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As China prepares to host the summer Olympics, and with violent protests erupting in Tibet and elsewhere, having a Chinese exchange student living with us has proven to be a thought provoking exercise.

With the massive media coverage of the interruption by pro-Tibetan protesters during the Olympic torch relay, I had an opportunity to ask if he was aware of what was happening.

This 18-year-old grew up thousands of kilometres from Tibet, and has about as much knowledge about Tibet as an average Canadian teenager would have knowledge of the October crisis or the Oka crisis.

He is, understandably, a Pro-China supporter in the same way as a typical teenage boy is Pro-Canada if you asked him about the war in Afghanistan. He may not understand the broader issues in a very complex way, but he feels patriotism to his nation and so he is Pro- China.

The Olympics is a coming out party for China, and the Chinese Government is embarrassed and angry over the torch relay protests.

Over the long history of China and Tibet, some terrible brutality has taken place. To paraphrase the currently infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright, many people here believe China's "chickens have come home to roost," and they are getting what they deserve given their human rights violations.

As the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler approach, I know that Canada has some chickens of its own looking to set up shop. We have a long and sometimes brutal history of our own, and our treatment of the aboriginal peoples is a primary example.

At the same time, in the last century that China was using military force to keep Tibet as part of China, we were ripping native families apart and forcing their children to go to residential schools, which in itself had long-term implications, but added to that many were subject to abuse.

With the newly appointed Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canadians will surely hear things that will horrify them. However, it will also help us understand why our aboriginal communities are angry and frustrated, or worse, depressed and defeated. It will be part of all our healing to hear these stories.

As Canada puts its best foot forward to the world in 2010, I wonder how we will react if natives interrupt our torch run. I wonder whom we will be angry at: the natives, the government – or ourselves.

Paul Chapman is a local freelance writer and his column appears weekly.