Japan vs. China

[Asian Cup] Even if you don't follow sports, you've probably heard about the upcoming football match between Japan vs. China, the final of this year's Asian Cup, from "regular" news.

You've probably also heard about anti-Japanese emotion is running high around this game in China. A lot of Chinese fans' behaviors as a result of this have been criticized. The critics, including Mr. Tao Kit, an Apple Daily columnist that I have a lot of respect, say: sports is sports, politics is politics. Do not mingle them. On one hand, I agree boo-ing during Japanese national anthem is a poor display of manner. On the other hand, I think it is naive to expect too much rationality since sports fans are emotional by nature (hey, the emotional vs. rational debate again! Miss Yu: what's your comment?) Mr. Tao used France vs. Germany as an example to illustrate fans from those countries won't bring up wounds of WWII. I think that's a bad analogy though. How about Israel vs. Egypt, Jordan or Syria? I'm pretty sure the issue of the occupation of Gaza and West Bank will be brought up. Can you even imagine what will happen at an Israel vs. Germany game if the German hadn't apologize for holocaust?

In fact, sports and politics had a long history of mingling together. Remember the table tennis diplomacy between US and China? Remember the West boycotting Moscow Olympic?

Enough of politics, back to this game: my heart is certainly with the Chinese team. I hope they could play the best they can (Think Greek!) However, let's not set our expectation too high though. Their current success is most certainly a result of "inflation of ability" due to home field advantage (Think Portuguese!) Look at how many Japanese players are playing in Europe professionally (even though mostly as backups) and you know there is a gap between us and them.

Go China!