U.S. Olympic Cyclists Arrive in Beijing Wearing Face Masks

Many world athletes are arriving in China for the 2008 Olympic Games. However, when the American cyclist team arrived wearing face masks yesterday, this caused a strong reaction with many Chinese. On many BBS forums all over the Chinese language internet, many people quickly posted photographs of the cyclists and expressed their feelings.

American cyclist, Bobby Lea, arrives in Beijing wearing face mask and 'Beijing' t-shirt

On KDS: I think the Americans wearing face masks is fine, what is wrong with that?

Each person has different tolerances for air and what they are accustomed to. Honestly, I also think Beijing air is not good, and this is publicly known. What is wrong with others caring about their health?

Responses:

I cannot get used to those people who always criticize Americans, never looking at themselves and their own problems.

It is vagrants like you that worship foreign countries who spoil these foreigners!

Bad air? I have not seen Beijing people die immediately after birth!

The Olympics are in Beijing, whether you foreigners like it or not.

If you do not like the air, then just go home!

The two sides are about to start arguing again…

That was worshiping? You think you are patriotic? Afraid to admit your own shortcomings?
Do not be so narrow-minded, okay? You will be laughed at!

When your stomach hurts, but the only restroom is very smell, do you still go? At most, you might use your clothes to cover your nose. Would people still criticize you for this?

Grant Hackett’s lung is so bad but has not been seen wearing a facial mask. But this motherfucking cyclist needs one?

They do this intentionally, to embarrass Chinese people. I am surprised there are people willing to defend them and apparently be their lackey.

50 cents has already been deposited in your account, please check that you have received it.

American cyclist Bobby Lea arrives in Beijing for 2008 Olympic Games

There are a lot of foreigners in Beijing normally and I rarely see any wearing an air facial mask. They even live there long-term.

Coming to participate in the stupid Olympics when the air is this bad, honestly, would it not be better to just stay home?

Stop fighting, maybe they are sick but wear a facial mask so they can still come participate in the Beijing Olympics to give the host face.

Of course this is their own business. Forget wearing a mask over your mouth. even if you wear a bra over your mouth no one will bother you.

The point here is that this person or these people do not understand basic etiquette. If we are talking about basic manners, this is also one example of not having manners.

You go to someone’s home as a guest. If their indoor air is not good, at the worst, you just do not go.
You come and bring your own tableware, even wear a face mask, do you not think this is rude?
Are you not looking to be criticized?

Beijing’s air is not good, I admit.
But the Olympics are only a few days. It is not as if you are sweeping the streets.
Why can other people endure it, but you cannot?
You think you are more special than others?

Lou zhu,”
You have friends and family come to your house, and they think your house is dirty, but everyday you clean, they do not drink the tea you serve considering the cup dirty. You let them sit but they do not sit. How would you feel? If this kind of thing happened to you, you will probably think they have a mental problem.
Accordingly, you posting this kind of topic gives me the same feeling, just like the foreigners wearing face masks.

American female cyclist arrives for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games wearing face mask

American air is just average.
But those from New Zealand and similar places I think will not be able to breathe!

If I went, I would wear a face mask too. The air there really is not good.

Sigh…this Olympics has brought chaos to the entire country’s people.

Is this how a host country should be?
Can China’s education produce more logical, normal thinking people?

If you think it is dirty, you do not have to come, but since you have come, do not insult us Chinese. You dare wear face mask, then we can sell stars and stripes underwear and wear them on the outside like superheroes. Sorry, we cannot help it, the chairs are dirty. There must be mutual respect. If you do not respect us, why should I respect you!?
You say we pollute a lot, but the question is who motherfucking opened all those blood and tears factories?

Other people are only ordinary people. They do not understand these big principles. They only know they cannot breathe good air.

If you went to Africa, you too would wear a face mask…

Chinese air quality really is inferior to foreign countries. We should face the truth and not deceive ourselves and others.

Bobby Lea, American Olympic cyclist, wears face mask when arriving in Beijing

Indeed, this is just like the democracy-loving Americans to protest Bush invading Iraq on one side and pouring Middle Eastern oil into their cars on the other side.

Go to South Africa and do not wear condoms. Otherwise you would be insulting South African people.

Everyone has the right to wear a face mask!

With Beijing’s air quality, did you actually believe foreigners should take a deep breath?

Actually, it does not matter if it is Beijing or Shanghai, air quality really is serious concern.
When I was small, I had allergies. Each time I was flying back to China, the moment I begin uncontrollably sneezing, I knew we had reached China airspace. It was very accurate.

Wearing face mask is not wrong. The air being bad is not wrong either. The wrong thing was knowing that the air is bad, that foreigners are fussy, and still choosing a place with bad air to be the host city.

