inspect. Given the much smaller size of the food supply goign to the US team it wouldn't be that difficult to do a scientific examination and testing of the food ahead of time. IMO this would be far cheaper and more practical than shipping and storing all of the food from here where you are also counting on that adequate test have been done ahead of time. I don't know where you are getting your information but it is still legal and institutionalized and intentional to raise livestock in the US using hormones. Growing organic is a suggestion not a law. And given that there are roughly a 1000 people who have been poisoned with salmonella in the US in the past 2 months and the FDA still hasn't pinpointed the cause I don't think we can necessarily hold up our record that much. Which hormones are you referring too? In the US it is still legal to raise livestock with hormones additives. Which will be difficult, if not impossible, given the massive amount of press that will be there for the olympics.
There are so many holes in your argument that I don't even bother to talk about each of them. Let me just say this to you: You are by far the most trusting person in the world if you somehow can afford to believe that the poultry that you put into your mouth everyday is organic.
Wow, mocking the language accent of the other posters based on the assumption of their anscentry. Man, you are low.
We (fellow Chinese people) really shouldn't be concerned whether or not the Olympic village will be eating the same food average Chinese people are eating. What we should be alarmed at is that it has come to the point where Chinese food/products are no longer considered safe by many nations. While the majority of food in China is safe.There are still many cases of unsafe products, unfortunately it is the bad ones that will stand out to those outside of China. We shouldn't simply dismiss these as western propaganda, but crack down these bad cases. But to correct these problems and make sure that companies are held responsible for the product they sell. There are many cases of other dangerous food outbreaks that never makes it out to the international media, like pumping water into pork, mixing weed into vegetables, ect. Something that the Government needs to deal with firmly. However those who are living outside of China also needs to realize that the government as well as the general public have tried hard to correct these problems, it should be commended that China has done very well in terms of trying to control this types of hazards given its population and how fast its economy is growing. For example the toothpaste and other defective products from China that have made big news here in the States. People here are too quickly to blame China as a source of the problem, when the private western companies who built factories for these products should be held accountable for these defects. Since they are the ones who are suppose to ensure the quality of the products they put into market. People needs to realize that the individual companies are the ones making these products.
