Thoughtful meditation on how nostalgia for Nie transcends the sport itself. The connection between narrowing social ascent and longing for an era where talent mattered is something I've seen in tech - friends dunno if their skills even matter anymore. The personal story about being 'too old' at 10 captures how arbitary these gatekeeping mechanisms become. That irony about Xi's role adds a layer most obituries miss.
Being too old at ten speaks, I think, more to his academy's self-importance and my family's parochialism. If I were to insist on giving it a go (luckily I had no clue whatsoever about what's going on), there were other academies with looser entry requirements available. It was just my parents took too much credence in what someone from his academy had to say.
Another problem, which I write more about on football, is youth sports in China is too binary for kids and parents. In a soviet spirit sport is treated as a mere livelihood. You either get an academic education which lead to you an office job or technical one which leads to a blue-collar one, in which sport is included. The problem has somewhat reversed as it is mainly people who get an academic education worry about unemployment.
Of course back then there were more young children around to start with, which made early-childhood businesses have more bargaining power.
Thoughtful meditation on how nostalgia for Nie transcends the sport itself. The connection between narrowing social ascent and longing for an era where talent mattered is something I've seen in tech - friends dunno if their skills even matter anymore. The personal story about being 'too old' at 10 captures how arbitary these gatekeeping mechanisms become. That irony about Xi's role adds a layer most obituries miss.
Thanks for your detailed comment.
Being too old at ten speaks, I think, more to his academy's self-importance and my family's parochialism. If I were to insist on giving it a go (luckily I had no clue whatsoever about what's going on), there were other academies with looser entry requirements available. It was just my parents took too much credence in what someone from his academy had to say.
Another problem, which I write more about on football, is youth sports in China is too binary for kids and parents. In a soviet spirit sport is treated as a mere livelihood. You either get an academic education which lead to you an office job or technical one which leads to a blue-collar one, in which sport is included. The problem has somewhat reversed as it is mainly people who get an academic education worry about unemployment.
Of course back then there were more young children around to start with, which made early-childhood businesses have more bargaining power.