Li Na, all around balla and double Grand Slam winner, has a complicated relationship with the Chinese government, so much so that she was unable even to feign enthusiasm at being gifted 800,000 yuan ($132,000) by her home province.
Li flew into Wuhan, Hubei province on Tuesday, three days after winning the Australian Open, to find a delegation of provincial officials waiting for her with open arms and a great big cheque. The official reason for the gift was to thank Li for "winning honour for her mother country and the people of her hometown".
In photos of the event, Li looks less than amused. This might be, as some internet commenters suggested, because she disapproved of the government waisting public funds: "This is the people’s money. Li Na plays tennis well. She’s a professional athlete who doesn’t need the public to give her anything." Li, as one of the highest earning sportswomen in the world, hardly needed the money after all.
It's more likely however, that Li's grumpiness was due not to government wastage (this is China after all, government wastage is an everyday ocurrence) but to the government trying to take credit for her personal achievements.
Li, who didn't achieve success until she left the national team and put herself outside of the government's sport bureacracy, has been hailed by Xinhua as an example of success for the state athletics system. "The country took care of Li and cultivated her. The state is her sponsor," an editorial titled "Why Did Li Succeed?" claimed.
Li notably did not mention China in her awesome acceptance speech in Melbourne on Saturday, and many Chinese commentators have argued that she won her titles in spite of the government, not because of it.
[Image via Weibo]
0 User Comments