A ball of flame ran across the Bird’s Nest before the count down even begun and half-way through the stadium a hurling ball of fire came shooting down into the ground of the stadium floor. Beneath the audiences a sea of white light glowed in the dark to form two screens for the count down. Drummers hit the drums in unison and the classical sound of warring state drums echoed throughout the stadium. Then the count down begun.
Counting down…
60…
50…
40…
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20…
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9…
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1…
At ‘1’, fireworks went off throughout China and the Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony is officially launched. The drummers continued the drumming, along with the chant of an old saying by Confucious, “ Friends come from afar, how happy we are.”
Just then, lights went out and the drumsticks held by the drummers emitted glowing red lights that looked like firecrackers in their hands. The sea of white turned into a myriad of glowing red lights. The lights came back and was lighting up the drummers excited expressions as they finished their queue in the Opening Ceremony.
The audiences were, then, brought through the Imperial Axis of Beijing on a screen. Fireworks blasted through the night sky in 1 minute separation. Being operated to represent the shape of a Foot. 29 great footsteps walked along the axis, from the Forbidden City to Tiananmen Square then into the Bird’s Nest, Beijing’s National Stadium.
Back inside the stadium, the 5 rings of Olympics glowed brightly in the black surrounding. From above 20 Apsaras came floating down around the rings that was slowly being lifted off the ground into an upright position. At the far end of the stadium came a sweet and melodious voice that came from a little girl in a vivid red dress. Singing ‘Hymn to my Country’, she smiled and stood upright. 56 children representing China’s ethnic groups held the flag of China to the flagpoles in the other end, where soldiers in green stood attentively. Upon receiving the flag from the children, they marched to the flagpole and raised it while China’s national anthem was being played. Reaching the top of the flagpole, the flag moved freely in the breeze that circulates the stadium and more fireworks went off on the roof of the Bird’s Nest.
Into the Artistic section for the Opening, a short film was being played on the screen describing the methods of paper making and drawings from only water and ink. As the film ended, out came a giant scroll in the middle of the stadium. Dancers, dressed in black, waved their arms on the blank canvas while a musician, dressed in Hans costume, played the gu qing behind them. A stroke from here and there, they danced to the ancient melody of the gu qing. A mountain soon appeared on the canvas along with a river. All the while, the scroll around them shone with images of ancient artifacts unearthed throughout the years. The finished product of the canvas was hoisted into the air for all to see and the lights around the stadium and on the scroll dimmed.
Their entrances were marked with loud footsteps and the folding of bamboo scrolls. Men in tall feathered-headdress and long grayish white robe marched into the stadium, each holding a bamboo scroll in their hands. The 3000 disciplines of Confucius bowed in unison as though paying homage and respect to their teacher and started chanting a famous Chinese proverb that sounded, “All those within the Four Seas can be considered as His brothers.”, all the time rolling and unrolling the bamboo scrolls to form tapping sounds. Behind them the scroll now opened to show the printing blocks of Chinese characters in square formation. As the chant of the proverb grew louder, the blocks moved up and down like the waves. Slowly forming the word “He” in both ancient and simplified versions. The end of the chant came when the blocks stop moving and displayed the image of Great Wall of China. Not long after, cherry blossoms bloomed across the printing blocks, showing the audiences a sea of pink. When everyone thought that the blocks were generated by machine, out came performers from beneath the blocks waving at the crowd, smiling.
Next, an entourage of musicians on a squared-platform performing the traditional music of the Peking Opera whilst four puppeteers danced around with their miniature puppets. The platform, was carried by performers dressed in warm-brown, entered a enclosure of lemon yellow. The performers forming that enclosure wore the costumes of a Xiao Er character in Peking Operas. They stood there and out of the blue laughed their hearts out when the music went off. The lights dimmed once again.
Out came a dancer on top of the canvas, suspending in the air by those that supported them underneath it. She was draped in yellow and green silk with a majestic yellow ornament, in the shape of a mini-vase, on her hands were the extensions of green and yellow silk. She waved them in the air in a way that acrobats do, both majestic and artistic. As she dances, images of the Silk Road of China was screened across the scroll, depicting camels, porcelain vases and tradable items.
