Word: mao
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...system that had produced such good results," says Zhao Yu, a sports historian whose book, Superpower Dream, critiques China's Olympic efforts. He adds, "Sports is really the only way in which socialism has been successful in China." The nation's obsession with sporty achievements dates back to Chairman Mao Zedong himself, who once demonstrated his vitality by swimming a stretch of the Yangtze River. Soon after the founding of the People's Republic, the Great Helmsman ordered a nationwide hunt for perfect physical specimens to embody the new China...
...Mao's legacy endures today, as scouts trawl China's vast countryside and jam-packed cities every year to find the best athletic prospects. Kids with tiny hips and flexible limbs are funneled into gymnastics or diving, children with lightning-quick reflexes are destined for table tennis or badminton, while beefier types are tagged as weight lifters. At nearly every elementary school around the nation, amateur anatomists measure youths' bones to predict their future heights, and the tallest are reserved for provincial volleyball, basketball or handball squads. "Just name the sport," says Xu Guangshu, former principal of the Shichahai Sports...
...strong in women's sports." Case in point: when women's weight lifting became an official Olympic sport in 2000, China captured four out of seven available gold medals, while the Chinese men won only one gold. In Sydney, China's women topped Chairman Mao's famous maxim that "women hold up half the sky" by capturing 60% of the nation's total medals...
...left-wing conspiracy? According to an unauthorized translation of BILL CLINTON'S memoir, My Life, now on sale in China, the former President turned to Chinese sages for guidance at critical moments in his life. As a student, the pirated book says, Clinton so admired MAO ZEDONG that he applied for a visa to visit China. While Governor, Clinton relied on the economic theories of Deng Xiaoping to "give Arkansas a chance to catch up" to the rest of the U.S. Chinese readers may not realize the translation is not exactly faithful. Or they may be buying the phony book...
...show begins with two large paintings, produced expressly for this exhibit, that flank the entryway and set the stage for this strange trip into the time-warped world of North Korea. On the right, spiffy, Mao-suited founding father Kim Il Sung surveys a construction site, surrounded by smiling, hard-hatted laborers; on the left, plump and girlishly handsome son Kim Jong Il stands on the deck of a speedboat, surrounded by marines. Visitors then walk through a series of galleries enclosed within a giant red-walled box set up in the museum's hangar-like exhibit space...