On the Ito Mima Incident

Seeing that someone in my WeChat Moments finally spoke up for Ito Mima, I felt the timing was about right and that I could write something. If this post had been sent on the 26th, it would surely have drawn endless abuse; now it is fine, because at least someone can share it with me.

The world is not black and white, but gray. A person may be kind-hearted at certain times and, when forced by circumstance, may also appear fierce.

Xiao Ming was clever and sensible from childhood, but his father drank all day and beat his mother. One day, to protect his mother, Xiao Ming knocked his father unconscious with a broken wine bottle; in the end, his father died.

Different people receive different information, and the conclusions they reach may diverge.

Xiao Ming killed his father. Xiao Gang read the news and thought Xiao Ming's crime was unforgivable; Xiao Hong investigated and discovered that Xiao Ming had been protecting his mother and accidentally caused a disaster, so her view was the opposite of Xiao Gang's.

We are not God. We cannot look down on the cause, process, and result of an event from a third-person omniscient perspective. Therefore, different people inevitably receive different information. Since different information has been received, different opinions are understandable. I hope friends who disagree with me will be tolerant. I thank you here in advance.

---------------------------------------

The mixed doubles match ended. China lost, 3:4. After watching the whole match, because I know only a little about table tennis, I did not pay attention to the opposing female player's later-exposed actions such as "blowing on the ball" and "wiping the table." Whether these actions violated rules has been analyzed by professionals; I, an outsider, cannot judge. But I checked the replay, and they did happen. Xu Xin's gesture of wanting to blow and then stopping was also real. This shows that the online revelations were not fabricated images, nor were they old matches of Ito being passed off as this one.

Then overwhelming abuse began. On the night after the match, the main line of attack was:

"Some opponents win and deserve respect; some opponents win and deserve to be trampled."

On the 27th, all kinds of jokes appeared one after another:

"The thing that moved me most at this Olympics was not those athletes who still fought hard without winning medals, but those judges who, though blind in both eyes, still held fast to their posts." (This appeared before the gymnastics competition.)

"The one who blows on the ball is a dog." "The one who wipes the table is a dog."

"Rules are dead; dogs are alive."

On the internet, whoever curses more pleasingly gets more likes. It is best to attach a brilliant story, and then tens of thousands of likes and comments are guaranteed. If her Instagram was flooded just because she subconsciously touched the table, was that not too extreme? In my view, the thing about Ito that made me most uncomfortable was her pleased, arrogant expression after winning. But she has trained since childhood and set her goal on defeating China; this gold medal proves her effort, and she has the capital to be proud. I truly do not understand why people compared her to a dog, or even attacked her appearance.

Friend in front of the screen, perhaps you once reposted these posts. It is all right. Calling a person a dog is not your own vulgarity, and the insulting posts were not edited by you; the fault is not yours. I only hope that before reposting, you can think carefully and make decisions after cooling down.

As for unfair judging, a gymnastics professional on Zhihu put forward his view. Although I do not understand gymnastics very well either, I followed his guidance and looked up the materials myself, so I support his view: Hashimoto Daiki stepped out of bounds with one foot on landing; according to the rules, 0.1 points were deducted, and there was no problem. The rules have Chinese, Japanese, and English versions, and they can be found easily on Baidu.

However, anyone with eyes could see the judges' partiality toward Japan during the competition. Especially in a subjective event like gymnastics, Xiao Ruoteng's overall performance was plainly better than Hashimoto Daiki's, yet the judges ultimately gave him silver. This mainly came from the Olympic Committee's accommodation of the host country. If you truly cannot accept that, then it can indeed be questioned sternly, because it is too unfair to the other athletes. But recalling that China's men's football team also received accommodation in 2008, I hope people can show some restraint when they criticize.

The key issue is the judges' subjective discretion, not the footprint for which Hashimoto Daiki was mocked as having "stepped all the way onto Mars." Even if that step had landed in Andromeda, it would still only deduct 0.1.

As Tuantuan said: "Young people who truly love their motherland, even if they are die-hard fans of Japanese anime and games, will defend their country's sovereignty and national dignity on major questions of right and wrong. And those without backbone, whose knees are weak, even if they have no interest in Japan, will sooner or later kneel before others and mock everything about China, including China's sovereignty and the dignity of the nation." When national dignity is at stake, our attitude cannot be careless. Based on an objective perspective, our stance should indeed tilt a little toward our motherland.

Tilting a little means silently wishing for victory when the score is behind; cheering for our own athletes when the two sides are evenly matched; and raising reasonable, evidence-based questions when the judges show bias. It does not mean endless abuse of the winning opponent after a defeat.

What comforts me is that I saw people who truly paid attention to the competition, people with knowledge of sports who were willing to watch the matches seriously and offer suggestions for Chinese athletes. More precisely, I saw Lin Jingyan's unique analysis of the women's volleyball match, and Lin Xining's sincere wishes for Kento Momota.

Ito Mima and Hashimoto Daiki are Japanese, and because of that we began to cyberbully them without restraint. This is not acceptable. The Yamato people are a respectable nation. Only by knowing them deeply enough can we possibly defeat them; abuse alone is useless. Born in a socialist country, Japan's bloody history of aggression against us still seems like yesterday. We cannot forget our hatred toward Japan, but we must avenge it by the methods of a new era: understand Japanese culture, infiltrate it comprehensively, master technological hegemony, and realize the great rejuvenation. Every step requires us, as young people, to have ideals, shoulder responsibility, and strive hard.

People often say that the journey of civilization lies in the distance, but apart from a global catastrophe, it is hard to imagine what could make humanity unite as one. Under a pandemic spreading across the world, politicians still fought to the death. Perhaps only when alien species truly invade will people feel the importance of unity.