China business blogger Bill Dodson talks about the sad feeling that laowai (non-Chinese) were unwanted at the Suzhou torch relay. Dodson’s posts are always insightful, and this post is so telling and so complete that I can’t cut it down to a soundbite. Here is the entire post:

My grandchildren will one day ask me where I was when the Olympic Torch passed through Suzhou, literally just a couple blocks from my apartment. I’ll probably lie, and tell them I was one of the guys running the length of Modern Avenue encouraging the torch bearers onward to the Run’s conclusion at the Science and Technology Museum.

Instead, I was shuffling around the apartment in my slippers, looking forward to drinking a coffee and reading the Sunday edition of the International Herald Tribune (online, of course). From the panoramic view of the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) and Old Suzhou, I could see the traffic paralyzed and enthusiastic flag bearers weaving through the congestion. A bright sunny day was not enough to lure me out to Suzhou’s Olympics party. I had even bought a couple flags the evening before – small nylon affairs, one of the the Chinese national flag, and one the flag of the Olympics. I hadn’t bought them for myself, but instead to give them to my Chinese partner. Indeed, I encouraged her to part in the party that morning.

Recent events surrounding the torch relay around the world as well as portraitures in Chinese news about us devil-worshiping foreigners simply made the event, well, a non-event for me. Plus, I just couldn’t be bothered with a testosterone-fueled group of youths with too much energy and too few opportunities through which to channel their emotions other than to say annoying things about “the laowai”. I’m sure there were other Westerners out there, mixing with the crowds, waving the Chinese flag – or even their own country’s. I wasn’t one of them.

I simply didn’t have the feeling this Olympics was the world’s Olympics. Yours, mine, the Lithuanians’, whomever.

It’s China’s party, they’ve made it clear. And I wasn’t invited.

It’s a sad, honest look at the way recent events have made many people feel. Besides one shop assistant asking if I’m French, I haven’t felt a lot of anti-foreigner sentiment directly. (There are a lot of “Love China” t-shirts, and so forth) But it was pretty hard for average people — Chinese and expats alike — to see the torch in Tiananmen Square as it passed through Beijing.

I have such hopes for the Olympics, obviously I’m a Beijing Olympics FAN!, but I’m worried that China isn’t showing its best side.

Via This Is China! Blog