Barack Obama: America's Multicultural President & His Asian Connections

Barack Obama has been hailed as America's first black president, and his candidacy and election have led some commentators to even proclaim America as a post-racial society, in which race no longer matters. But perhaps he should be better identified as America's most multicultural president, if not the first multicultural president, given his own living experiences in communities ranging from Honolulu to Jakarta to Chicago, and the extensive African and Asian connections in his immediate and extended families. As Time observes in detailing his family tree, "With roots in Kansas, Kenya and beyond, [Barack Obama] is a one-man melting pot."

Barack Obama's African Family, With Stepmother Kezia in Front of Him

The African and Midwestern roots of Obama's life are well known: his father Barack Obama Sr., a bright Kenyan villager who was one of the first Africans to attend the University of Hawaii and later pursued graduate studies in economics at Harvard; his extended family in Kenya through his father, including, among others, his stepmother Kezia who was Senior's first wife; his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who married and divorced two men from foreign cultures, "was a teen mother who later got a Ph.D. in anthropology," and helped build the microfinance program in Indonesia from 1988 to 1992; Ann's parents, Madelyn Payne and Stanley Dunham, who raised Obama in his mother's absence; Obama's community roots and work as community organizer, civil rights lawyer, law professor and state senator in Illinois; his immediate family composed of wife Michelle, and daughters Malia Ann and Natasha; and his brother-in-law Craig Robinson, the basketball head coach of the Oregon State Beavers.

Much less in the public consciousness are Obama's connections to Asia. Aside from his stepfather Lolo Soetoro and his half-sister Maya Soetoro who are from Indonesia, he has a half-brother-in-law Konrad Ng who is a Malaysian Canadian of Chinese ancestry, and an African half-brother Mark Ndesandjo, who is a businessman in Shenzhen, China.

Barack Obama, right, with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro, mother Ann Dunham, and half-sister Maya Soetoro

After Ann divorced Barack Obama Sr., who had returned to Kenya, she fell in love with another fellow student at the University of Hawaii, Lolo Soetoro. They married and moved to Lolo's native country Indonesia, where Barack Obama Jr. would live from 1967 to 1971, when he returned to Hawaii to be under the care of his grandparents and to attend Punahou School.

Obama recalls his stepfather as one who "possessed the good manners and easy grace of his people." When Obama returned home one day with "an egg-sized lump" after being hit by a rock in a fight, Lolo Soetoro taught him how to box.

[Then] the stepfather mused about the nature of things, and about what it took to survive in a difficult and dangerous world: "Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They're just like countries in that way. The strong man takes the weak man's land. He makes the weak man work in his fields. If the weak man's woman is pretty, the strong man will take her ... Which would you rather be?"

Obama told Newsweek's Jon Meacham: "I remember that very vividly, and my stepfather was a good man who gave me some things that were very helpful. One of the things that he gave me was a pretty hardheaded assessment of how the world works."

Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro credits Obama with driving her to excel: "He was always pushing me to sort of, at that point, exceed my own lazy inclinations. My mother and father divorced when I was 9, so I think he started giving me a great deal of guidance as a big brother. And he helped me find my voice and my passion and helped to work to offer a lot of guidance."


Maya met her future husband, Konrad Ng, while both were pursuing Ph.D. degrees at the University of Hawaii. Konrad's parents were originally from Sabah, Malaysia, who moved to Canada where Konrad was born in 1974. Konrad and Maya married in 2003, and have a four year old daughter Suhalia. Today Maya Soetoro-Ng, who has a Ph.D. in education from the University of Hawaii, teaches U.S. History, global studies and peace studies at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls. Konrad Ng, holder of a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Hawaii, is an assistant professor in the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaii, where he teaches courses in the Critical Studies track.

Konrad Ng's Message in Support of Barack Obama

A Times of London story, pejoratively entitled "Barack Obama’s brother pushes Chinese imports on US," is probably the first media report on Mark Ndesandjo, the son of Barack Obama, Sr. and his third wife Ruth Nidesand, an American woman who now "runs the up-market Maduri kindergarten in Nairobi." Journalist Michael Sheridan points out that Obama and Ndesandjo have contrasting views towards their African heritage. Moreover, "while Obama chose to live in the glare of publicity, his half-brother submerged himself in the crowds of the most cosmopolitan city in China." (Thomas Crampton, a former correspondent with International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, has compiled the most extensive biographical information on Mark Ndesandjo.)

