Totenkindly
@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
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Interesting arguments over the age of a member of the Chinese gymnastic team, due to discrepancies in chinese news articles where the ages were later changed.
I saw the girl (He Kexin) when she fell on Sunday. We were watching her on the big-screen at a local sports bar, so we didn't miss anything. It was agonizing. Some a-hole hicks at the next table were heckling her for slipping off the bars. I was furious. I'm an American, sure; but I'm also a parent, and I could see the look on her face when she went down. That experience for her was "psychological scarring" material, and I came within an inch of leaning over the back of the booth and giving these jokers a piece of my mind. (Aside from the other aspects of it -- they being adults, she being a little kid; they being fat slobs, her being an Olympic quality athlete; and so on.)
Now there's an ongoing argument over whether or not she was only 13 (or perhaps 14).
China of course now seems to have produced paperwork supporting her being 16. So I can't say for sure either way. There's no way to prove anything, although it was convenient that she merely had to be 16 during the year she competed, and her birthday is now listed as Jan 1, 1992 -- doh! (Can't the Chinese be craftier than this? Like picking a "random" date?)
But I can honestly say when she fell, the girl I saw there, the look on her face, and her emotional coping mechanisms were not the face of a girl in her late teens. This was before I had realized there was an age requirement... and I assumed she was around -12- based on her response to her terrible failure. That's around the age of my kids. My 13-year-old son would have had a different, more mature response. My 10-year-old daughter's response would have been much more similar to He Kexin's.
The FineLines and I even had a conversation about it, speculating on her age, before we knew it was being debated.
Sigh. Always has to be SOME sort of drama going on.
I saw the girl (He Kexin) when she fell on Sunday. We were watching her on the big-screen at a local sports bar, so we didn't miss anything. It was agonizing. Some a-hole hicks at the next table were heckling her for slipping off the bars. I was furious. I'm an American, sure; but I'm also a parent, and I could see the look on her face when she went down. That experience for her was "psychological scarring" material, and I came within an inch of leaning over the back of the booth and giving these jokers a piece of my mind. (Aside from the other aspects of it -- they being adults, she being a little kid; they being fat slobs, her being an Olympic quality athlete; and so on.)
Now there's an ongoing argument over whether or not she was only 13 (or perhaps 14).
China of course now seems to have produced paperwork supporting her being 16. So I can't say for sure either way. There's no way to prove anything, although it was convenient that she merely had to be 16 during the year she competed, and her birthday is now listed as Jan 1, 1992 -- doh! (Can't the Chinese be craftier than this? Like picking a "random" date?)
But I can honestly say when she fell, the girl I saw there, the look on her face, and her emotional coping mechanisms were not the face of a girl in her late teens. This was before I had realized there was an age requirement... and I assumed she was around -12- based on her response to her terrible failure. That's around the age of my kids. My 13-year-old son would have had a different, more mature response. My 10-year-old daughter's response would have been much more similar to He Kexin's.
The FineLines and I even had a conversation about it, speculating on her age, before we knew it was being debated.
Sigh. Always has to be SOME sort of drama going on.
