{"id":22004,"date":"2008-07-21T21:23:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-22T04:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=22004"},"modified":"2008-07-22T09:47:49","modified_gmt":"2008-07-22T16:47:49","slug":"wearing-masks-losing-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Wearing Masks, Losing Face"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To wear or not to wear a mask, that is the dilemma many Olympic athletes will be faced with in a couple of weeks when the Summer Games commence in Beijing. From The <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB121659379072468809.html?mod=googlenews_wsj\">Wall Street Journal<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Chinese officials insist the notorious Beijing air will be cleaner by August, making such contraptions unnecessary. Concerned about the pollution, the U.S. Olympic Committee is distributing a high-tech mask, developed in secrecy, to its more than 600 Olympians. If athletes deploy it, they risk insulting the hosts. Then there&#8217;s the geek factor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I probably will want to wear it,&#8221; says the 26-year-old Mr. Shoemaker, who plans to have his mask on nearly all the time he&#8217;s in Beijing when not competing. &#8220;Whether I will be allowed to is a different issue.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Though the practice is less common today, Chinese for years have worn masks to protect their lungs from the country&#8217;s heavy dust and pollution. But foreigners wearing them during the Games this summer &#8212; particularly at the opening ceremony broadcast to billions of television viewers around the world? That&#8217;s a different matter.<\/p>\n<p>Having foreigners cover their faces at the Olympics could mean a loss of face for the Chinese. &#8220;When you&#8217;re walking around with a mask on, you&#8217;re basically saying, &#8216;You guys stink,&#8217; &#8221; says Scott Schnitzspahn, performance director of the U.S. triathlon team.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To wear or not to wear a mask, that is the dilemma many Olympic athletes will be faced with in a couple of weeks when the Summer Games commence in Beijing. From The Wall Street Journal: Chinese officials insist the notorious Beijing air will be cleaner by August, making such contraptions unnecessary. Concerned about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13,116,132],"tags":[348,5975],"class_list":["post-22004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beijing-olympics-2008","category-world","category-environmental-crisis","tag-air-pollution","tag-olympics-environment","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wearing Masks, Losing Face<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wearing Masks, Losing Face\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To wear or not to wear a mask, that is the dilemma many Olympic athletes will be faced with in a couple of weeks when the Summer Games commence in Beijing. From The Wall Street Journal: Chinese officials insist the notorious Beijing air will be cleaner by August, making such contraptions unnecessary. Concerned about the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-22T04:23:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2008-07-22T16:47:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Japhet Weeks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Japhet Weeks\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Japhet Weeks\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/deff0dd12eb57e83f43b9a12b5217633\"},\"headline\":\"Wearing Masks, Losing Face\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-07-22T04:23:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-07-22T16:47:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2008\/07\/wearing-masks-losing-face\/\"},\"wordCount\":226,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"air pollution\",\"Olympics environment\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Beijing Olympics 2008\",\"China &amp; 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