Mark Ndesandjo and His Business Partner and Close Friend Sui Zhengjun

Like Obama, Ndesandjo received an elite education in the United States, graduating from Brown University, and then earning an M.S. in physics from Stanford and an M.B.A. from Emory University. The half brothers met for the first time when Obama went to Kenya in 1988. While Obama celebrated his "rediscovery of his African inheritance," Ndesandjo dismissed Kenya as “just another poor African country” to which he felt little attachment, and also the notion of racial identity: “life’s hard enough without all that excess baggage.”

Obama and Ndesandjo's stands towards China are not consistent either. The financial meltdown has dominated the attention of the American public and the presidential candidates to the degree that the topic of U.S.-China relations, arguably the single most important issue in American foreign policy, has hardly surfaced at the presidential debates. However, during the campaign Obama has repeatedly charged China with trade measures that were detrimental to American workers: dumping goods; not opening their own markets; theft of intellectual property; undervalued currency. While stating his commitment to free trade, he also called for confronting China on its alleged unfair trade practices. Ndesandjo, on the other hand, has a company that provides services to Chinese companies to help them to export to the United States.

USC US-China Institute, "Election '08 and the Challenge of China," Part 8: Obama and China

After working at Lucent Technologies and Nortel, Ndesandjo went to Shenzhen in 2002 to teach English as a volunteer in a U.S.-China cultural exchange program, and fell in love with China so much that he settled and established roots in Shenzhen. He has developed fluency in Mandarin Chinese, and learned to write Chinese characters in cursive script with a brush. A self-taught pianist, Ndesandjo has taught orphan children how to play the piano at Shenzhen Social Welfare Center since 2002. He has recently married a Chinese woman from Henan province. With his friend and business partner Sui Zhengjun (隋政军), Ndesandjo founded a eatery chain called Cabin BBQ, with its first outlet in Shenzhen in 2003 and seven branches today. Their consulting firm, Worldnexus (天下), "has provided corporate communications and website design to Chinese firms seeking customers in English-speaking markets."

Mark Ndesandjo Teaching Orphans How to Play the Piano

Ndesandjo became the subject of considerable attention from the media towards the end of July after his fraternal connections to Obama became known, to the degree that he disappeared from public view，in order to avoid any negative impact on Obama's campaign. He was also approached by the wine producers of Shenyang Dragon Medical Co. Ltd., Liaoning Province to be their product spokesman, but he declined.

Chinese TV News Program on Mark Ndesandjo (in Cantonese), Showing Him Teaching Piano at an Orphanage and Doing Chinese Calligraphy

Pete Rouse, White House Senior Adviser-Designate

In addition to the Asian connections in Obama's family members, those in his staff and cabinet nominations may also be noted. At least two of his senior advisers have Asian American roots. Pete Rouse, Obama's Senate Chief of Staff, Co-chairman of the transition team and Senior Adviser-Designate in the White House, who "helped Obama find the delicate balance between being a rank-and-file senator and high-profile national figure," has a white father and a Japanese mother. Chris Lu (盧沛寧), Legislative Director of Obama’s Senate Office, Executive Director of his transition team and Cabinet Secretary-Designate of his White House staff, is a Chinese American classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, and responsible for his legislative work in congress.

Chris Lu, Cabinet Secretary-Designate of Obama's White House Staff

Eric Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs-Designate

Two distinguished Asian Americans have been nominated by Barack Obama for his cabinet. Eric Shinseki, nominee as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, was a four-star general serving as Army Chief of Staff who in February of 2003 recommended that the U.S. should deploy several hundred thousand troops "to ensure that it could maintain order and genuinely control Iraq's sizable territory and potentially fractious society after it ousted Saddam" Hussein, and was publicly rebuked by Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. As James Fallows, journalist for The Atlantic Monthly points out, Shinseki is "the first Asian-American in a military-related cabinet position, not to mention a Japanese-American honored for lifelong military service on Pearl Harbor Day," and also "the man who was right, when Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al were so catastrophically wrong." The fact that "a Japanese-American patriot from Hawaii should receive this news [of his nomination] on December 7" was "karmic justice."

