Li Jia Wei - huat ah!
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Excellently informative news from Seah Chiang Nee:
Li Jiawei
She's leaving and that's that
If what is surmised is true and she's going for good, it’ll be a big setback for Singapore's overseas medal-scouting ventures. red sports.
Oct 15, 2008
By Sports Fan
A member of the public, Edmund Lin, wrote to a local newspaper (see full letter below) about Li Jiawei’s probable departure for Beijing to get married and pursue her studies.I couldn’t help being amused by Edmund Lin’s last paragraph in which he wondered whether the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) and the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) will pull out all the stops to encourage Li to stay on and contribute to the local sports scene.
Let’s be realistic.
There is NOTHING that the STTA and the SSC can do to keep Li in Singapore simply because she does not have a sense of belonging to the country beyond table tennis. In fact, I wonder whether Li has ever felt a sense of belonging to Singapore in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong. The above sentence is not - I repeat - not a criticism of her.
But it harks back to my previous postings of what the Singapore passport and the pink identity card means to all these foreign sports talents who have been scouted and brought in by some of our national sports associations (in particular, the Singapore Table Tennis Association and the Singapore Badminton Association).
As I wrote previously, the Singapore passport, in such instances, is just the symbol of the exchange of services that takes place between the foreign-born athlete and the National Sporting Association (NSA).
The NSA offers the foreign-born athlete citizenship and the chance to represent a country at the highest levels of competition, opportunities which will not come the athlete’s way if he or she continues to stay in his or her country.
This offer also includes many lovely carrots too, namely all the financial rewards that can be reaped from winning international competitions.
In return, the foreign-born athlete offers the NSA the best years of his/her life as a professional athlete, and immerses himself/herself in a life that revolves only around training, competition and bringing sporting success to the country.
After several years of servitude, the foreign-born athlete decides to retire or stop playing. When that happens, there’s nothing left to attach him or her to the country. Why? Because it’s just the end of a well-paying playing contract.
The foreign-born athlete decides it’s time to go home to his/her country of origin - and Singapore sports fans throw up their arms in despair because the numerous sporting honours that the athlete has won for Singapore suddenly seems hollow and meaningless.
Sense of belonging
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I am given to understand that she never had any form of public or private education here, and spent many years living in STTA quarters. So the chances of her interacting with Singaporeans on a daily basis were minimal at best.
It’s also why even after 15 years, she is still only seen and heard speaking in Mandarin and can barely utter a sentence in English/Singlish.
Also, look at who she has (publicly) fallen in love with in the time she has been here: first it was Ronald Susilo. Now, it’s this Beijing businessman. One can only conclude from here that she is only able to identify with a fellow foreign-born athlete or with a fellow Chinese national.
So, really, could one really expect Li to continue living in Singapore after wrapping up her playing career?
Once again, the people at fault here would have to be the STTA officials and to a certain extent, the SSC.
And let me clarify: when I say STTA officials, I don’t mean Lee Bee Wah, who became the NSA’s new president in July, and her management team.
I mean the people of the previous regime - in this case, the ones responsible for scounting her and bringing her in 15 years ago and who have been looking after her development as a player.
Clearly, there were no efforts by them to help the likes of Li and her fellow foreign sports talents to get to know their new country better. It doesn’t look as though the SSC did much either to ensure that the STTA do a better job of integrating their new citizens with their new country.
So now, the STTA, the SSC and Singapore sports find themselves finally reaping what they have sown. And my, my, what a bitter harvest it is turning out to be, hey?
Silver meal: A sour taste
What’s worse, there’s nothing both organisations can do now by way of damage control. Because the damage was done a long ago.
And as a result, slowly but surely, the sweet euphoria of winning that Olympic silver medal in Beijing is starting to leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouth. The sense of national pride in that achievement is starting to deflate and the win is now increasingly looking like a hollow victory.
Can you imagine what you will be telling your children or even your grandchildren in future if they should ever ask about this historic sporting achievement?
Can you imagine yourself saying: “Yes, we won an Olympic medal after 48 long years. But most of the players who won it for us have all gone back to China. I don’t know what they are doing now.”
Better start practising - because it’s going to happen.
Even heroine Feng may leave
Because now that national women’s table tennis coach Liu Guodong has huffily rejected a new contact with the STTA (see report here), the word is out that his protege, Feng Tianwei, regarded by many Singaporeans as the true heroine of the Singapore team’s capture of the Olympic silver medal, may soon leave to join him wherever he goes (they have a very close relationship, apparently).
Well, like I said, we are now reaping what was callously sowed by the previous regime of the STTA.
Nice feeling, hey?
redsportsComments
singaporesportsfan says:
To be honest, there’s nothing wrong in trying to make a living out of sports. If a country is willing to let you represent it and help you to make a living out of it, then why not.
But I am starting to conclude that it is the national sports association that is at fault when these foreign-born athletes decide to leave Singapore when their playing careers are over.
What has the NSA done to help them to feel a sense of belonging to Singapore? If the NSA has been remiss in this, then really, the real betrayers of Singapore - and Singapore sport - are its officials, not these athletes.
