An Olympic Commentator Said All Chinese Skiers Look The Same, But It's Not As Bad As It Sounds2/15/2018
“Double-twisting double summersault. Not a massive degree of difficulty. Very nicely done, great control. Very Chinese. They all look the same. Very hard to tell who’s who.”
As someone that takes a perverse sense of pleasure in awkwardness being brought to me live and in living color, I must say that the Olympics have been virtual treasure trove of people talking themselves into trouble. It feels like every other day there's either a cultural or semantical misunderstanding that needs to be addressed, and nothing - and I mean nothing - encapsulates that quite like a broadcaster dropping the one line you must steer clear of when talking about Asian athletes. Like, whatever notes Jacqui Cooper was keeping on the event should have had "don't talk about the visual similarities of the Chinese" written in Sharpie and underlined 6-8 times. I'm sure her analysis was only more accurate than it it was innocent, but the fact that she confidently and unapologetically dropped a "they all look the same" is not only hilarious, but it's also so perfectly representative of just how difficult it is to avoid misspeaking amongst the most mixed of company. The only thing that could have sounded worse on initial listen would have been if she made mention of some sort of inherent limitation of eyesight. Poor lady did her due diligence into the training techniques of every country she was covering and all it got her was tentatively labeled a simple-minded racist. If that's not a sign that no broadcaster - from the most ignorant to the most educated - is totally safe from the tangled web of words that is the English language then I don't know what the hell is.
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