Culture, education soul of Olympics
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-07-10 15:47

Early this year, Professor Kong Fanmin of Beijing Union University and his colleagues carried out a survey among 2,000 students from seven major Beijing universities on their awareness and understanding of the Olympic Movement.

"As an educator and researcher who pays great attention to Olympic education among Chinese youth, I found the results surprising and encouraging but not at all satisfying," said Kong at the Second International Forum for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Kong's poll suggested that "most young Chinese are full of enthusiasm for the Olympic Movement, but they lack a deep understanding of the social and cultural meaning of the Olympics."

For instance, the survey has found that less than 30 per cent of the respondents have a clear understanding of the Olympic Charter and the history of the Olympic Movement.

Less than 25 per cent of the surveyed students are avid fans of international sports events such as the Olympics while less than 32 per cent of them have read books, research papers or articles about the subject in sports magazines and newspapers.

In contrast, about 91 per cent agreed to become volunteers for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Kong told the forum that there is an urgent need for the spread of knowledge about the Olympics and the Games' spirit among Chinese people, given the significance of young people's participation in the Games.

The two-day forum, entitled "Diversity of Creativity: the Olympic Spirit and Eastern Culture," ended early last week at the Humanistic Olympics Studies Centre (HOSC) of Renmin University of China in downtown Beijing.

The event was a vital part of the Beijing 2008 - Second Olympic Cultural Festival which closed on June 30.

The forum was attended by about 80 professionals, researchers, educators, and artists involved in Olympic studies from some 10 countries and regions and more than 1,000 university students.

The international forum, to be held annually until 2008, will serve as a platform for Olympics organizers, researchers, educators, sports experts, artists from around the world to offer their advice for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, according to HOSC executive director Jin Yuanpu.

The HOSC and the Department of Cultural Activities of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad co-organized the forum.

The Games have been promised to be a "high-tech Olympics," a "people's Olympics" and a "green Olympics."

Jiang Xiaoyu, vice-president of games organizing committee, said the international forum will be a regular channel for the organizing committee and people from other supporting departments and sectors to keep up with the latest developments in Olympics-related ideas, theories, technologies and practices.

"It will surely provide a solid foundation for Beijing to host one of the best Olympic Games in history," Jiang claimed.

Key issues under discussion at the forum were Olympic education, the possible contributions of Beijing and China to the Olympic legacy, preparations for the successful hosting of the 2008 games, interactions between Chinese culture and Olympic culture and interpretations of the Olympic Movement and its local and global impacts.

Better Olympic education

Kong's call for greater efforts to spread Olympic education was warmly welcomed and echoed by other speakers.

"To ensure a healthy development of the Olympic Movement, it is critical to strengthen Olympic education and to foster the Olympic spirit in the hearts of the young generations," said He Zhenliang, member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and also chairman of the IOC Commission for Culture and Olympic Education.

The wealth and vitality of the Olympic movement has always depended on its diversity and the combination of sports, culture and education, he added.

"When we speak of conflicts of the civilizations in today's world, I believe that the Olympic movement can act as a bridge linking various societies of different cultural backgrounds," He said.

And "the people of the world must be made more aware of the importance of the Olympic movement and its values: mutual respect, friendship, solidarity and fair play.

"Because it serves to bring people together, to educate them, to teach them to respect and tolerate others, and to live in peace and harmony by experiencing competition on the sports ground in a peaceful way."

"Olympics without the function of education is meaningless. Sports without culture and education is like a body without soul," He told the forum.

He pointed out that education was put at the core of the mission and function of the Olympics when Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, known as the "father of modern Olympism," established the Olympic Movement in 1896.

Alex Carre, former vice-chairman of the National Olympic Committee of Canada and now director of the Olympic Sport Institute of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, talked about the importance of Olympic education from a very different angle.

"The ideals of Olympism are strategically promoted through elementary, secondary and post-secondary institutions. They are also displayed through Olympic academies and athlete resource and training centres," he said.

However, "not all Olympic education revolves around ideals; much of it regards the harsh realities that Olympians experience." Carre has noticed that a growing body of research is developing about the difficulty experienced by Olympic athletes in transition to mainstream living and regular employment.

From the time athletes begin taking steps towards their life-long devotion to the Olympic dream, they become encapsulated in a world far different from ordinary people, he noted.

