Beijing Olympic Starts with a Spectacular Opening Ceremony

MyStarHill > Blogroll, Chinese > Beijing Olympic Starts with a Spectacular Opening Ceremony

Author: editor | August 9, 2008 - 12:18 pm

It climaxed with the lighting of the giant cauldron draped in red atop the Bird’s Nest by Chinese gymnastics champion Li Ning, who captured three gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the Olympics in which China returned after a 32 year absence.

91,000 enraptured fans at the Bird’s Nest stadium, and an estimated global TV audience of four billion, were treated to an epic display of high-tech wizardry which somehow managed to traverse China’s 6000-year history in 75 minutes.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined a cavalcade of world leaders looking on, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, his US counterpart George W Bush, Britain’s Gordon Brown, Frances Nicolas Sarkozy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

The capacity crowd gave a rousing welcome to athletes from the US, Russia, Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei and tennis great Roger Federer as he led the Swiss in.

Beijing also warmly welcomed Australia’s athletes - oddly dressed in what looked blue tracksuits, and pedestrian ones at that.

The white cap was a strange accessory choice. The Australian Olympic Committee should brace itself for widespread criticism today.

It began with snarling, crackling flashes around the stadium rim that burst into the heart of the arena, as if to say: Enter the Chinese dragon.
Below, stretching across the stadium, exactly 2008 warriors began slamming their fists in perfect timing into drums that lit up in response.
The war-like drumming countdown built to a fever-pitched finale that drove the capacity stadium crowd roaring to its feet.
And the fireworks that followed left all agape - fitting given they were fired by the nation that invented gunpowder 1100 years ago.
When the stadium blacked out, the drummers’ fluorescent red sticks flashed in unison - triggering a deafening roar around the stadium.
As the drummers dispersed and trapeze artists carried the five glowing Olympic rings into the sky, Beijing’s invitation to the world was formalised with the simple words on the stadium roof rim: “Welcome My Friends.”
Back in the arena’s heart, the giant scroll that slowly unfurled became a metaphor for China’s return to greatness, closing the circle that begun thousands of years ago when this remarkable society gave the world the magnetic compass, paper, printing - even the wheelbarrow. Now, as a modern nation, it is on the cusp of a new golden age.

Ceremony Director, film-maker Zhang Yimou’s movies are known for their big military scenes, for pomp, ceremony and the grandeur of the middle kingdom. We had that in spades last night.

The Taijiquan sequence of white-gowned martial arts masters shadow boxing en masse was a grand routine fitting the occasion.
We also had some tender moments, none more so than the parade of kids faces - thousands of them - which took ceremony producers nearly a year to photograph around the world.
It was a poignant reminder of what unites humanity: the overriding theme of the ceremony and, if all goes to plan, the 2008 Games.
For many, the crowning moment will be the rise of the giant globe with its 58 gravity-defying runners. It transformed into a spherical video screen of Olympians as the theme song, You and Me was sung.
Above all, Beijing dazzled with its weight of numbers: the show featured 14000 performers - 9000 of them People’s Liberation Army soldiers.
What was missing was the humour that characterised the Sydney and Athens ceremonies.
There was no Beijing equivalent of our lawn mowers and dunnies or the Greek levitating olive trees.
For the Chinese, such levity could be construed as disrespectful of such a momentous occasion. Reverence was the order of the day. And awe will be the lasting memory.