- Joined
- Aug 18, 2010
I am not sure however that Chan's character would fit well with the way China trains its athletes. For one thing, he is prone to speak his mind, which may make him come across as disobedient and rebellious in the eyes of many. Also, the reason why Chinese skating hasn't produced any other significant star since Lu Chen is their overemphasis on jumps but not the areas that Patrick Chan excels. In that sense, I think Patrick Chan is who he is today because he benefited from the best of both worlds. His personality and character is unquestionably Canadian and he is proud of the fact that he speaks good French which few people outside of Quebec can. Beyond his physical appearance, there is nothing Chinese about him saving the frugality he displayed re: the bus episode at the LA Worlds.
What do you mean about "nothing Chinese beyond his physical appearence"?!
I think Patrick is very Chinese-like in so many ways. He has firmly kept basic Chinese values, however, spoiled by western countries' freedom of speech. He's character and personalily are not unique at all among Chinese even in mainland of China. But I agree that he'd get more trouble in China than in western world. Most people, but not all, in China have learned to check their words in public but not in private situations.
The way Chinese skaters develop their skills are different from skaters in western world. Understandably, Chinese government has to choose technically strong skaters as their country's hopefuls before investing big state money on them. Then educate them on artistic abilities later. So they'd have better chance to get international results. If Patrick were in China during his grow up, I'd imagine he could succeed as well given he is not lack of the ability in jumps. The order of learning process would be different but he'd be successful. China might only have Lu Chen as a top artistic single skater. It is not lack of artistic skaters in pairs. Shen&Zhao were robotic technical skaters when they first appeared on the international stage. Years collaborating with top foriegn choreographers and coachs, they've become astonishingly beautiful first class artistic skaters.
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