Olympic emotions all over the field

There is pride, to be sure.

For many local Chinese Americans, the Olympic Games in Beijing serve as a showcase for how much China has progressed in recent years.

But the local Chinese-American population is also very diverse in its backgrounds and attitudes toward mainland China. And that's reflected in a range of feelings about the Beijing Games.

Washington state has the seventh-largest concentration of Chinese and Chinese Americans in the country. The population ranges from those who've been in the U.S. only a few years to those whose families have lived here for generations. And they come from different areas: mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere.

For Sue Tang, 54, the Games are a great way for the world to get to know China and for the Chinese people to learn more about the world.

When she first came to the U.S. in 1983 for graduate studies, few of her friends here knew much about China.

"Although I'm an American citizen now, my roots are there," said Tang, principal of Bel-Red Bilingual Academy in Bellevue. "I'm so happy the Olympics are in China."

John Zheng, 44, a market researcher in Woodinville, grew up in the countryside near Shanghai at a time when it was "quite something" to eat pork or fish for dinner. "You didn't have much choice of protein-rich food."

It's a sign of how much China has developed that now he has Chinese friends in the U.S. who are going back to China to live because there are more opportunities there.

For Donna Ma, 24, a second-generation Chinese American, the feelings are more complicated.

"Being an Asian American, a Chinese American, I do feel a sense of pride that the Olympics are being held in China," said Ma, a fundraiser who lives in Seattle. But "in a way, my feelings are mixed. If there were a team — U.S. or China — who would I cheer for?"

Of greater concern to her, she said, is China's human-rights record. From Western media, she reads about how the government is limiting journalists' Internet access at the Olympics. Then she hears competing claims by the Chinese government that it's made improvements. She tends to believe the Western accounts more.

But still, "there's a split in yourself," Ma said. "The Olympics in China brings that to the surface."

Lucille Tam, 40, a stay-at-home mother in Medina, says she's mainly curious to see how the Chinese government will pull off the Olympics.

"I'm hoping they can handle all the political [aspects]," said Tam, who came to the U.S. from Taiwan when she was 12. "I hope they don't have to resort to any military or police action if there were to be protests."

Edward Chao, 38, of Redmond, goes to China often in his work as an architect.

Chao thinks U.S. media sometimes try to portray China in a negative way on issues such as human rights or pollution.

"A lot of times we try to judge using our standard. To them, they sometimes don't feel it's fair," said Chao, who came to the U.S. from Taiwan 28 years ago.

But Allison Law, 37, a high-tech professional from Snoqualmie, sees things differently.

She came from China 18 years ago and is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government.

Law loves China and says hosting the Olympics is good for the country. But she's concerned that the Chinese government is using the Olympics for its own political agenda, to "put themselves on show, to show their authority, their glory," she said.

She wasn't planning to watch coverage of the Olympics because "it's just another communist propaganda show. I don't feel like I want to be involved in that at all."

But Peter Huang, 40, of Bellevue, says it's important to keep in mind the larger context.

China's modernization effort really began only in the late 1970s, said Huang, who came to the U.S. from mainland China in 1994 and is a senior manager for a financial company. Earlier, the country had been ravaged by war with Japan and later by the Cultural Revolution.

"I think you have to put it in the context of how much progress China has made in the past 40 years," Huang said. "Rather than saying, 'You haven't done this, you haven't done that,' use some positive reinforcement."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.