Chinese Curler Wang Fengchun Not Having Fun Tonight
I know. I know. Curling was that bridesmaid you wanted to pass the time with for a handful of days. You never intended your relationship to get serious, the moment has passed and you wish they’d stop insinuating themselves back in your life.
I get it. Really. You don’t care about curling anymore. You never really cared about curling. You especially don’t care about Chinese curling.
But maybe you should care for just one more story, because it involves your country.
China’s curling skip Wang Fengchun was booted from the team after its pit-i-ful showing at the Vancouver Games. But this being the Chinese team we’re talking about, they didn’t just politely hand Wang a pink slip and a plane ticket home. Matter fact, they literally did neither, deploying instead a series of blatant burns to the guy.
Burn No. 1: Wang was banned from joining in on the celebratory banquet on the Olympic delegation’s return to Beijing.
Burn No. 2: Instead of doing Saki-bombs with teammates in Beijing and then taking a quick plane ride back to his home city after the celebration, his flight was revoked and replaced with a ticket for a 12-hour train ride home to Harbin.
Burn No. 3: The team manager didn’t bother to warn him that it was going to happen.
Burn No. 4: The impetus for Wang’s punishment was not his performance, but his behavior coming home after the Games ended. He was so unhappy with being benched for the final two matches in Vancouver, that he showed up in Beijing wearing a U.S. team cap along with his Chinese uniform.
To be honest, I’m not sure who this is a burn on. China, because one of their own dared to wear “another gang’s colors,” Wang because he performed so poorly he had to wear another country’s gear or the U.S. because … well, because that other country’s gear was ours.
A lot of behaviors get lost in translation between such different countries as ours and China’s, but this ain’t one of ‘em. China made themselves very clear: you do not blow the Olympic Games and sulk by supporting our enemy.
“It’ll be very helpful to heavily slap him down with pain,” team manager Li Dongyan added. “We will not give up on such a good curler. We hope he changes his attitude and we will then consider using him in future competitions.”
You get the feeling that if we could read Li’s mind immediately after this quotation it would have added, “… because if Wang doesn’t, Wang will be sorry.”
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Photo courtesy of Flickr
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