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Published: Sunday | September 3, 2006

"You are what you eat," proclaimed Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825, and he was probably right. But, a week in Beijing cheering on Jamaican athletes at the World Junior Games convinced me again that you are also what you speak.

Since both my grandfathers were born there, visiting China should be a bit of an ancestral pilgrimage. But, not knowing a word of Mandarin made it difficult to feel any spiritual bond with the place.

You can't but admire China's 3,000-year-old continuous culture. It certainly puts 'ancient' Britain's in the shade. By Chinese standards 1066 was just yesterday. At the time of the Tang Dynasty's artistic high noon circa 750, many Englishmen still wore animal skins.

Yet, how do ordinary Chinese feel about a place like the Forbidden City? This marvel of engineering and art took 20 years and 200,000 men to build and is the world's largest palace complex. But, until the empire ended in 1912, it was for nobles only, with trespassing commoners barred from entering at point of death. So how does an ordinary citizen view it now? With pride, as in 'My ancestors built this marvellous structure!'? Or with anger, as in 'My ancestors died by the tens of thousands so that a privileged elite could live like gods here!'?

Still, history is always relative. The 4,500-year-old Pyramids of Giza make even China seem young. The past is a constantly receding point in time. Keep going back and where do you stop? The invention of writing? The discovery of agriculture? The modern human sojourn out of east Africa that began 50,000 years or so ago?

Weird to onlookers

At any rate, foreign ears mean foreign eyes, and my view of Beijing was very much that of an outsider. It was almost embarrassing at times, since because I look Chinese everyone expected me to speak the language. I guess it must have been a bit weird to onlookers to see an oriental person laughing and chatting with the mostly black Jamaican team, yet unable to communicate with all the Chinese around whose outward appearance I shared.

Once I got lost on my own and kept going around to people saying 'English?'' They looked on me like I was a half-wit or madman, until I found someone who understood 'Taxi? Hotel?' But, that's English- speaking arrogance for you. Multi-linguals rightly scoff at our monoglot ignorance. But why bother to learn other languages when we know someone will be able to understand us no matter where we go?"

It was surprisingly easy to get around Beijing by taxi. There was one on every corner, all neat and cheap and even printing out receipts in English for customers. You felt safe taking them anywhere even at night, overcoming the language barrier by just showing the driver a card of the place you wanted to go to.

In a way, this almost made us Jamaicans angry. How was it we felt so safe and free travelling around in this supposed dictatorship without human rights, while in our homeland of theoretically guaranteed civil liberties we would never dream of taking a taxi at night for fear of being hijacked or killed?

Nor were there any beggars. And it's not as if China is richer or more equal than Jamaica. According to 2005 IMF statistics Jamaica's per capita GDP is $3,585 and China's is $1,703. While Jamaica's Gini coefficient - the most accepted measure of income inequality with lower being better - is 37.9 versus 43.4 for China.

Massage parlours

We only travelled between hotels and the stadium, which is probably the Beijing equivalent of New Kingston, and never saw obvious poverty. But, the number of openly displayed massage parlours obviously selling sex hinted at the disparities official statistics suggest.

Language and size apart, perhaps the biggest difference between Beijing and Kingston was the general lack of human noise - no constant loud chatter and belly laughter and blaring radios. Quiet order has its place. But it's difficult to imagine living there long without missing Jamaica's exuberance.

Still, it's nice being able to walk wherever you want in hassle-free peace and safety. Seeing a poorer and less equitable China with less crime makes me wonder. Maybe Jamaica needs to take a more pragmatic approach to the sometimes necessary trade-offs between personal safety and individual rights?

Incidentally, not a single Chinese I met had a clue where or what Jamaica was. The most I could say was 'Near America'. Nor did Bob Marley ring a bell anywhere. In fact, as Jamaican ambassador Wayne McCook confirmed, Merlene Ottey is probably the best known yardie in this part of the world.

Flag bearer

However, at the World Junior Games itself, Jamaica was held in high esteem by all, and seemed almost a flag bearer for the Third World. The African and Commonwealth countries especially looked up to us. When you consider that Africa has over 900 million people as opposed to Jamaica's 2.5 million, this is astonishing.

Yet, the language barrier was apparent here too. It was English- speaking Barbadians, Bahamians, Trinidadians, Canadians and British who Jamaicans mingled with. Whatever the outward resemblances, linguistic differences made any meaningful contact with Kenyans, Ethiopians, Nigerians or South Africans impossible.

I'm told the Jamaican team is one of, if not the most popular team at such games. They flex well with everyone and have none of the USA's reputation for arrogance. Everyone seemed to want pictures with our athletes and the Jamaican pin was one of the most sought after. It all made you truly proud to come from yard.

Jamaica more than lived up to its world power reputation on track, ending with 2 gold, a silver and 5 bronze to finish 5th in the medal count and points table. Not too shabby a performance from a country of 2.5 million people competing against the rest of the 6.5 billion-strong world. To put things in perspective, only 44 of the 182 countries competing won even one medal. No doubt a big factor in this success was the JAAA's decision to send the team early to China so they could acclimatise gradually to the 13-hour time difference.

One lasting memory was the Kenyan team, who topped the medal list, singing and clapping in rhythm on the bus back to their hotel. A nearby English and Swahili speaking Ethiopian coach told me they were giving thanks and praise to God and Jesus for their successes. Their pure joy was really quite touching. This refreshing innocence was no doubt due to their youth and also perhaps the fact that they were not competing for money. The World Junior Games may well be the last refuge of the Olympian ideal of competition for its own sake.

Another mental snapshot was Romaldo Rose and Yohan Blake after their relay team's sensational victory. I expected them to be whooping it up. But after drug testing, they came back quietly to talk with their coaches, expressing a touch of disappointment at not breaking the World Junior record. Early success often goes to young men's heads and gives them a dangerous superiority complex. But, these two youths seem very level-headed indeed.

Indeed, Blake pensively commented to technical director Glen Mills that he had not run his best race. Such frank self-analysis after a historic achievement is a rare thing, much less coming from a 16-year-old. That kind of attitude should take this young man very far indeed.