Fallows describes the nomination of Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy as "An even more impressive pick than Shinseki." According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, of which the Chinese American physicist is the Director, Chu is "is a Nobel laureate physicist and a Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. He is also one of the nation’s foremost and outspoken advocates for scientific solutions to the twin problems of global warming and the need for carbon-neutral renewable sources of energy." Fallows observes that Chu is a "scientific explainer-in-chief" who is "Modest, funny, and willing to explain the work of of a scientist in terms and images most people can understand." In Fallows' judgment, "policy politics," not "identity politics" or political loyalty or ideological purity, was the most important reason for the selection of both Shinseki and Chu. The fact that Barack Obama makes professional expertise the most important criterion for his personnel decisions, and that he comes from by far the most multicultural background of any president in U.S. history, is an encouraging harbinger for the future of our increasingly multicultural nation in an increasingly multipolar world.

"Conversations with History: Steven Chu, A Scientist's Random Walk," U.C. Berkeley, Feb. 13, 2004

Chinese Girl the Youngest Woman to Attain the Title of Chess Grandmaster Ever

14-year old Chinese Hou Yifan (侯逸凡) has achieved another milestone in her brief but spectacular career in chess competitions this fall: the title of International Grandmaster with an Elo rating of 2578. At the age of 14 years and 6 months, she became the youngest woman to achieve the highest rank in chess, and is currently the youngest grandmaster of either sex.

Back in 1991, Hungarian sisters Zsuzsanna (Susan) Polgár and Judit Polgár became the third and fourth women to achieve the title of International Grandmaster, and the first women to do so by achieving it the regular way --- three grandmaster (GM) norms and an Elo rating over 2500. The previous two holders, Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, who competed in chess in women-only events at a time when men and women played in segregated tournaments and matches, had been awarded the GM title for the World Chess Federation (FIDE) under special circumstances. To this date FIDE maintains separate ratings and separate world championship cycles for women, who can earn norms for the Woman FIDE Master (WFM), Woman International Master (WIM), and Woman Grandmaster (WGM). However, the Polgár sisters, Susan, Sofia, and Judit broke the sexual barrier by competing in previously men-only events. Today, women routinely compete in open events and some have earned FIDE Master (FM), International Master (IM) and Grandmaster (GM) titles, which have more demanding norms than the women-only titles.


Judit Polgár gained her GM title at the age of 15 years and 4 months, thereby breaking the record for the youngest grandmaster, held previously by American Bobby Fischer, who had achieved the title at 15 years and 6 months back in 1958. Fischer subsequently defeated Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in 1972, thereby breaking the monopoly of the Soviets on the world chess championship, and becoming a Cold War hero and icon.

In 2002, Humpy Koneru of India became the youngest girl to gain the grandmaster title, beating Judit Polgár's record by 3 months. Now Koneru's own record has been broken by Hou Yifan by 7 months. However, the youngest person of either sex to attain the grandmaster title remains Sergey Karjakin of the Ukraine, who did so in 2002 at 12 years and 7 months.

Born Feb. 27, 1994 at Xinghua (兴化) in Jiangsu (江苏) Province, Hou Yifan demonstrated a precocious gift for chess at a very age[ch]. At the age of 6 she was sent to the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy (齐鲁晚报棋院). Hou's progress was rapid. She became a national master at age 8, national grandmaster at age 9, the youngest representative of a Chinese national team at age 10, and the world's youngest Woman Grandmaster at age 13. Among her competitive successes are: 1st place in the girl's under-10 section of the 2003 World Youth Championship; reached the final 16 in the 2006 Women's World Chess Championship at age 12; silver medal for fourth (reserve) board performance at the 2006 Chess Olympiad; youngest player to win the Chinese Women's Chess Championship at age 13 in 2007.

Hou Yifan in Kabardin Costume at Nalchik

Having already won her second China's women chess championship and attained two of the three required GM norms earlier in 2008, Hou Yifan competed in the Women's World Chess Championship, held at Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic in Russia, from August 28 to September 18. She reached the finals against Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who has been dubbed as "the Anna Kournikova of chess," as she "has traded on her looks, modeling for fashion magazines like the European editions of Vogue and Marie Claire, and selling bikini-clad images of herself through her Web site."

Kosteniuk put the comparison with Kournikova to rest by winning her match with Hou 2 1/2 to 1 1/2, thereby becoming the 14th women's world champion. Despite this near miss at becoming world champion, Hou Yifan did achieve the third and final GM norm during the championship. "Kosteniuk said she was afraid of how strong Hou would become in a few years, and predicted that Hou would soon dominate women’s competitions."

