Many Americans might not notice, but the 2010 Asian Games in China, also known as the "Asian Olympics", have brought up a huge controversy and tension among Taiwan, China, and South Korea over the past week. Not only CNN but also the major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times reported the incident and the following debates and Taiwanese people's fury.
According to the newspapers, Taiwanese Taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-Chun was disqualified after she was leading the bout 9-0 against a Vietnamese Taekwondo athlete because the judges believed she wore illegal socks that had two more sensor panels.
The biggest controversy was that both athletes passed the inspection before the bout began, and the inspectors proved that all the equipment on both athletes were allowed in Asian Games. However, after Yang got 9 points in a row, the bout was halted by a Chinese official and a Korean official because they suspected that there was something wrong with the socks Yang was wearing. After a discussion, they ruled that Yang was disqualified.
Later, as more and more videos got uploaded to YouTube, including this one, Taiwanese people became furious and wanted the Taiwanese government to seek justice. To make things worse, Korean officials and Chinese officials never gave an explanation of why Yang passed the pre-bout inspection but got disqualified after she led by 9 points, and according to CNN again on Nov. 18, South Korean officials published a statement accusing Taiwan and Yang of "a shocking act of deception."
As many people could imagine, the statement triggered the anger of Taiwanese people and brought up the tension that has long been developed for decades among Taiwan, China, and South Korea.
So how does this incident have anything to do with new media? First of all, I received the news not from television or newspapers but from Facebook newsfeed. It's not the first time I got major news from new media. Last summer, I checked my Facebook right before I went to work, and guess what I saw on my friends' Facebook statuses? Michael Jackson's death! The same thing happened when the earthquake hit Haiti. Again in last week, I learned about the deadly fire that killed 42 people in Shanghai because of Facebook.
Looking back at the Asian Games incident, one of the reasons why people responded so quickly to the disqualification of Yang was Facebook and other social media outlets. Take me for instance, I don't follow Taiwan news everyday, so if it weren't because of Facebook, I might still have no idea what's going on. But thanks to Facebook and Twitter, I catch up with the news right after it got published.
New media not only helps to spread the story faster but also generates fury among Taiwanese people around the world in a much more efficient way than it ever did. (Yeah...some people from other countries might hate Facebook for this reason.) Two days after the disqualification, I saw a Facebook group advocating fair treatment and justice. And this CNN article was recommended by more than 15,000 Facebook users within three days.
The results are both good and bad. One of the good results was that the widely shared anger made related officials apologize and even resign. On the other hand, it was easy for some people to perceive the incident as a great excuse to break out their anger in an inappropriate manner. Take a Facebook link that shared by many of my friend for example. A Taiwanese local politician burned Korean flags and threw imported kimchi (traditional Korean vegetable) on the ground in public. To my surprise, I saw so many comments that hail the politician who burned Korean flags.
Being a frequent user of Facebook and other social media outlets, I say new media brought us into this smallest global village of all time, but it also made a lot of things more intense. I'm not saying the inappropriate behavior of burning other country's flags would not happen if there was no new media in the society, but simply looking at the statuses of many Taiwanese Facebook users, it is easy for us to exaggerate people's emotions, their patriotism, and the antipathy to China and South Korea.
It is always good to know immediately what's happening at the other side of the world, but we should be smart users of new media at the same time.
(Picture retrieved from BBC.com)
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