2008 Retrospective: A Look Back to Big World Things

The year 2008’s coming to an end — and 2009’s coming out of the starting gate real soon. Time for the obligatory review: eight things for ‘08 that we’re not forgetting anytime soon…

Too Painful To Forget: Wenchuan

When 14:28 came on May 12, 2008, the earth shook virtually like never before in Sichuan. Thousands, and then tens of thousands, died as a magnitude 8.0 quake ripped through Sichuan, causing grief and devastation to the area, and bringing a nation to a virtual standstill a week later.

When the sirens sounded nationwide on 14:28 a week later, it was more than I could bear. I parked my car outside Beitucheng Crossing, within eyesight reach of the Bird’s Nest, and sounded the horns like everyone else did. This was just too much. I burst into tears only seven seconds into the three minute moment of silence. The emotions that went through were just like what I had went through about two decades ago, when my grandma passed away two months before I started life in Switzerland in late 1988 — only far worse.

For the very first time in my life, I saw the PRC — a whole nation — a whole people just still. All flags at half-mast. Any sign of joy totally extinguished. Never before had a nation felt so one before.

May 12, 2008 was a day that seems just as “big” as August 8, 2008 — except for that it still remains “bigger”. We had all been waiting for August 8, 2008 like mad. We never expected May 12, 2008.

Sadly, for those who fell into the cracks that day, life never made it to August 8, 2008.

Too Harmonious To Forget: Beijing 2008

And then there’s the other end of things: August 8, 2008. Using very much the same torch that noted Chinese Twitterati @kaiserkuo passed through with his own hands, Li Ning lit up the flame at the Bird’s Nest just before midnight as August 8, 2008 was about to turn to August 9.

This was the moment China was waiting for. Not since July 13, 2001. For nearly a hundred years, China had been waiting for the Games. Chinese folks never forgot how they lost out to Sydney in 1993 — by just two votes. I burst into tears that fateful September day, while Dad roasted and toasted CNN International for politicizing coverage of the vote that day.

Unfortunately, Beijing 2008 was never the real feast it could have been — in a far more relaxed atmosphere. Instead, probably oversensitized to the threat of threats (sic), China went into über-harmonious mode. The results were what we never expected: contracts being cancelled, foreigners and non-Beijingers shown the door, limits in place like never before. We were shown to the acuteness of the situation all right when armed police made their presence felt in Terminal 3 at Beijing Airport, not to mention obligatory Subway checks.

Still, behind the mass harmonization were kick-ass Games that no doubt had London scratching their heads beyond bald-dom. I tweeted about this: the only nation that could outdo Beijing 2008 would have to be North Korea. The unity that is Pyeongyang and Co is unique — just look at their Mass Games for a hint.

Nonetheless, I hope I’ll be in London for 2012. I’ve quite a number of friends there too, and it’d be fun to join them for some real Games without all this harmonization.

Too Cold To Forget: Winter Blizzards

Sadly, 2008 did not exactly start the way a People’s Daily editorial bang on January 1, 2008 visualized it to start. Winter blizzards soon made their way down to south China, but this time, the Internet and TV were full in force. Web portals and TV reports kept us in the know as the snow fell, seemingly unstoppable.

The blizzards came for many at precisely the wrong time: all these people — innocent civilians — ever wanted was a get-together for Chinese New Year, the big fest that matters to one and all. This is like Thanksgiving and Christmas in the West — only for 1.3 billion.

Beijingers and those in Tianjin felt the impact less, but I still felt pretty useless and helpless seeing so many people trapped down south. The papers came in day by day — and the headlines soon were a bore, but a painful bore: too many papers were thrown aside with me just wondering: When the hell will these people FINALLY make it home?

I don’t know if I can speak for these folks, but they sure must have also been feeling this way.

Too Obama To Forget: The US Presidential Elections

What do you do a President who cheated his way to war and beat the living and dead daylights out of Iraq without so much as a nod from the UN? What do you do to someone who is like virtually detested — if not in all of the World, in wide packets around the planet?

You show the guy the door, that’s what. Fortunately, the US works it out this way in a very civilized manner: Americans go to the polls every 4th year and cast their ballots for a new President.

Thankfully, Bush was out of the races — the US Constitution banned him for a third term — but those who were running for President soon overwhelmed quite a lot of folks. For a moment, it felt like the killer duo would have to have been Hillary Clinton for the Democrats, and Rudy Giuliani for the Republicans. When in the end all was said and done, though, it was Obama versus McCain.

