Playing with Fire
Liu Ping will help RP sire Olympic champs
By Gonzalo Duque
BEIJING–People’s China today is certainly the most organized, most scientific, most modern society.
It is probably the most powerful economy in the world now, what with the old world power, the United States, losing its grip of the title as a result of the global economic meltdown that it actually caused.
From our window in the grand Beijing Hotel, our eyes feasted on huge and colossal infrastructures, and China hasn’t even stopped building more as if it wants to reach the stars, yes, literally. The US has fallen, and in spite of Barrack Obama, it’s still falling into the pits.
The scenery here is completely different. Everything is moving up and forward.
About a week back, we took a Maginot train to Piangen where a vast football stadium is located. Do you know how fast we traveled? By golly, we crossed a 350-kilometer per hour track without having noticed the ride at all. Wow, wow, wow! Grabe inkapeles to awa?
That’s what we mean. The Chinese have beaten every one to the progress game. Imagine if you were in Dagupan enroute to Manila, then you’d make it in 27 minutes.
We were in China with Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Harry Angping to study how that much praised country produced 54 gold Olympics in the last Asian games.
We met with sport officials who never showed any air in spite of the world’s praise of them. They were just like your next door neighbor, friendly, warm, casual, but driven to do excellent work.
Be it in business, the arts, sciences, or now, sports. The Chinese are always tops. We used to give the honor to America. That was before. Now no more. Papapano, colonial mentality tayo. And bida natin, puti, ang pogi natin, sina Rock Hudson, Leonardo de Caprio, James Dean, etcetera.
Walang singkit, no sun-beaten skin, sprightly and leggy and muscled ladies in pony tail.
Harry, who is part Chinese, easily associated himself with our graceful hosts. But it was just ok with us, meron din tayong Chinese blood, our erpat’s mother is a Quimson, a Chinese in the same way that our National Hero Jose Rizal has Chinese blood.
We are impressed by the Chinese’s passion to excel. We saw that the Chinese would rather enjoy developing their competitive spirit than engaging in pastime activities like drinking and socials. Liu Ping, the sport minister, has agreed to send Chinese coaches to develop our athletes.
You know their secret? We mean one of their secrets. China, you see, has ruled the Olympics for years.
They have put up sports universities everywhere. The first sport university they put up was in l984 yet, and they have never been toppled from their peak Olympic performance.
Harry said that, putting up sport universities in the country is what we shall do in the Philippines.
While we enjoyed being pampered during our week-long China trip, their only wish from us was to teach them the English language.
They want to reach out to the world. China is visited daily by thousands of tourists from all parts of the world.
Gone were the days when under Mao’s tutelage, the Chinese avoided the world, extra careful not to allow the close to 2 billion inhabitants being influenced by Western values.
But now that they have strengthened the foundation of their culture, the government has ok’d a free exchange or in and out flow of modern culture.
After all, they have had enough info regarding the decadence of the west and they know how to guard themselves from it.
Incidentally, we saw some Pangasinenses in the plane that took us to China, some of who are from Pangasinan. Well, tourism is always educational. Let’s encourage it.
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