Hou Yifan's success, however, is not a fluke. Her innate talent has been nurtured by a system that has made China into a formidable chess power in only a couple of decades, particularly in women's competitions. At the Shandong Evening News Chess Academy, she had trained under IM Tong Yuanming (童渊铭), who was national champion in 1993 and a renowned chess coach whose students have won scores of championships [ch] in world and national competitions. After Hou won a gold medal at the 2003 World Youth Championship, Tong introduced her to train with GM Ye Jiangchuan (叶江川), the chief coach of the Chinese national men's and women's teams since 2000.

Although China's number of titled players (85) is very small compared with several other countries (1844 for Russia, 1068 for Germany, 500 for the United States, 386 for Ukraine, and 371 for Hungary), its competitive strength is very high as measured by the average rating of the top 10 players. China's men ranked third in the world with an average rating of 2651 as compared to Russia's 2719 and Ukraine's 2690. China's women are top-ranked with an average rating of 2479 as compared with Russia's 2457 and Ukraine's 2428. It appears that China's chess system under the Chinese Chess Association (中国国际象棋协会) [ch] focuses on training a small number of internationally highly competitive players who can win medals and championships abroad rather than promoting the popularity of the game among the masses. If that is a correct assessment, then the situation for chess is similar to that for sports. "China's sports system is an elite programme that pools the best youngsters and trains them in athletic academies at various levels." As Jin Can, a sports researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, points out, "This `gold medal strategy' means every official, from the top level to the grass roots, focuses on producing only gold-medal-winning athletes. Only the sports directors who can train gold-winning athletes are good directors ... As a result, the officials care only about achieving good results. They don't care about promoting sport to the public ... There is a consensus among academics that the new strategy should promote mass participation in sports activities."

There is no denial however, that China has become a great chess power, particularly in women's competitions. In 1991, Xie Jun (谢军) broke the monopoly held by players from the former Soviet Union in the women's world championships since 1950 by defeating Georgia's Maya Chiburdanidze, who had held the title since 1978, in a title match. After losing the title to Susan Polgar of Hungary in 1996, Xie regained the title in 1999 and held it till 2001. Two other Chinese women have also become world champions: Zhu Chen (诸宸), who won the title in 2001 by defeating Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia (the current world champion) but did not defend her title in 2004 because of pregnancy; Xu Yuhua (许昱华), who won the title in 2006 with a victory in the finals over Russian IM Alisa Galliamova.

The Chinese women's team has been highly successful in the biennial Chess Olympiads, winning a medal in all competitions between 1990 and 2006: 4 golds, 1 silver, and 4 bronzes. The men's team has been less successful, winning a medal only in 2006 with a second place finish. China's performance at the 2008 Chess Olympiad in Dresden, however, was disappointing. Both the men's and women's teams were seeded no. 3, but finished no. 7 in the open section and no. 8 in the women's section respectively. Armenia won the open section, while Georgia broke the Chinese women's string of medals in the Olympiads and won the gold medal by defeating China 2 1/2 to 1 1/2 in the 10th round and Serbia 3 to 1 in the 11th round.

Xie Jun, World Champion, 1991-1996, 1999-2001

Zhu Chen, World Champion, 2001-2004

Xu Yuhua, World Champion, 2006-2008

Three-Peat for China: Chinese Dominance at the Olympics, the Paralympics, and the World Mind Sports Games

Tang Dynasty Ladies, Opening Ceremony, Aug. 8, 2008

China's splendid performances and spectacular shows along with controversies about alleged underaged gymnasts and a lip-synching young singer at the Beijing Olympics have attracted worldwide attention. Although the United States won the most medals (36 gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze for a total of 110), the Chinese team had the most gold medals (51) to go along with 21 silver medals and 28 bronze medals.

