Once-reclusive China commandeered the world stage yesterday, celebrating its first-time role as Olympic host with a stunning display of pageantry and pyrotechnics to open a Summer Games unrivaled for its mix of problems and promise.
The story presented in yesterday’s ceremony sought to distill 5,000 years of Chinese history — featuring everything from the Great Wall to opera puppets to astronauts, and highlighting achievements in art, music and science. Roughly 15,000 people were in the cast, all under the direction of Zhang Yimou, whose early films often often ran foul of government censors for their blunt portrayals of China’s problems.
MAGICAL IMAGERY
PHOTO: AP
He produced some majestic and ethereal imagery — at one point a huge, translucent globe emerged from the stadium floor and acrobats floated magically around it to the accompaniment of the game’s theme song One World, One Dream.
The show steered clear of modern politics — there were no references to Chairman Mao and the class struggle, nor to the more recent conflicts and controversies.
A record 204 delegations were parading their athletes through the stadium — superstars such as basketball idols Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming, as well as plucky underdogs from Iraq, Afghanistan and other embattled lands. The nations did not march in the traditional alphabetical order, but in a sequence based on the number of strokes it takes to write their names in Chinese. The exceptions were Greece, birthplace of the Olympics, which was given its traditional place at the start, and the 639-member Chinese team, which lined up last with Yao as its flag-bearer.
The athletes from Japan, an old foe and current economic rival of China, were greeted cooly by the crowd even though they waved tiny Chinese flags. But cheers erupted for the next delegation, Taiwan. The Taiwanese delegation all stood and clapped as the athletes paraded into the stadium and Chinese President Hu Jintao also joined in, although a little less enthusiastically.
The American flag-bearer was 1500m runner Lopez Lomong, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” who spent a decade of his youth in a refugee camp in Kenya. He’s a member of the Team Darfur coalition, representing athletes opposed to China’s support for Sudan. Yesterday he avoided any criticism and said the Chinese “have been great putting all these things together.”
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
By all indications, most Chinese have embraced the Games, buying up tickets at a record pace, volunteering by the thousands for Olympic duties, nursing expectations of triumphs by their home team.
To their eyes, the omens were good. The ceremony began at 8pm on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 — auspicious in a country where eight is the luckiest number.
“It not easy to meet with such a date,” said Wang Wei, secretary general of Beijing Organizing Committee. “Hopefully this lucky day will bring luck.”
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