Shergymrag has done it again.
“Stumbled on to” the blog of an English speaking employee of the Ch*na Daily newspaper. In this non-official post, the employee — spiraledout — questions the real age of He Kexin, the favourite to win Bars at the 2008 Olympics:
Normally when a paper issues a correction it is to set the record straight. Ch*na Daily, my employer, almost never issues them because, well, as the official paper of the Communist Party, it is Pope-like — infallible.So imagine how shocked I was when I was told earlier this week that we would be running a correction to a story from last week. I have never seen one in the 9 or so months I’ve been here, so I was a bit shocked. Did we get something wrong and, more shocking, are we admitting it?
Well, in a way. The story was about a young gymnast named He Kexin. Pretty straightforward tale: new gymnast on the scene, an ace at uneven bars, could give Team China that extra push to win all the golds they lust after. Except one little thing — the story said she was 14 years old.
The correction, then, reads as follows: “The second and third paragraphs on the May 23 story on Page 23 entitled ‘Uneven-bars queen new star in town’ should read: The 16-year-old newcomer to the national team…” and it goes on, exactly as it was in the original story, just with the age changed. Normally, of course, a real correction will mention what it is that’s being corrected, that is, what was wrong. But not this one. It just re-writes the story and insists that’s the way it is, not an admission of error. Just restating the facts as they were meant to be told.
So why the big deal? Why would we take the unprecedented step of issuing a correction, such as it is? Well, Olympic rules say that gymnasts must be at least 16 in order to compete in the Games, so even though her bio on Sina.com (a Chinese sports site that I can’t navigate since it’s all in Chinese) says she is 14. But no, she is officially 16, because, well, they say so. …
A rare correction to obfuscate the truth – Left Coast Leaner
This “reeks of dishonesty”.
We may never know if He Kexin is old enough to qualify under F.I.G. rules. But it’s possible that the truth may out if Chinese reporters and bloggers decide to investigate.
The post goes on to compare this “scandal” with that of Chinese NBA Basketball prospect Yi Jianlian who’s age is “officially” 20, but some think he is closer to 24 or 25.
Related posts including He Kexin
9 comments ↓
Where did you get that picture? Is that supposed to be some sort of commentary on the situation? Fuzzy picture illustrates fuzzy facts?
That did cross my mind. Actually, I didn’t have a good photo of her.
That’s a screen shot from video.
And a parallel scenario … Will she CATCH?
Or take a BIG FALL?
I don’t know if you can use it, but there is a nice picture on the other He Kexin story I posted last night. It’s from last year at the Intercity games. Click on the Chinese Paper link and scroll all the way to the bottom.
So, what’s wrong with making some correction on an mistake?
Apparently somebody pointed out the mistake to the China Daily so they corrected it.
Right. Color me unconvinced.
NorthernRiver commented on my ‘Just because…II” post that the chinese article I found did report that He Kexin was 13 in 2007 at the Intercity games. If they made a mistake, it’s interesting that they made it last year saying she was 13 when she allegedly should’ve been 13 and the other paper made one this year sayiing she was 14 when she allegedly should be 14.
Could it be that some birthdate posted online, like the one in sina.com right now, was wrong to begin with? So people came up with the wrong age?
I don’t see anything new here. Just google it yourself, you can find all kinds of ages of He, from 13 to 16. They can prove nothing.
Who really cares? This is stupid. If she’s good enough to compete then let her compete.
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