Yang Wei (杨威), Gold Medalist in Men's All Around Gymnastics

Some Western commentators see the sports rivalry between China and the U.S. as "a competition between systems, between state-sponsored athletes and individualists, East and West, democracy and the single-party state." Michael Allen Gillespie of Duke University points out that in fact Americans brought home more gold medals than Chinese citizens. This is because in official counts a team medal is counted the same as an individual medal, whereas in the actual awarding of the medals, all 12 members of the U.S. basketball team, for example, get one gold medal each, while the Chinese winner of the men's table tennis singles gets just one medal. Because Americans do better in team sports such as basketball than the Chinese, the Americans actually hauled in more medals: by Gillespie's count, "Americans took home 118 gold medals, 99 silver medals and 76 bronze medals, while the Chinese took home 76 gold, 35 silver and 38 bronze medals. That is 293 total medals for the USA to 149 for China." For Gillespie America's superiority in team sports over China is no accident:

Voluntary cooperation has always been a hallmark of the American system, suffusing the lives of children and adults alike, an outstanding factor in our playrooms and in our boardrooms.

China, by contrast, has always put much less emphasis on voluntary cooperation than on hierarchical control and the obligation of those below to take directions from those above. Such discipline and obedience can produce individuals who become superb at repeating individual tasks, as in the diving competitions where the Chinese were outstanding, but it cannot produce the creativity and voluntary cooperation necessary to the successful operation of a team.

Dancers at Closing Ceremony, Aug. 24, 2008

Interestingly, many Chinese were not convinced that China's record number of Olympic medals mean that China is a great sports power. In an online poll on the portal 163.com on the question "Is China a great power in sports?", 4730 respondents said yes while 17,030 chose no. The naysayers pointed out that China is still weak in the most popular sports in the world, including basketball, soccer, and track and field. Moreover, many of the sports that China won gold medals are totally irrelevant to the daily lives of the people: for example, few people in China actually lift weights or row boats. Most importantly, some of the naysayers argued that "the number of gold medals implies a great investment on professional athletes training, but don’t necessarily mean adequate support for populace health and sports, namely enough stadiums, spaces, infrastructures built for common people."

Still, the shortcomings of the Chinese sports system notwithstanding, most people would argue that the Beijing Olympics was a great success for the host country and set a very high bar for future Olympics host cities beginning with London.

The Paralympics, which was held at Beijing following the Olympics from September 6 to 17, also commanded considerable global attention. The Paralympics had its origins as a program to rehabilitate British war veterans with spinal injuries, founded by neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttman in 1948. What began as sports competitions among patients of several hospitals coinciding with the London Olympics of 1948 evolved into the modern Parallel Olympics or Paralympics over time. The first Paralympics took place in Rome which was hosting the Olympics in 1960: Sir Ludwig Guttman brought 400 athletes in wheelchairs to compete there. The movement took a giant leap forward when South Korea, hosts of the Olympic Games in 1988, decided to hold a truly parallel Paralympics "staged on the same scale and lines as the Olympics." At the 2004 Athens Paralympics, a record 134 nations competed. China topped the tables for the first time, winning 63 gold medals, 46 silver medals and 32 bronze medals for a total of 141 medals.

Fireworks at the Opening Ceremony, Sept. 6,2008

The number of countries participating at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics was the largest ever: 12 more than at the Athens Paralympics. At the opening ceremony, "6,000 performers and 4,000 disabled athletes from 148 countries took part in [a three-hour spectacular show] in front of 91,000 ecstatic spectators."

Qi Shun (祁顺) of China Wins the Marathon T12 Race

China's performances at the Paralympics were even more successful than in the Olympics. 322 Chinese athletes competed in all 20 sports. China won a total of 211 medals (89 gold, 70 silver, 52 bronze), more than double the total medals won by runner-up Great Britain (102), with the United States just behind with 99 medals.

Thousand-handed Guanyin, Closing Ceremony, Paralympic Games, Sept. 17, 2008

Receiving little to no attention in the Western media is the 1st World Mind Sports Games (第一届世界智力运动会), also held in Beijing, from October 3 to October 18 of 2008. The International Mind Sports Association (IMSA), founded in 2005, includes 4 international federations among its members: World Chess Federation (FIDE), World Bridge Federation (WBF), World Draughts Federation (FMJD) and International Go Federation (IGF). According to IMSA's Web site, "The goal of IMSA was to gather different mind sports federations to pursue common aims and interests, to organize the World Mind Sport Games under the aegis of the General Association of International Sport Federations and further realize the inclusion of mind sports in the Olympic movement. In particular, the organization's long-term plans include running World Mind Sports Games by analogy with Olympics, which will be held in Olympic host cities shortly after Winter or Summer Games." The Beijing World Mind Sports Games is thus conceived as the inaugural event in the series.

