the road to beijing

In light of all the protests surrounding the Olympic torch run in San Francisco last week, actress Joan Chen, who was born and raised in China, recently wrote a piece in the Washington Post giving reasons for her support of this summer's Beijing Olympics: Let the Games Go On.

On a related note, here's a story on the protests and some of its impact on the Chinese American community: Chinese Americans feel sting of Olympic protests. For many, the demonstrations seem to have gone beyond criticizing China's communist government and ventured into full-fledged anti-Chinese sentiment.

By the way, since we're talking about the Olympics, here's a Wall Street Journal article on the top ping pong players for teams around the world... who, as it happens, are mostly of Chinese descent: Pong Dynasty: In Table Tennis, Chinese Rule. In recent years, many have changed citizenship in order to play for national teams elsewhere.

And finally, here's an interesting story on 15-year-old gymnast Ivana Hong: Olympic Hopes Are Rooted in Tale of Escape. She's Chinese American, but her parents were actually born in Vietnam. At age 15, her mother fled Saigon in 1976, and survived the journey to the United States. And now her daughter is an American Olympic hopeful.