San Francisco is Flaming.

My mom has always had a fascination with China. I think it probably came from an obsession with Amy Tan she developed as a high school English teacher. The final nail in the ornate Buddhist coffin came when she rented a Chinese film, I believe called Shadow Magic, which depicted the clash of western culture with Chinese isolationism at the turn of the 20th century, specifically regarding the use of cameras, and the consequent spread of Chinese cinema. My mom watched the movie about twenty five times, often at three in the morning when the boys in the house were asleep, and she finally had access to the VCR.

This past October, as per a lifelong dream, my mother made a trip to China, accompanied reluctantly but joyously by my father. My dad had no interest in China, and was in fact tremendously apprehensive about their safety while overseas, but made the trip anyway, because that is what good husbands do. My mom later rewarded his steadfast support with a surprise Christmas trip to San Antonio, Texas; my father’s own lifelong dream destination as a Northern California cowboy. What they saw in China was a society every bit as beautiful and tragic as they could have well imagined. They saw a mix of ancient cultures forced to live under a single banner, language, and Maoist government. When they were trapped in the Shanghai airport with their tour group; a massive tropical storm grounding their airplane and possibly bringing an end to the dream vacation two days in, they saw a multitude of airport personnel and tour guides quibble, and struggle to make any kind of executive decision, a product of a society that denies individual thought and initiative. The solution finally came with a coalition of American and Australian tourists organizing their own relief efforts, much to the embarrassment of their Chinese caretakers.

Most strikingly, they saw a government that had become a massive PR firm. In its efforts to make China appear more first-world and western, the government initiated a series of reforms to improve their own image. None of these reforms were designed to actually alleviate the grave poverty and institutional inequality that plagues China mind you, there were merely to give the appearance of governmental diligence. There are no homeless in China, not because the government cares for them, but rather because it executes them. It throws people in jail who spit in the ground, forces all people to learn English and American customs, and bizarrely, requires every citizen to have a cell phone. During a lengthy Yangtze River cruise, my father awoke at five in the morning with indigestion (two weeks of authentic Chinese food will do that to a man). Venturing to the room’s balcony for some fresh air, he looked down at the river and was alarmed to find an old, decrepit Chinese man on a rickety fishing boat, cone shaped hat and every other stereotype, blabbing loud Mandarin into a cell phone nestled between his shoulder and cocked head. What an aspect of Western society to import!

Most disturbingly, we have all seen horrific smuggled images of the Chinese government brutalizing the peaceful people of Tibet, whom China has occupied since the 1950′s. Smuggled, because the Chinese PR government does not want the world to think they do that kind of thing. They don’t want the world to know they finance the genocide in Darfur. They live in such a world of lies, it is not unreasonable to assume they themselves believe China to be innocent of these crimes. Why the heightened efforts at image control? Because the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing this summer. The eyes of the world are more firmly on China than perhaps at any other time in their history. The games coincide with a period of capitalist expansion that has made China’s economy rival our own.

My parents returned from China safely, and chock full of souvenirs for our family. Some of them were fucking rad. They brought back beautiful jade carvings of traditional Chinese dragons. My brother and I got miniature terracotta statues of Chinese generals, and street artist renderings of our names in Chinese characters, painted on Chinese silk. They also brought back a multitude of Olympic memorabilia. A friend was at my apartment the other night and asked my opinion about the potential Olympic boycott being discussed by many in the world community. I went on an intense anti-Chinese rant (because ranting is what I do) and said a boycott was a great idea because it would send the Chinese a message, and F them, and on and on and on. Imagine my embarrassment when my friend wandered past me to examine the “Beijing 08″ baseball cap sitting on my desk, the golden pagoda emblazoned Olympic pin next to my computer, and my name in Chinese hanging, framed, inches above my head. Fuck it. Emerson said, “to be great is to be misunderstood.”

This year, the tradition of running the Olympic flame from Greece to every continent has been marked by protest that has included people trying to steal the flame from the runners, and put it out with water-balloons, hoses and blankets. Everywhere the flame goes the streets are lined with marchers carrying Tibetan flags. I find myself giddily cheering the protesters, sitting on my couch underneath the Chinese characters on my wall. I imagine myself on the streets with them, chanting “PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT,” or some other slogan. Maybe its because I see a certain Dada quality to the whole thing: destroying tradition to honor it, burning the American flag to celebrate that in America we have the freedom to do that, etc. I think the world coming together to put out the Olympic flame in protest can be just as big a celebration of world unity (and perhaps a more appropriate one in the post-modern world) as the Olympics themselves. Maybe its because the best way to fight a PR government who wants nothing more than for people to just see the bright, cheery, sunny, bubble-gum love fest side of China, is to simply embarrass the hell out of them by disrupting their turn to host the games at every opportunity. I LOVE the idea of Chinese officials talking big about civility and unity, while orange paint (the color of Tibetan monks) gets thrown at them. Should we punish the athletes by boycotting the games entirely? I don’t think so. We boycotted the Moscow games once as a “fuck you” to the Soviet Union, and it was just a big shit show. Nobody felt good about it. I do think world leaders should boycott the opening ceremonies though.

Even though the Olympics are not political, and every potential host country has somebody somewhere that would like to boycott them, the Chinese are using these Olympics to take a major step onto the world stage, and try to earn legitimacy for themselves. The International Olympic Committee should NEVER have let them host in the first place, but if the games are the PR method they want to use, then so be it, Bush should stay out of Beijing. He won’t of course. The Chinese essentially own the United States because of how much money we owe them. We have borrowed from the Chinese, to finance the war in Iraq and buy oil from the Saudis, to the tune of trillions of dollars. If Bush boycotts them, they might say, “okay, we’ll have that money back now.” But I’m not just picking on the Chinese. If we were hosting the Olympics this year I would fully expect the same kind of world reaction as a protest to our occupation of Iraq. Let’s not have double standards when we talk about illegal occupations of sovereign nations.

The only North American stop for the Olympic torch was San Francisco. Days before, protesters hung “Free Tibet” banners across the Golden Gate Bridge. Everyone involved with the running of the flame fully expected the same kind of reaction that had occurred in Europe. Hundreds of people lined the miles long route, both to protest and to cheer. At the last minute, officials changed the route. They didn’t tell anybody, they just transported the runners by minivan to an entirely different part of the city. Hilariously, the spectators waited patiently along the publicized parade route hoping for just a glimpse of the torch, while it was actually being run several miles away. The minivans dropped the runners at a nondescript location, and surrounded by several dozen SFPD officers, they ran the flame past puzzled cafe patrons and noon business lunches, for an estimated one hundred yards, then jumped back into another minivan and sped away to a hidden location for the ceremonial closing rituals for the North American journey. The family members of the runners weren’t there, just the runners and the police and some IOC officials. To avoid protesters, the entire North American journey of the flame was reduced to a police escorted…one hundred yards. I never thought the Olympics could be that beautiful.

More to come. Thanks for caring.