According to World Bridge Federation President José Damiani, who is one of the signatories of the the founding declaration of IMSA, "We clearly consider ourselves a sport ... Our events are no different from physical sports. They are all sports." While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognizes the international bridge and chess federations, none of the mind sports are accepted as Olympic events. Nonetheless, IMSA hopes that eventually IOC can be persuaded to do so. Georgios Makropoulos, vice president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and another signatory of the founding declaration of IMSA, stated: "We hope that this event in Beijing will be so important and so big that the IOC will understand that they need us."

In fact, since the 1990s FIDE has been lobbying to gain the approval of chess as an Olympic event. Towards that goal drug tests were introduced in international chess tournaments in 2001, even though the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies chess as a "low risk sport," and it is highly unlikely that chess players can gain an edge by doping. The reason is that if chess were to become an Olympic event, it must submit to the anti-doping rules of the IOC. For the same reason the World Bridge Federation has also signed up to the World Anti-Doping Code, and at the 1st World Mind Sports Games contestants were subject to doping checks.

The 1st World Mind Sports Games featured five mind sports competitions: Bridge, Chess, Go, Draughts, and Xiangqi (Chinese Chess). 143 countries/regions and 2,763 competitors participated [ch]. The official logo "is a truelove knot which represents affinity, friendship, solidarity, communication, good luck as well as the traditional elements of China," with each sport represented by a color.

According to Xiao Min (晓敏), Assistant to the Head of the General Administration of Sport of China (国家体育总局), the World Mind Sports Games would fully actualize the theme of "harmonious development" (和谐发展) [ch] -- the harmonious development of mass sports and competitive sports, of physical sports and mind sports, and of Olympic events and non-Olympic events.

Peformance at the World Mind Sports Games' Opening Ceremony

The 1st World Mind Sports Games was again a great success for the Chinese team in total medal count, marking the third successive world sporting event that China has both hosted and finished on top. China ranked first with 12 gold medals, 8 silver medals and 6 bronze medals. Runner-up Russia had 4 gold medals, 1 silver medal and 3 bronze medals. South Korea and Ukraine, which tied for third place, each won 2 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 3 bronze medals. The United States ranked no. 11, with just 1 gold medal and 1 bronze medal.

Go Player Gu Li (古力) Taking Oath as Representative of All Competitors at the Opening Ceremony, Oct. 3, 2008

The Chinese may have an advantage in Xiangqi, the Chinese version of chess, and indeed they won five gold medals and three silver medals in that category (Vietnam won one silver medal and two bronze medals, while Hong Kong took two bronze medals, and Australia was runner-up in the women's team competition). However, even if one discounts those medals in Xiangqi, the Chinese team is still comfortably ahead of second-ranked Russia in total medal count.

Zhao Ruquan (赵汝权) of Hong Kong, Bronze Medalist in the Men's Rapid Xiangqi Event, Playing against Ji Zhongqi (纪中启) of the U.S.

Where the Chinese fell flat on is draughts, the only category that they failed to win any medals. This category was dominated by competitors from countries that had been part of the Soviet Union who took 12 of 15 medals, with Russia winning two golds, one silver and one bronze. The United States' only gold medal at the World Mind Sports Games was won by Moscow-born Alex Moiseyev in Checkers (Mixed).

Bridge and chess are probably the two mind sports that have the broadest geographical distribution of players and competitors, and this is reflected in the diverse origins of medal winners in both categories. Bridge was the most successful category for Norway, accounting for five medals out of a total tally of six that Norwegians won at the 1st World Mind Sports Games, and also for Turkey, which won two gold medals, the only medals the Turks won at the Games. As for host China, the Chinese won one silver and two bronze medals in bridge.

Bu Xiangzhi of China, Gold Medalist in the Men's Individual Rapid Chess Event

Countries that had been part of the Soviet Union not unexpectedly did well in chess events, but their performances were nowhere as dominating as in draughts. Ukraine won 1 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze medals, which accounted for all but 2 of its overall medals. Russia managed 2 golds and 1 bronze. China was even more successful than Ukraine, winning 4 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes. Chinese grandmaster Bu Xiangzhi (卜祥志) was the gold medalist in the men's individual rapid event. Teen phenom Hou Yifan (侯逸凡), who is the world's youngest grandmaster of chess at age 14 and whom I have profiled on this blog, won the bronze medal in the women's individual blitz. That event was won by Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk, who defeated Hou at the finals match of the Women's World Chess Championship earlier this year. Hou Yifan also won the gold medal in the mixed pairs rapid event (with Ni Hua (倪华) as her partner). In addition, as team member she won the silver medal in the women's teams blitz event, and the gold medal in the women's teams rapid event.

