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Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 - 20:35 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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Medal Ways

"If you are honest, you will be rewarded; If not, severely punished."
"Heheheheheh."

- EC3312 lecturer translating a revolutionary slogan to illustrate the Prisoner's Dilemma

The Family Silver?

All credit to our Game Theory professor from the PRC, who managed to gain the undivided attention of an entire lecture theatre (an understated skill) with a laughing pattern that somehow reminded me of Muttley. He also has a Ph.D in Mathematics despite helming an Economics module, further reinforcing the notion that math is the basis of all science, but that's neither here nor there.


(Source: xkcd)

Health Economics is under a Swedish professor, and Labour Economics under a Korean one, so it's certainly true that NUS gives a multicultural experience. That goes for table tennis too, as the Singaporean women's team clinched a guaranteed silver at least by reaching the finals, ending a 48-year wait. It was hardly smooth sailing as they had some trouble with the opponents' chopping style (which occ likes to promote as the invincible Modern Defense), but they prevailed at the end.

With that bit of history consigned to the books, it's eye-opening to read what the (non-Singaporean) media has to say (these are two of the top three reports about the feat on Google News):

"...Somewhat dulling the achievement for the country of 4.6 million, the players and coach that carried Singapore to victory were all imports from table tennis powerhouse China."

- Simon Rabinovitch, Reuters

"...Feng Tianwei, who, like the rest of the Singapore team, is an import from China, won both her singles matches to help them clinch a tense 3-2 victory."

- BBC (2nd paragraph)

While these comments may be the personal opinions of a couple of reporters (and in the second case, perhaps even simply factual), there is no escaping the truth that our representatives were rather newly-minted citizens (other than Li Jiawei, who has already clocked up a dozen or so years as a Singaporean). Then again, it seems that relying on Chinese paddlers is an accepted route to success in the sport anyway - Dang Ye Seo, who lost 0-3 to Feng Tianwei and beat Wang Ye Gu by the same margin, was formerly known as Tang Na.

Tellingly, an article about this year's world championships is peppered with Chinese names (unlike Korea, other countries which take on "former Chinese" seem to have them keep their original one). South Korea had two out of three then (including Kwak Bang Bang a.k.a Kwok Fong Fong), Germany had Wu Jiaduo, Austria had Liu Jia and Li Qiangbing, while the USA with over three hundred million people could do no better than "former world doubles champions" Gao Jun and Wang Chen, both well over thirty years of age and likely past their competitive prime.

It could be argued that the calculus of national competitions made this state of affairs inevitable - with only a handful of slots for each country, prohibiting the transfer of players would have shut out extreme talents more or less permanently from the world stage. For example, if China had the lion's share of the top 20 women players (which in fact they do if Hong Kong is considered too), most of them would inevitably have to sit out (even the individual event at the Olympics is limited to three per country). The situation is slightly less pronounced but still similar for the men. In this case, it makes a lot of sense for say a World Number Six in China to emigrate to get international opportunities, which the ITTF has noted.

All in all, despite this not being a case of Singapore nurturing talent from youth, which was and remains my main gripe about the whole business (new national heroine Feng Tianwei, who won both her games, was actually spotted only last year when she was playing professionally in Japan, while Wang is 28 years old but also a recent addition), I suppose it's still an achievement to be proud of. Sort of.

Appreciation for this achievement can only grow each year they stay citizens, on the bright side, but woe betide if they quietly slip back to China when their term is up, though of course one can't really blame them if that happens. Discounting them just because they are China-born doesn't make sense, though, since our only previous medallist Tan Howe Liang was from China too (albeit having come over at the age of four).


Competitive Cuteness


Lin Miaoke, 9, (right) edged Yang Peiyi, 7 (left) in the finals of the Under-10 Freestyle Cute-ing event (Source: New York Times)

China has gotten its share of bad press for having one young girl lip-synch (probably unknowingly) to the voice of another girl in the Opening Ceremony, and in this particular case I think some of the criticism is undeserved. Typical comments were along the lines of "cold calculation", "fake(d) loveliness" and "how would the poor not-cute-enough Yang Peiyi feel?"

First off, I would say there is nothing inherently wrong in combining the looks and voice of two different people - as long as it is not fraudently presented as being the effort of one alone. In this case, there appeared to be no express effort by the authorities to credit Yang (at least till one of her tutors outed her on a blog), which was the major failing of the organizers. In their defense they could perhaps say that they did not declare that the voice was Lin's, and everyone just assumed it to be so, which isn't being entirely honest since the insinuation had to be there, but not really dishonest either.

But the comments on being calculating and not-innocent ring somewhat hollow to me. Big organized events are hardly spontaneous affairs - they were hardly going to give just any kid off the street a three-day lesson on Hymn to the Motherland and give her the stage, though that would surely be very endearing. Why not just sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya and donate the cash to those in need then? I would gather the very people who protested at the scheming would have a word to say about unschooled vocals, which goes to show that it is impossible to please everyone, so don't try.

Personally, I am unsure why looks and voice have to come in one package. Nobody hammers an actress for not knowing how to write a script, design a wardrobe, control the lighting or set up the cameras, but surely they all contribute to the overall production. Why then is only having half of the look/voice duality anathema (at least since the silent film era), since they are clearly independent talents as say the ability to sing an aria and the ability to write one, is?

One good thing that may have come of this is the acknowledgement that cuteness is very important. A Hong Kong pet shop has started the hamsterball rolling with the Olympets, to which I would have shipped Messers Bacon and Chips over in a return-postage paid box had I known about it in advance.


Bacon: "That could have been me!"

EPL Weekly Challenge Again

Samir Nasri has already gotten the first goal of the season for Arsenal, and it goes without saying that all bets are off on that game (since it has already started). The other three games (West Ham vs Wigan, Boro vs Spurs, Everton vs Blackburn) today don't look clear-cut, but Tottenham have been pretty good in the preseason, and despite losing Keane (and probably Berbatov to United) they look worth a small flutter on.

$25 on Tottenham to beat Middlesbrough (at 2.00)



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