To be honest, the color of this face mask is too ridiculous.

I am Chinese. Tomorrow, I am going to Beijing and I will also wear a face mask.

Maybe the Americans have watched too much Transformers.

Many Chinese posted about this news on Tianya also, such as this post: “Firmly oppose Western ‘anti-Chinese’ athletes wearing face masks when walking onto the field.

American cyclist arrives in Beijing wearing face mask offends Chinese people

The Americans Olympic cyclists have already apologized:

BEIJING (Reuters) – Four U.S. cyclists who arrived in Beijing for the Games wearing masks to counter bad air have apologized to Olympic officials and the Chinese people.

Track cyclist Bobby Lea said the riders had sent a letter to Beijing Games organizers (BOCOG) to make sure they realized the masks were not meant to be any kind of statement or protest.

“We didn’t realize the impact that wearing the masks would have,” Lea told Reuters on Wednesday. “From our standpoint it was to take care of a perceived health risk.

“In reality it came across as offensive. We don’t want to insult BOCOG or the Chinese public. Had I known it was going to be perceived as an insult I wouldn’t have done it.”

What do you think?

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67 Comments

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  1. @Kai “Did you guys notice that there were plenty of Chinese who defended the Americans against those who took offense to what the Americans did, expressing understanding about the possible pollution issue? Christ, wasn’t that alone pretty darn reassuring?”

    Word to that. What’s with this urge to cast Chinese as a monolithic blob when the evidence that they have a variety of different opinions is right in front of your eyes? Some Chinese are jingoistic assholes, and some are empathetic and understanding human beings. Just like, you know, some Americans are jingoistic assholes and others are empathetic human beings. It’s almost like knowing someone’s nationality doesn’t instantly tell you everything about them! Weird!

    @ Kai “I agree. There definitely is a certain amount of insecurity and immaturity amongst Chinese when it comes to discussions with foreigners present. At the same time, I’m sure the vast majority of people can identify with the tendency to unify against outsiders.”

    Hey, I’m not even Chinese and I get pissed at reading critical article after critical article about China. Honestly, is it like every Westerner has to personally fly out to China to find out that, yeah, they’re doing a lot of environmental damage in their rush to modernize? I’m certainly not blind to the many serious problems China has, but it drives me batty to listen to some ignorant American pontificate on desertification in China when he couldn’t tell you two things about aquifer depletion in the American Southwest. I’m not the slightest bit surprised that Chinese people get so angry.

  2. Check this out, talk about
    fightin’ words

  3. can’t seem to get this link working, but here try again. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3240/2749890286_d005b5967e.jpg

  4. they probably just can’t stand the smell of a third world country.

  5. Hello Londoner,
    That’s exactly what I mean. London has fog, the natural stuff that pours off the edge of Thames in the mornings, settles on grass in the park to produce a dew or frost, hangs in the air before it starts drizzling. I’m all for fog, with an “f.” I just meant to draw the difference between smog with an “sm,” as the artificial stuff created by cars and factories.
    Fog = natural = London, San Francisco
    Smog = weird and unnatural = Hong Kong, Beijing
    No, no need to wear masks to London! Chinese athletes would be laughed all the way back to Beijing.
    Sometimes I’m here in polluted HK, and I wonder what I wouldn’t do to breathe a few breaths of the air I had when I was spending (too short) a period in your beautiful countryside. I had the good luck to spend some time in Oxfordshire, near the Berkshire border, where you could watch the fog rolling in over the gentle hills. And it smelled so nice, like grass and hay.
    The English said I was crazy for saying I liked the weather. But at least it was clean.

  6. fog is not the same as polluted air. why are you guys comparing the two?

    greijing2008dotcom

  7. The reason is that news reporters are confusing ‘visibilty’ with ‘pollution’!

    Here is a typical quote just grabbed at random:
    “Beijing’s air pollution doesn’t appear to have changed. In fact, visibility outside my window the last few days has been worse than it was …”

    In London for example in the Summer months the air pollution is often outside EU limits, yet it looks perfectly clear – the ‘pollution’ in the Summer being Ozone! Yet at other times you can’t see half a mile but the actual ‘pollution’ is way low!

    Since people may have read about ‘Londons Famous Fogs’ ( the term ‘smog’ came much later, but London had serious smoke+fog problems for centuries) I thought it was important to make people aware that they shouldn’t judge things by what they ‘think’ they see.

    Sure particulate air pollution will be visible but many pollutants such as Carbon Monoxide from vehicles are invisible and masks won’t help either!