Hou Yifan of China, Winner of Four Medals in Women's Chess Events

Alexandra Kosteniuk of Russia, Winner of the Women's Individual Blitz Chess Event

From the perspective of the East Asian countries, Go (weiqi 围棋 in Chinese) is probably the most prestigious of the mind sports. Go is a board game that is deceptively simple in terms of its rules, and yet profound in its strategic possibilities. Not surprisingly, all the medals were won by East Asian competitors. Although the host team garnered a respectable 5 out of 18 total medals (3 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze), it was overshadowed by the South Korean team that won 2 golds,4 silvers and 3 bronzes (which accounted for all the medals won by South Korea at this event). Japan won bronze medals in both men's team and women's team events. Taiwan (which again has to compete under the name of Chinese Taipei at the insistence of the People's Republic of China) won its only medal: a silver in the pair Go event.

China's Gold-Medal Winning Women's Go Team against Great Britain

The Taiwan team was composed of Chou Chun-Hsun (周俊勳) [ch] and Hsieh Yi-Min (謝依旻) [ch]. 28-year old Chou Chun-Hsun, the finest professional Go player in Taiwan, was the winner of the LG Cup in 2007. Born in 1989, Hsieh Yi-Min was a Go prodigy who moved to Japan to enter a Go Academy at age 12 and became the youngest female to attain a professional rank (dan 段) at age 14 in Japan. She has already won 3 of the top 4 women's Go competitions in Japan by age 19. In the finals of the pair Go event, however, this formidable team was defeated by the China team of Huang Yizhong (黄奕中) and Fan Weijing (范蔚菁). Although both are first-class players, neither have achieved the very top ranks in Go. However, they have a personal chemistry as a team [ch], able to reach tacit agreement and tolerate the mistakes of the other.

Hsieh Yi-Min & Chou Chun-Hsun Accepting Their Silver Medals in the Pair Go Event, with the Chinese Taipei Flag Behind Them

But will the Beijing World Mind Sports Games be the first of a series that will follow the Summer or Winter Olympics and the Paralympics in the same host city? The question remains open. At the press conference concluding the event on October 18, 2008 [ch], World Bridge Federation President José Damiani praised the preparation and the implementation of the Games by the Chinese host and the achievements of the Games. He pointed out that even though mind sports cannot attract as big an audience as the Olympics or the World Cup Soccer, the five mind sports featured at the 1st World Mind Sports Games are sports with the greatest number of direct participants. In his words, "There are approximately one billion people who directly participate in these five sports. This is the biggest difference for the World Mind Sports Games; it has the highest rate of participation." However, Damiani also revealed that the location of the next World Mind Sports Games has not been determined, and that several candidate host cities as alternatives to London has been lined up. "We hope that we can come to an agreement with IOC, and that the Mind Sports Games can be linked to the Olympics like the Paralympics. But at this point we have still not received a response from IOC."

Businesswoman Zhang Huamei: China's First Licensed Private Entrepreneur in the Reform Era

December of 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the era of economic reform in China. A pioneer is businesswoman Zhang Huamei (章华妹), who received her getihu license (个体工商户营业执照) from the Institute of Industry and Commerce in the city of Wenzhou (温州) in Zhejiang Province on December 21, 1980, and thus became the nation's first licensed private entrepreneur (个体户). Her story has been celebrated in the People's Daily, Sina.com, Zhejiang Commercial Network (浙商网), and other Chinese language news media.

Zhang Huamei holding her getihu license

Zhang is typical of the background of many of China's first small private businessmen in the first stages of economic reform, who took up commerce out of economic necessity because the government could not or would not find work for them. Many were youth awaiting employment (待业青年); others were newly released from prison.

As the youngest of seven siblings, Zhang Huamei had no hope of landing a regular position in a work unit (单位) -- a government or collective enterprise or institution, since each household was entitled to job placement for only one son or daughter by the state. With the encouragement of her parents, Zhang set up shop in a small room in her house adjacent to the street in the fall of 1979.

