The party's (nearly) over

It's difficult to imagine that the Olympics is now nearly all over. Though of course when you catch yourself watching European handball, synchronised swimming, and strange types of shooting...then you should probably recognise the signs.
What a concatenation of conclusions it brings about.
The stupid headlines which says "Phelps unseated as King" because now a runner has run faster than he can swim. Isn't there room for both.
The obvious sadness about the assessment of some (even many) that the Olympics has actually worsened the Chinese human rights situations...this depends of course on the side you are on.
And has the voice of Tibet been heard...the words "The Dalai Lama is a fool" from the mouth of a 16 year old resonate recurringly.
And then the incessant whining that we haven't won enough gold medals, as if some how our athletes have let us down. Read the story fo Anna Meares (here) who only won silver! I thought her father said the most perceptive thing I have ever heard anyone say..."I would have been pleased if she had come last!" Indeed all of them should be proud of just being there.
Any way, for most of us the Olympics will be put to bed until 2012.
Can't get enough of that synchronised swimming!

Tibet or not Tibet

Tibet will no doubt get more coverage in the next couple of weeks, so it was opportune to ask QQ(a Chinese school student presently staying with us) about Tibet.
"The Dalai Lama, you know, " she told me, "is a fool!"
I obviously reacted visibly, but it did not stop her continuing the official line that such a young one has been so effectively delivered in her schooling.
It was difficult to continue the converse with one so young, without breaching good hospitality.
I suppose what shocked me most was how uncompromising the indoctrination has obviously been.

Caring Little, Caring Less

Few Australians know or care much about Tibet. What we do know seems to be largely romanticised twaddle about a Shangri-La like culture which existed before the Chinese occupation just after the war, which sent the Dalai Lama into exile in Northern India.
The Dalai Lama is an exemplary person who appears to live out in reality what he proclaims in practice, non-violence. Whilst being articulate and outspoken, he nevertheless has refused to be drawn into a slanging match with the Chinese.
If China decided to end the Tibet crisis it could do it now. The truth is that China can essentially do what it likes. It comes from being the biggest kid in the classroom. It doesn't do it (presumably) because it cannot afford to isolate itself from world opinion when it has just spent the best part of the last two decades getting back into the mainstream.
Australia has discovered an interesting thing, we can be frightened or we can be strong. Frightened that we alienate the world's largest market. Strong as we realise that we are not without bargaining chips...coal. But also a sense of place in the world.
We cannot get too cocky, China could sit on us as easily as it sits on Tibet.
But we should try and be strong and do what is right. That's what seems to be hapenning.
Cooperating does not mean agreeing to every whim. Nor does it mean being painfully priggish.
But one imagines no one will pretend any more that the Olympicxs are or can be politics free