The US and its citizens “did their bit” in early November and made history. Obama, the first-ever African-American President, won the vote on his platform for change. It was precisely the same vote most of us disenfranchised non-US citizens wanted to see. The US had voted — seemingly knowing that it wanted someone who many of us liked to see as the guy in the White House.

Too Many Red Figures To Forget: The Financial Downturn

Sadly, even before the November Obama victory, things were looking a lot worse economically. We had just way too many financial and economic incidents to name. Lehman Brothers… Iceland… you name it.

Was the whole planet just outright bankrupt? Being a non-economist, I thought that this was pretty much the case. Phone calls with my closest friends suggested that China was the only way out. Sure, North Korea’s economy is probably insulated all right, but China’s the only living and big-breathing economy out there.

China seemed to be insulated from this — but very soon, trouble brew at my doorstep. My fitness trainer at the local gym got orders from “Top Management”: get enough lessons from members — or be fired. She told me that the boss was being totally inhumane, but that even Mr Boss Man could do little about it. “Financial crisis” — that was what came out from her mouth.

Then I realized: even I could have been hit bad.

Fortunately, things on my end were quickly settled with a quick payment of lessons in advance — thus keeping her in the biz. But when what happened in the US hits back at home…

Too Cross-Straits To Forget: Ma’s Taiwan

Taiwan’s Presidential elections in 2008 was a Big Thing. After 8 years of trying to form a totally independent Taiwan (and stumbling in the process, with Legislative Yuan brawls no less), Chen Shui-Bian’s term ran out — folks on the island already wanted this man out about 18 months ahead of time, with the September 2006 “President Chen Must Go” protests spreading across Ilha Formosa.

My “private” opinion on the elections, confided only to a few, was that a vote for Ma was a vote for “unification”. About six months after Ma took office, unification seemed to be very much the case — even with Ma’s “no reunification, no independence, no wars” stance. Letting Chen Yunlin onto Taiwan and establishing full cross-Straits contacts and flights — if these aren’t unificationalist moves, I don’t know what they were. It sure upset Taiwanese folks who felt that their island was being sold out.

But then again, the cross-Straits limits hitherto were a bit too much on the choking side. Just because Beijing and Taipei couldn’t see eye to eye meant that planes had to pointlessly fly over Hong Kong. It’s not that what they use in these planes as fuel are like renewable sources of energy or something… And do you have to politicize my New Year’s greeting card for my pals over in Taipei?

Too Poisonous To Forget: Milk Scandals

On the other side of the Straits, trouble was already brewing in early July 2008 when Sanlu’s milk was becoming über-melamine-rich. Very soon, jokes were the order of the day — but on a far more tragic note, babies were dying — because Top Management apparently not only could not give a damn, but actually wanted to use millions to cover up the whole scandal.

Thankfully, the guy in charge of Sanlu could be facing tougher days ahead — and probably even death penalty. (Hey, they did say something about “Thou Shalt Not Kill”!) But still, babies gave in because of overly melamine milk powders. Far worse, it shattered trust in Chinese milk products. Even Taiwan seems to have been hit badly.

The milk scandals, though, had a silver lining: China’s “Inspection-Exempt Policy” came to an end with this scandal. The move’s applaudable, by the way. China, sadly, is this place where if you don’t your two eyeballs to one thing and focus on it, stuff can happen — and sadly, stuff happened — with Sanlu and Co. Responsible governance isn’t about giving companies exemption from inspections. It’s about getting super-tough about these companies at all times.

Remember China has 1.3 billion lives. Polluting even a single life is not just a bad idea — it’s something that simply cannot be done!

Too Short To Forget: Twitter

Twitter easily changed much of the World in 2008. The Wenchuan quakes were first noted on Twitter. The @Scobleizer, of course, took some credit with spreading the message — a bit unfairly, if I may content. (This is the trouble with tweeters who have what must a million followers — the “smaller”/”lesser” voices get drowned out.)

Twitter was another big thing this year in terms of the commentary: big events such as Macworld, Beijing 2008 and the US elections were full of tweeps and tweets flying about the place. This international service with an international user base offers you international commentary you simply cannot get anywhere else.

I consider Twitter much like the Photoshop of Web 2.0. Nobody like really expected this thing to come along, but once it did, it just gave way to its own revolution. A thousand flowers bloomed — and Twitter was one of them. Now, Twitter’s letting its own thousand-plus flowers bloom.

Or thousand tweets, rather.