They undertake strict regimens for training and are looked upon by the sporting world with high regard and dignity.

Once these athletes finish their careers, they discover the dullness of ordinary life; living without the comfort of strict schedules or the prestige bestowed upon Olympians for their high standards of excellence.

Some grow wealthy through careers spun directly from their experiences in athletics, but more often, retired athletes become "has-beens," "could-have-beens," or "never weres."

For these athletes, their despair can be overwhelming and that has led to relatively high rates of suicide and substance abuse in Western countries.

"Education through extensive research is paramount to prepare athletes for their transition and to help prevent such tragedies or transgressions," he concluded.

In her presentation entitled "How to promote antiquity in modern times: Ancient Olympic Heritage and Modern Olympic Games in Athens 2004," Professor Roy Panagiotopoulou with the University of Athens analysed the specific communication and promotional strategies of the Athens Games and the meaning and the appeal of the modern Olympic Games to the ideological legacy of antiquity.

She noted that the cultural and historical heritage of Greece has been transformed into the legacy of the modern Olympic movement, such as the Olympic charter, oath, anthem, and the Olympic symbols of flame, torch relay, and marathon race.

The heritage here acts as a bridge between the ancient and the present. "The Olympics were born in Greece, were revived in Athens in 1896, and are returning to the birthplace of the Games," she said.

Still, all speakers at the forum agreed that time-honoured Chinese culture and civilization can also make great contributions to the enrichment of the Olympic legacy, with the staging of the Games in Beijing four years away.

Zhang Liwen, a renowned Chinese philosophy professor with Renmin University of China, elaborated on his interpretation of Olympic culture within the framework of his philosophy.

In his opinion, the Olympics is a communication between global cultures dedicated to the five core values of "peaceful life, peaceful existence, peaceful growth, peaceful development and peaceful love," because these five core values embody the Olympic spirit.

During the forum, Ren Hai, head of the Olympic Research Centre of National Research Institute of Sports Science, pointed out that, traditional sports from different parts of the world are fresh cultural resources to enrich the Olympic Movement and they may serve as good tools for intercultural communication and understanding.

The Olympic legacy

Traditional sports, as a result of cultural accumulation in a nation, embody the basic cultural elements which have guided the nation for thousands of years and still significantly influence current living, he said.

For instance, Chinese Taichi not only reflects Chinese social values, like self-control, benevolence, but also overflows with cardinal Chinese philosophical ideas such as Yin and Yang, Qi (Vital energy), Wu Xing (Five basic elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth), Ba Gua (Eight diagrams: Qian, the symbol of heaven; Kun, the symbol of earth; Zhun, the symbol of water; Li, the symbol of fire;Zhen, the symbol of thunder; Gen, the symbol of mountain; Xun, symbol of wind; and Dui, symbol of pond), he explained.

And the same is true for all other indigenous sport activities all over the world, like Yoga to the people in India. Traditional sports are often like great containers compacted with abundant extreme important cultural elements.

"The richness of their cultural messages is often beyond our imagination," he said.

Professor Jin Yuanpu, executive director of the Humanistic Olympics Studies Centres of Renmin University of China, spoke of the cultural significance of the emblem of the Chinese Seal entitled "Dancing Beijing" designed for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The birth of the Chinese Seal emblem is a breakthrough in the history of Olympic emblem design. The emblem manifests a strong Chinese flavour. But it also clearly reflects the profundity of Olympism which uses sports as a vehicle to promote a balanced development of people as an essential step in building a peaceful society that places a high value on human dignity, he said.

In Chinese culture, the red-coloured seal symbolizes trust and sincerity; the cutting of the seal with ancient Chinese characters displays the Chinese aesthetics of "economy in expression, ambiguity and richness in meaning."

The colour red symbolizes good luck, joy, happiness and hope in Chinese culture; the engraved design on the emblem, can be read as wen, meaning the "culture", the "text", and "literature", or read as jing, meaning the capital city, or an athlete in action.

"East meets West when the Beijing 2008 Olympics are held. The meeting and dialogue of different cultures may bring the Cultural Olympiad to a new height. And we believe that the Beijing Games will usher in a new era of cultural pluralism for the Olympic movement," Jin said.

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