Just as the world began to see the Chinese for something other than industrious, robotic Communists and we’re reminded that the Chinese people cry and mourn like the rest of us, we’re also reminded that the Chinese like to be industrious, robotic Communists. A mere 9 days after a massive earthquake killed tens of thousands in Sichuan, from which survivors are still being found, it’s back to business for China’s Olympic athletes. In fact, according to an AFP story Wednesday, for Chinese Olympians, the harrowing week was always business as usual. Because nine days after a horrific natural disaster occurs, the news stories about rescues become stories about recoveries which, in turn, become these types of stories. The ones about the pandas, these animals who start false earthquake rumors, whether the radioactive sites are okay, how the market was impacted, and every other ancillary repercussion of the disaster. Well in case you more worried about China’s 600 Olympic athletes and not the 41,000 dead or the 4,000 orphaned children, rest assured, they are in their training facilities completly “undaunted.” Here’s a bit from Wednesday’s AFP story:

Around 20 were in Sichuan but all are safe and unhurt, according to the state Xinhua news agency. Some athletes lost homes and loved-ones, Sichuan sports director Zhu Ling was quoted as saying, but it was unclear if any of them were Olympic team members.
 
For those athletes training for the Games, the disaster has not been allowed to interfere with Olympic preparations. If anything, their focus on the Beijing Olympics seems to have been reinforced.
 
Liu Xiang, the 110m world record holder and reigning Olympic champion, caught the mood in comments two days after the disaster when he said athletes were determined to train even harder.
 
“We will redouble our efforts and try to use our achievements on the field to encourage the people of the disaster areas to rebuild their lives,” Liu was quoted as saying.
 
China’s government ordered three days of mourning from Monday to allow the public to pay their respects to disaster victims. The nation’s athletes have taken time out for fund-raising and observed three minutes’ silence on Monday, one week after the disaster.
 
But they have scarcely missed a beat in training and preparing for the Games.

Shouldn’t they miss a beat? I even missed a beat. The torch relay, which has instantly gone from an international disaster tour to a triumphant victory lap around China, even missed a beat. Everyone missed a beat. In the coming days, China will begin to only accentuate the positive and begin to hope people slowly forget about the 41,000 people that just died. For it only serves to remind the world that 2008, supposedly the lucky year of the Summer Games, has been one of the unluckiest years yet in China. More importantly, it serves to remind us that as much as one blindly submits to and reveres his or her government, Mother Nature couldn’t care less.

Photo: Time

It’s funny. I knew Chinese President Hu Jintao could sing but I never knew he could play ping pong. Guy’s a table tennis machine. Look at the way he holds his paddle Chinese-style (I guess that makes sense) and takes on not one but two opponents. George Bush claimed in an interview Tuesday that he gave up playing golf in order to show solidarity with those soldiers fighting in Iraq. He told Politico’s Mike Allen, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf.” I wonder if Hu’s going to rest his racket on the table during China’s earthquake recovery. Or will he stroke that ping pong ball to show his people that China will not be distracted or derailed from taking over the world. With all the horrifying pictures and videos slowly trickling out of China this week, this video brought a smile to my face.