Olympics!

[rain_gryphon]

I'm finding myself increasingly enamoured of the Chinese. I've always rather liked China. Just now they're starting to look like the Japanese did in the early 60s, with many of the same problems and potentials. They're just about to become a major force in the world.

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There's no real point to anyone else ever trying to have another Opening Ceremony for the Olympics. Anything would look lame after that. If future, they might as well just parade the athletes in, light the torch with a match, and call it a night.

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I wonder why Hong Kong still gets its own team?

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I wonder why they were playing 'Scotland the Brave' while they marched the athletes in?

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W proved an embarassment during the Parade of Athletes, sitting there fidgetting and checking his watch when they showed him on TV. Laura should have @bapped him a good one.

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No civilization in history has ever had such a solid grasp of the importance of having government officials wear deranged yet cool-looking hats as the classical Chinese.

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This Phelps fellow may finally beat Mark Spitz's record of gold medals. I've a sort of jaundiced view of Spitz, since my high school biology teacher was on the IU swim team with him, and had any number of stories about how terribly stuck up Mark Spitz was, what an awful braggart he was, etc, etc.

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I wonder how many times during history 2000 drummers have ever performed together? It can't have happened too often.

Comments

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

There's no real point to anyone else ever trying to have another Opening Ceremony for the Olympics.

As I understand it, London isn't even going to try to out-China China in 2012. The feeling is that four hours is too long, and that standing around for so long with little in the way of refreshment was detrimental to the athletes. I suspect London's ceremony will be much more low-key. It could work, if we model it along the lines of the Commonwealth Games; but it could also be terrible, if we try to show off too much.

wonder why Hong Kong still gets its own team?

I think it's part of the "one country, two systems" agreement left over from the handover in 1997. China are hardly likely to object, seeing as they get two teams for the price of one!

I wonder why they were playing 'Scotland the Brave' while they marched the athletes in?

The BBC commentator at the time said that one of the Chinese officials had been visiting Scotland, had seen this band, and had been so taken with them that he'd invited them to perform in Beijing!

[murakozi.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, the news 'n radio here have been reporting this about a song sung during the opening ceremonies:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/12/oly.kids/index.html

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

I'm finding myself increasingly enamoured of the Chinese. I've always rather liked China. Just now they're starting to look like the Japanese did in the early 60s, with many of the same problems and potentials. They're just about to become a major force in the world.

I do hope you're at least partially kidding. China is what North Korea would be if they had gobs of money and a better publicist. If history has taught us anything about totalitarian states it's that the better the regime is at orchestrating its self-promotional spectacles the worse it is at treating its own people.

Here's a bit more about China's opening ceremony fakery. CGI fireworks, professional "cheer squads" filling empty seats in a "sold out" stadium, the little girl thing again... (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/sports/beijing2008/story.html?id=3175db58-0f2c-489c-9cf6-01591d35588c)

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The thing with the CGI fireworks was actually explained during the broadcast (at least on NBC) although they didn't make a big point of it. I can't see that as being notably less honest than, say, the American practice of bluescreening advertisements onto the wall behind the batter at baseball games. I'm more reassured by China doing it that way than by flying a helicopter in the dark at low altitude over a fireworks show when the ground below is packed with people.

Filling the unsold seats with locals (and giving them matching tee shirts and noisemakers) seems a quite reasonable measure to me. I'm guessing they were volunteers. Presumably the people were pleased to get to see the Olympics. If that's considered punishment duty, then China's a stranger place than I thought.

The lipsynching thing is weird, but makes sense when explained. They wanted a perfect show. The prettiest girl wasn't the best singer. It's a stage show - it's not supposed to be a reflection of reality.

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

And the censorship and forced labor, also no problem at all. It makes China better in the end to have a pliable, obedient populace all working together for the common good... ;^b

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that the people who were flying around were on wires, come to that. You can't trust anything these days.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Chinese censorship in general bothers me (although it's not like we're free of censorship here either), although the Olympic journalists being restricted on what they can report on doesn't. They were let into the country to cover the Olympics. Using their access to do stories on politics, economics, etc is basically accepting their credentials on false premises.