Some took issue with the lack of French content. Others focused on the small glitch at the end of the ceremony, when one of the legs forming the Olympic torch failed to rise. A few have complained about the fact that the other torch — the one displayed outside — is surrounded by barbed wire and inaccessible to the general public.
For this author, it was the exploitation of Aborigines: Even though they were given prominent position during the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Canada’s natives continue to be treated as second-rate citizens by the Canadian government and remain largely impoverished.
Case in point: Of the 206 athletes who are representing Canada in the Games, only one — snowboarder Caroline Calve from Quebec — is an Aborigine. If the Canadian team were truly representative of Canada’s ethnic fabric, there would be seven or eight Aborigines on the team (about 4 percent of the population identify as Aboriginal). Canada will also have only one Aborigine — Colette Bourgonje — at the Paralympic Winter Games next month.
‘AUTHENTIC’
That some of the “authentic” First Nations Olympic souvenirs were found to have been manufactured in China, Italy and Thailand, when one in four children in First Nations communities lives in poverty (the highest rate is in British Columbia), also underscores the handicap that Canada’s Aborigines face today.
That said, artistic director David Atkins gave us an eyeful on Feb. 12, turning BC Place in Vancouver into a dreamlike scene that blended actors, dancers, an unprecedented use of projectors, as well as poetry and music. For many, the highlights were the wonderful narration by Canadian actor Donald Sutherland and K.D. Lang’s haunting rendition of the great Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, where the signer stood, alone, among millions of bright stars in the night.
Above all, the ceremony distinguished itself through its focus on the individual and its embrace of difference. Carrying the Olympic flag, for example, were individuals such as Romeo Dallaire, who led UN peacekeeping forces during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The torch, meanwhile, was carried in by Rick Hansen, a paraplegic athlete. Lang is lesbian. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky did not light the torch alone; he was one among equals.
This was quite the contrast with the opening ceremonies in Beijing in August 2008, where the individual could not be distinguished from the masses and where a child was deemed not pretty enough (she had crooked teeth) to sing before the public and was therefore replaced by a picture-perfect lip-synching stand-in. Beijing gave many a frisson, a spectacular feat that sent a chill down one’s spine. It screamed nationalism unleashed, the setting in motion of a wheel that crushed the individual on its road to glory. And criticism of the ceremony — at least domestically — was silenced.
HUMILITY
In the end, Atkins’ work was far more moving for its centering on the individual and its humility in design. It was much more intimate and drew the spectator in rather than keep him at bay. However grandiose Zhang Yimou’s (張藝謀) Beijing feat may have been, it was difficult to connect emotionally with his work. It was exclusive rather than inclusive, meant to intimidate rather than to inspire.
Ultimately, Vancouver showed maturity and confidence, something that was lacking in Beijing — and continues to be lacking today. Humility can be strength where muscular fanfare is a sign of weakness.
J. Michael Cole is an editor at the Taipei Times.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) has repeatedly voiced concern over the weakening cost competitiveness of its US fabs and challenged the US’ “on-shore” policy of building domestic semiconductor capacity. Yet not once has the government said anything, even though the economy is highly dependent on the chip industry. In the US, the cost of operating a semiconductor factory is at least twice the amount required to operate one in Taiwan, rather than the 50 percent he had previously calculated, Chang said on Thursday last week at a forum arranged by CommonWealth Magazine. He said that he had
The Twenty-Four Histories (中國廿四史) is a collection of official Chinese dynastic histories from Records of the Grand Historian (史記) to the History of the Ming Dynasty (明史) that cover the time from the legendary Yellow Emperor (黃帝) to the Chongzhen Emperor (崇禎), the last Ming emperor. History is written by the victors. These histories are not merely records of the rise and fall of emperors, they also demonstrate the ways in which conquerors embellished their own achievements while deriding those of the conquered. The history written by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is no exception. The PRC presents its
In August 2013, Reuters reported that Beijing had been gaining soft power with investment commitments and trade with countries in Latin America. However, instead of jumping on the chance to make new allies, China stalled requests to establish diplomatic relations with the countries to avoid galling Taiwanese voters. Beijing was also courting then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and the tactic left China with a trump card if cross-strait relations turned cool. China had rebuffed at least five countries’ requests to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing, the report said, quoting a China analyst. Honduras could become the ninth diplomatic ally, and also the fifth
OpenAI has announced a major upgrade to the technology that underpins ChatGPT, the seemingly magical online tool that professionals have been using to draft e-mails, write blog posts and more. If you think of ChatGPT as a car, the new language model known as GPT-4 adds a more powerful engine. The old ChatGPT could only read text. The new ChatGPT can look at a photograph of the contents of your fridge and suggest a dinner recipe. The old ChatGPT scored in the 10th percentile on the bar exam. The new one was in the 90th. In the hours since its release,
RSS