Like I said, we are now paying the price for these NSAs’ relentless pursuit of personal glory.
Now the next question has to be asked: did they really want to achieve something for Singapore, or was it for their own glory and bragging rights ie the chance to swagger around and boast: “Hey, it was me that helped Singapore to win that Olympic medal, you know?”watanabe says:
They are Singaprean, aint they? These foreign has no sense of belonging to Singapore. You call them Singaporeans but what they have in heart is the $$$-dollars that Singapore can provide…
When you buy service byusing $$$ it is very natural that the loyalty is very short and weak.
It is like marrying a woman who only sees the old man’s money, no love just sex in exchange for wealth.jan says:
This is so true.
It’s funny how Singapore fails to ‘retain’ the Chinese talent, which is never an issue for other nations that take in foreign talents from China. I mean, I do not think that the Chinese foreign talents I know in France, Germany or Netherlands or other European nations do ‘identify’ with the country too, yet they stay on.
BUT, I do notice that these Chinese nationals have all picked up the local language because there is no way they can survive speaking in their mother tongue unlike in Singapore.
So this makes me consider how this ‘retaining talent’ issue mght have to do with the complex issue of how Singaporeans also struggle in defining a ‘national identity’, so I think it is even tougher for these foreign talents to identify with the country no matter what is implemented to ‘assimilate’ them.
Even the younger Singaporean generation themselves struggle with identifying with the nation too, hence brain draining overseas.
Moreover, Singapore being the pragmatic society it is, the prospects of retiring as a sports personnel is very bleak, which explains why the local youths are not encouraged to pursue a full-time sporting career.
I trust there may be the prospects of a well-paying coaching contract, however, if it is implicated with the issue of marriage, then it is a different story altogether.
I mean, recent statistics show that, Singapore is not doing that well in ensuring that Singaporean women marry locally, Li’s choice doesn’t come to me as a surprise at all.http://redsports.sg/2008/10/15/li-jiawei-table-tennis/
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I don't blame her lah.
Even Singaporeans are starting to become disillusioned about their own country, citing so many reasons why they should leave.
The policies that have been made and implemented for the past 10 years have moved more and more in favour of the rich and the elite, leaving the poor and middle class majority getting the shorter end of the straw everytime (plus the straw is getting shorter by the year).
40 over years of nation building has now turned into a farcical and meaningless exercise where a huge majority of Singaporeans do not have a sense of belonging anymore.
Singapore is sliding, despite what the people at the top and the media are proclaiming.
This is so very sad.
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Originally posted by charlize:
I don't blame her lah.
Even Singaporeans are starting to become disillusioned about their own country, citing so many reasons why they should leave.
The policies that have been made and implmented for the past 10 years have moved more and more in favour of the rich and the elite, leaving the poor and middle class majority getting the shorter end of the straw everytime (plus the straw is getting shorter by the year).
40 over years of nation building has now turned into a farcical and meaningless exercise where a huge majority of Singaporeans do not have a sense of belonging anymore.
Singapore is sliding, despite what the people at the top and the media are proclaiming.
This is so very sad.
You said, this is very sad and then you put in a smiley...
... sad for silliporeans, but not you personally?...
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altho the sports ministry is deluding themselves in this `buy/pay for success' policy, it is no turning back for them becos the cornerstone on the entire administration of the country is based on this. offer a heap of money and the `talents' will come.
even in the senior civil servants we have now, many i suspected are motivated by high pay. they are just doing their job.
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Originally posted by redDUST:
altho the sports ministry is deluding themselves in this `buy/pay for success' policy, it is no turning back for them becos the cornerstone on the entire administration of the country is based on this. offer a heap of money and the `talents' will come.
even in the senior civil servants we have now, many i suspected are motivated by high pay. they are just doing their job.
which person in e world dosent want $ n fufil their own dreams? -
Li jia wei husband use to be a TV host in Hunan TV station.
he divorce his exwife not too long ago.
heard some of my chinese business associate, he is famous for being a womaniser.
good luck li jia wei.
i hope we dont have to hear from you again about your marriage life and table tennis career.
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Don't blame her.
The SSC never put in enough effort to cultivate her sense of belonging to Singapore.
She sang the PRC anthem when she was standing in the podium donning Singapore colours.
That says it all.
She did it. She can finally go back to China with some achievements.
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eh....
he is business man leh
his exwife is the host of tv station -
Originally posted by FireIce:
eh....
he is business man leh
his exwife is the host of tv station
So, was he a womaniser or was the ex-wife a flirtatious host? -
Originally posted by FireIce:
eh....
he is business man leh
his exwife is the host of tv station
i think the man u're referring to is Li Hou Lin (�厚霖). LHL did get into the rumor that he was going to marry Li Jia Wei, but very soon both of them stood out to clarify that they did not know each other. -
i thought that was a very good article. shows that u can buy medals but u cant buy patriotism.......
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http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1533/topics/332635
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Originally posted by FireIce:
http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1533/topics/332635
that's the very source of the rumor. -
This China woman sure is smart! She prob is the envy of a lot of SG women.
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waste our rice