Monday, July 23, 2007

"Japanese Audience Hitting Chinese Athlete!"

This is the title of the hottest forum topic on Yahoo China today.

This YouTube clip below shows what happened. It was filmed during the Cup of China figure skating competition held in Nanjing in 2006. Japanese player Yukari Nakano was hit in the head by an unidentified object thrown from the audience. She came second in that game.

(source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCQniouuzxE)

But someone extracted a small part of the clip (the part where she was getting hit) and re-labeled it as "Japanese audience hitting Chinese athlete! Very angry!" and put it on Youku.com (another Chinese equivalent of YouTube). The clip below is what the Chinese people see on their Internet:

http://www.youku.com/v_show/id_ca00XNjM1MDYxNg==.html)

This clip was viewed 17,687 times and copied and pasted onto Yahoo forum on Sunday, July 22, using the same title "Japanese Audience Hitting Chinese Athlete! Very Angry!"

Naturally waves and waves of anti-Japanese comments were generated on this topic. Despite of several responses saying that this is in fact the other way around, people continued with the rude and demeaning comments. Follow the link below to read these posts (Chinese):

http://cn.bbs.yahoo.com/message/read_%CA%D3%C6%B5%C2%DB%CC%B3_4790.html

Although I know a little bit about the historical background (Nanjing massacre and Comfort Women), I find it extremely unsettling that some people actually think it is okay to manipulate facts to suite a collective hate purpose. I know the South Koreans are anti-Japanese, too, but will they do something like this?Today's story really sends chills down my spine.

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