To be a host in Chinese culture is to ensure that everyone's cup is full. So there was good reason to expect a party to remember on the opening night of the Olympics - and so it was, and more. A ceremony that thrilled and moved us ...
"An eight became a perfect 10 in Beijing tonight", the website of the Sydney Morning Herald declared. "The world may never witness a ceremony of the magnitude and ingenuity as that which opens the 2008 Olympics." "Gr8" said the Sun in the UK.
Fireworks burst forth, one batch per second, from Tian'AnMen Square in central Beijing northwards the six miles to the Birds' Nest along the ancient, central north-south axis, designed to evoke 'footprints of history'. The bird's eye view of the city leading to the Birds' Nest was spectacular.
No other nation in the world has the depth of history and culture as China, and some of those 5,000 years were brought to life by a talented cast of thousands, directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who created a visual feast of color, and bold yet restrained vignettes, seamlessly flowing and faultlessly realised. Inspired, original and confident.
The ceremony opened with evocative percussion by 2,008 fou drummers, and the chanting of a famous passage from the sayings of Confucius: "Welcome, friends from afar. How happy we are."
Flying acrobats and a single female dancer with ribbon, raised by a small army, recalled the grottos of Dunhuang, painted in the Wei and Tang dynasties when camels and caravans plied the Silk Road. Many view the Tang dynasty as the golden age of China, when it was both wealthy and open to the world, a China that is echoed today.
Blue-robed oarsman enacted seafarers travelling between China and South-East Asia. Their oars became sails, painted with the "treasure ships" of the eunuch admiral Zheng He, who reached Africa during the Ming Dynasty.
Undulating blocks symbolised the printing blocks of ancient China, which invented moveable type, ink and paper.
Constantly changing landscape paintings and scenes of court life featured on a giant scroll that unfurled on the stadium floor, while musicians performed traditional airs.
Most of the 10,000 athletes entered the stadium to Children dressed in the traditional costumes of China's 56 ethnic groups carried the Olympic flag into the stadium and sang the national anthem as the Chinese flag was raised.
The organizers paid special tribute to the victims of the May earthquake in Sichuan province, which killed 70,000 people. Lin Hao, a 9-year-old boy who, as class monitor, sang songs with his classmates to keep morale up and who saved two classmates from the rubble and who then walked with his sisters more than seven miles to safety, escorted flag-bearer Yao Ming at the head of the Chinese Olympic team.
In the thirty years since the late Deng Xiao Ping started the opening of China, 400 million people have been lifted from poverty. China has, in that short time, come a long long way.
'China' means the 'middle kingdom' or country at the center. Certainly on this night, it was center-stage. A little bit of magic - made in China.
The kinabaloo.com Beijing 2008 Olympics archive : http://www.kinabaloo.com/olympics.html
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1 Year On - Remembering the 2008 Olympics
(c) 2010 Beijing Buzzz and Author
Comments (Click to show / hide)Last Updated on Sunday, 31 January 2010 14:49
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