    Beijings air quality is bad, but instead of the stupid protests and mud slinging, people should press their own governments to help the situation – for example the hundreds of foreign companies either building plants or having thier goods made in China should be made to invest also in cleaning up the pollution and mess they cause!

  8. As a Chinese, I think it’s within their right to wear a face mask.
    The Chinese who have problems with it have serious issues. Ignore them.

  9. Actually, they wore the masks because they can’t stand the smell of Chinese people.

    You guys are so use to it that you can’t tell, but you guys all smell like lemur shit.

    They should have made the design for the big stadium a diaper instead of a birds nest.

  10. Everyone needs clean water and especially clean air. Its quite a challenge for developing countries to balance economic growth with factories pouring out pollution and quality of life. Lets hope that the investments in green technologies succeed and filter and spillover to developing countries to improve their working and living environment, natural environment and efficient use of natural resources.

  11. I need to buy one of those so that I can wear it when I go to a public restroom in China.

  12. Okay…enough about the masks.We have a name in America for some of the negative comments made about us Americans (which happen to be people from all over the world)…the name is BIGOT. Everyone has the RIGHT to try to participate in the Olympics (the Olypics were founded by the ancient Greeks..not the Chinese)..anyway Beijing HOSTED the Olmpics that belongs to the WORLD community. I just left Beijing. I was also in Zhengzhou and I could breathe okay. My WIFE is Chinese from mainland China. I love the Chinese people HOWEVER I do not like IGNORANT people from ANY country. My wife even has problems with Beijings air and she is Chinese.Every country has its faults and China is NOT the exception to the rule..and neither is the USA.Take Care. James & Jing

  13. Wouldn’t Chinese wear masks in America? Jeez.

  14. Come on, loads of people wear masks, either to combat poor air quality, to stop themselves spreading or catching illness or just to keep warm. When I was commuting to work by bus in the winter I always wore a face mask so I didn’t catch a cold. Compared to America, Chinese air-quality is not so good (it’s a fact whether you Chinese like it or not) and as professional cyclists they need to breath properly and do not want to contract respiritory problems or an illness upon arrival. So stop taking this “look at the silly laowais” attitude, step outside and breath the filthy, polluted air for yourself and then go for a 100km bike ride!

  15. Wow! This was a really loaded one, huh? Coming into this a year and a half too late, I want to first apologize for the very rude Americans who have been so disrespectful of their host country. I know that in America, if a foreigner came in saying anything like what these guys are saying here, the first thing the foreigner would be told is “if ya don’t like it, go back to where you came from”. Of course, I also hear a lot of non-Americans who are claiming how ugly we all are, but thankfully the Brits and Germans come in as #1 ugly tourists so at least we don’t top that list.

    I will say that I do wear a mask, even though I’ve only been here a few days. The allergies my son and I have are severe enough to even require us to wear our masks indoors if the seals around doors and windows are not strong enough. Even as I write this, my son is stuffy and sneezing and coughing, and we haven’t so much as cracked a single window on our 11th floor apartment. And the mask is a dark blue which may look black to many. It’s not a political statement, it simply was the only mask I could find with the filters we needed, and it only came in that color at a price I was willing to pay. Simple as that.

    Now, the truth is the air in Beijing is deplorable. And the Chinese Government itself (China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission) released a medical report in which stated that birth defects in China had increased 40% since 2001. 40%!! That’s a very scary increase.

    So why are we here? 1) Because it was a good business move for my husband but mostly 2) because we knew that this would be a rich and rewarding experience. That it would be a once in a lifetime chance to see marvels that few westerners have taken the time to see and to meet a people that I have, so far, found warm and tolerant over my lack of language skills (though I am working on them daily!). I wasn’t about to let allergies stop me from taking this on and enjoying it for all it is worth.

    I will wear my mask. If the monitor says that the particulates are over 150, the mask goes on. In an era where so many complain about the risks of second hand smoke and what it does to their lungs and how it increases their chances of cancer and bronchial issues and blah blah blah…one would think that all of you would be promoting the wearing of masks rather than saying than assuming it was all a ploy. In the airport? Why not? I know that as I type this indoors, my lungs and throat are burning, my eyes are red and itchy, and my nose is runny. Maybe they really were that susceptible. Maybe they merely wanted to protect their lungs for as long as possible to keep their performance at peak. I know a lot of folks talk about white masks, but most of the masks sold to protect us from the air and the germs aren’t worth much in as far as protection goes. When my son and I go out, we look strange, given our masks look more like a ninja mask than your normal everyday “hospital type” mask that so many of us are handed when we go to the doctor “for protection”. No way would I trust my lungs to those.

    So, that is my long winded way of providing at least one more possible reason as to why the masks may not have been meant in so negative a way.

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