Gong Lijiao who in the just ended Olympic Games won a gold medal, became the first Asian to win an Olympic gold medal in women's shot put. In an interview that followed, there was a furore when a journalist described her as a manly woman. Then, I was reminded of an ex-colleague who told me of her overseas trip upon retirement. Her trip to Europe was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Italy was raging with the virus then; but not so with Switzerland; so, I heard there was no refunds from hotels for the latter country. My friend also send a photo of Shanghai's skyline at night when she was taking a cruise on the Huangpu river and another of her smiling and posing gaily with her dashing husband at China's Great Wall in Badaling. I was horrified to hear she was in China but she said it was just before the pandemic. I remember visiting Badaling in 1986 and Peking then was practically filled with bicycles. Almost everyone was cycling back then when there was no green and healthy lifestyle to talk of. Then, people were thinking of how poor the Chinese there were, having no car to drive to work and things like that. Despite never having been to China, someone even discouraged me from visiting Peking then, saying that it was dirty there and there were flies swarming everywhere. Of course, that wasn't really true; there were dirty parts no doubt, dirty toilets, unclean restaurants but certainly no swarming flies. While there in Peking, my friend told of local women driving Mercedes and BMWs; not bicycles but luxurious cars; and I am not surprised.
Just hear what they say about Chinese women...
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