At that time people who held regular jobs in work units had social status and were entitled to social benefits such as low-cost housing and medical care. To go into business was considered to be shameful, and Zhang was shunned by her friends and schoolmates.

Business was not easy: in addition to social prejudice there was a lot of competition -- on Zhang's street more than ten families had also set up shop, following her example. Moreover, the Office to Strike at Speculators (打击投机倒把办公室) could accuse petty traders of engaging in speculation (投机倒把) and confiscate their goods. Nevertheless, by selling knitting needles, elastic bands, souvenir badges, toy watches and the like, Zhang Huamei was able to earn over 100 yuan each month, as compared to the typical monthly wages of 20 yuan for an employee of a state-run work unit.

As economic reform got underway, the Office to Strike at Speculators in Wenzhou was reorganized as the Institute of Industry and Commerce (工商所), charged with promoting commodity production and exchange. The Institute announced at the end of 1979 that licenses to legalize commercial activities would be issued. Zhang Huamei immediately applied. She finally received her license a year later, making her the first legally licensed businessman in China.

After Zhang married her neighbor Yu Xinguo (余新国) in 1982, she gave birth to a son and closed shop. Zhang resumed business in 1985, selling beads, the hot commodity of the period. She was so successful that in the following year, she entered the ranks of the 10,000-yuan household (万元户), the standard for the newly rich at that time.

Facing increasing competition as more and more Wenzhou natives entered the bead trade, Zhang Huamei switched to shoes in 1990. Unfortunately, due to her lack of knowledge about the shoe trade, over the next few years she lost her savings and even accumulated debts of tens of thousands of yuan.

After she sold off her remaining stock of shoes in Tianjian, Zhang Huamei returned to her old trade of selling garment accessories, and once again achieved success in business. Her Huamei Garment Accessories Ltd. (华妹服装辅料有限公司) today sells several millions of yuan of buttons, zippers and other garment accessories each year.

Zhang Huamei being interviewed by journalists

Today, as a single shop proprietor with five employees, Zhang Huamei is an ordinary businessman in a nation of many millionaires and billionaires. Yet, as Song Shengfeng (宋乘风), the official who issued her a getihu license back in 1980 pointed out, that license announced the end of an era and the beginning of a new one [ch]. The rise and fall and rise of Zhang Huamei as a businessman epitomize the era of economic reform [ch]. As Zhang reminiscences, just over one hundred individual proprietors in Wenzhou got licenses at about the same time as she did, and the process took a year. The number of individual proprietors in the nation surpassed 1 million at the end of 1981 and 10 million at the end of 1987. Many of those who jumped into the sea of commerce (下海经商) in that first wave became so successful that today they run companies and even conglomerates.

The growth of individual proprietorships reached a peak at the end of the 1990s, numbering 31.6 million in 1999. As a result of cutthroat competition and some enterprises neglecting product quality, the number declined to 25 million at the end of 2006, leading some to predict the demise of individual proprietorships. However, the number rose back up to 27.4 million units by the end of 2007. As of November 2008, there are 285,321 units in Wenzhou. The process to apply for a license at the Industry and Business Bureau (工商局) can be completed in a single day.

The global financial crisis has affected the Wenzhou economy adversely. Yet, entrepreneurs such as Zhang Huamei depend on the domestic market, and may ride out the storm better than those in regions that are export-oriented, such as the Pearl River Delta. She is hopeful that Wenzhou can overcome current difficulties.

MIT professor Yasheng Huang has pointed out that Zhejiang Province (where Wenzhou is located) offers a significantly different model of achieving economic wealth from that of its neighbors to the north, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Municipality. Although all three administrative units are among the richest province-level units in China, in Huang's words, "Zhejiang is rich because it has grown faster; Jiangsu [and Shanghai] is rich because it has always been rich." In Jiangsu and Shanghai, "the reigning economic model is to court, woo, and placate foreign investors while imposing onerous regulatory and financial constraints on indigenous entrepreneurs." In contrast, "The Zhejiang model is characterized by a heavy reliance on private initiatives, a noninterventionist government style in the management of firms, and a supportive credit policy stance toward private companies. Probably the most famous product of the Zhejiang model is Wenzhou, a city in southern Zhejiang province that today accounts for a disproportionate share of rich entrepreneurs, asset owners, and China's manufacturing prowess." Prof. Huang is likely to share Zhang Huamei's guarded optimisim concerning the future of Wenzhou.