Everyone’s Olympics

The big lawn in front of the city hall in Seoul has turned into a sea of red flags.

“Go China go,” is the constant sound from that sea.

The Olympic torch is on its way through Seoul and more than 5,000 Chinese students, from different universities all over Korea, have gathered in Seoul to show their support.

“We have already been waiting for four hours,” says Lili.

It is four in the afternoon and the Olympic torch is planned to arrive any minute. Lili leans out from the sidewalk to be able to see well. A Chinese flag is covering her shoulders. Lili came to Korea to study in an University in Daejeon four years ago. It takes about four hours with the train from her university to Seoul, so Lili and her friends arrived already last night. This morning, they were up early to find a good place in the Olympic Village where the 24 km long torch relay started.

Suddenly, busses with barred windows drive up and stop in front of us. The doors open and policemen are flooding out. They line up like a wall along the sidewalk. Lili don’t think that they will move, so we get down in the metro to chance side of the road. Once up in the fresh air again, we can see about 30 busses lined up along the whole road. China has especially asked for big security around the relay due to the protests that have occurred around the world.

“There were some people who protested in the Olympic Village but they disappeared pretty soon,” says Lili.

She thinks it was because of the presence of so many Chinese students.

From other parts of Seoul, reports come about that Chinese students have been throwing stones and water bottles towards anti-China demonstrators, and a reporter has been hit in the head by one of the stones.

Around the City Hall I have only seen three people in t-shirts with the print “Free Tibet.” Instead, it is the Chinese students that carry the messages. There are banderols with the texts: “Tibet has, is and will always be a part of China”, “The Olympic Games in Beijing will absolutely succeed” and t-shirts with the print “We suport Beijing Olympics. We support China”. One of the most common messages seems to be “One world, one dream,” visible on both banderols and t-shirts.

A girl comes up to us and gives us some pennants and stickers with Chinese flags. Lili smiles at her and sticks a flag onto her cheek.

“I am happy so many have come to support our country,” she says.

Lili is getting cold. She asks me what time it is. It is almost seven. The torch is already three hours delayed. Then, suddenly, a helicopter comes flying over the City Hall. Lili starts jumping up and down. Again, people start shouting:

“Go China go.”

Lili is shouting, too.

Finally, the torch arrives, surrounded by a crowd. We can only see the flame over the heads of the people in the crowd. Hundreds of policemen have been trained specially to run along the torch relay runners trough Seoul. Lili reaches up her camera in the sky, trying to catch what is happening. Then she looks down on her watch, realizing she needs to catch her train. Tomorrow she has to be back in her classes in the university in Deajeon. Lili takes my hand and says:

“You know, it is not our Olympics, it is everyone’s.”

Then she is off.

The day after I am drinking coffee with a journalist from a big Korean radio station who has to report on the torch relay. He finds it hard, because he was not out in the streets. But still, he has been watching tv and read newspapers. He stays silent for a while, then he says:

“This is Seoul. That a lot of Chinese students use violence here is not right. They have to be prosecuted in some way.”

 

Seoul. April 28, 2008