Olympic Flame Shines on One Chinese Woman and Burns Another
Two young women had very different experiences of the Olympic torch relay around the world. Even Jin Jing was criticized as a traitor after she publicly denied to boycott Carrefour. From the Los Angeles Times:
As the Olympic flame continues its tumultuous journey around the world, the lives of two young Chinese women whose brief gestures during the torch relay were captured on video have emerged center stage in the black-and-white world of Chinese public opinion.
One is Jin Jing, a one-legged former fencer in a wheelchair who, with her tiny body, defended the torch from pro-Tibet protesters trying to snatch it from her on the streets of Paris. The images of her action have been disseminated on the Internet, and she has been elevated to national hero status and dubbed an “angel in a wheelchair.”
The other is Wang Qianyuan, a newly arrived student from China at Duke University in North Carolina who turned up in the middle of a videotaped shouting match during a pro-Tibet campus rally on the day the torch passed through San Francisco. She is now viewed as a traitor.
Origin: Ching-Ching Ni, Los Angeles Times