Men in blue came running out from the far end of the stadium holding big planks of yellow boards. Upon connecting the boards, images of old ship appeared on the boards. The moved the planks up and down, imitating the waves on the sea. A dancer dressed in gold, orange and yellow walked onto the canvas and started using the ancient compass, created by the Chinese. This was the Maritime Silk Road. The Chinese character of ‘Cha’, Tea, was shown on the scroll, notifying the audiences that one of the well-known tradable items of the olden China was tea aside from silk. The final formation for the men, holding the planks, was of a ship-shaped image on the floor of the stadium. Again, the lights that danced on the ground went off.
When it came up again, it showed the interior of a Dynasty’s courtroom, with rows and rows of imperial women dressed in blue, yellow, orange and red and guards guarding the exterior of it. At the top of the pillars sat musicians, in vibrant colors, playing the pipa. Court music was played and the women walked in gracefully as they would have done in the olden days. Meanwhile images on the scroll showcased Tang dynasty imperial women. The lighting effects were extravagant. As the entourage came to a halt in the middle of the court, the pillars rose into the air as the lights around them were switched off. Dragons’ images came soaring up to the sky, as the pillar continues to go upwards, emitting golden lights of their own.
The group of performers walked away as the lights came up again to show a little girl and the famous pianist, LangLang, with a piano. The little girl played a small note as LangLang corrected her. Soon he was playing a masterpiece while she sits there looking on. Men in green suit came rushing out and surrounded themselves around the piano. They wore lights around them and switched it on as they ran about forming a Dove. Those that were involve in the wings section moved up and down showing that the Dove is taking flight. Not long after they came crowding themselves, once again, near the piano and formed a miniature Bird’s Nest. Standing in position for about 5 minutes, as a little girl floated across them with a kite in her hand, then, they began to slowly glide away into the darkness as the lights on them went off upon them reaching the sides of the stadium.
A white light shone the centre stage of the canvas, showing a Taichi master practicing TaiChi Quan. Around him glass walls were held up and a few other Taichi practitioners went with the rhythm. The glass walls showed colors of green, white and rich yellow behind the practitioners. At the blink of the eye, the glass walls were removed and thousand came running into the stage and formed a humongous circle around the canvas. School children now occupied the canvas, they sat, in a way as they would during lessons in school and listened attentively to the ‘teacher’ before them. The circle formation around them shifted and the performers ran around the canvas forming a different kind of formation, which represents the Heaven is circle whilst the Earth is square. On the canvas, the children colored the previously drawn artwork with colors of blue and green.
Few minutes later, the taichi performers left the stage as they eyed three astronaut that came floating down from above. The children, packed and ready to go home, looked at them happily and cheered on. The canvas was moved aside and a globe came protruding from beneath the stage’s surface in the color of blue. Performers were hung around the globe as the globe changes to the color of Earth, they ran across it in unison. The globe changed from blue-green to yellow then to red as the walls of the Bird’s Nest showed images of the solar system and more. At the tip of the globe, came two figures. Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan emerged on the globe and sang the Olympics theme song, “You and I” to the cheers of the crowd. Half way through thousands of smile faces shone around the stage as performers held up high images of the smiles of children all over the world on umbrellas.
The fireworks went off again as the end of the Artistic section of the Opening Ceremony. It was now the time for the athletes to march into the stadium. A total of 204 countries entered this year’s Olympics, starting with Greece and ending with China. The sequence of the athletes entering the stadium was according to the Chinese number of strokes for the first Chinese character of that nation. As they walk into the centre stage, the athletes walked across a multi-colored inkpad and onto the canvas, leaving multi-colored footprints on it. After an hour or so, speeches were made and oaths taken by judges and athletes and the President of China announced the official launching of the Beijing Olympics to the World with a booming voice.
Lastly came the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron. After about 6 or more torch bearers, the one who have the honor to light the Cauldron was of Li Ning, a famous gymnast and a National’s Sport Icon. He was lifted above the ground and into the skies. There he ran along the stadium wall, with it unrolling pictures after pictures of sportsmanship and the torch relay. The much anticipated Cauldron took the shape of a Chinese Scroll, stood majestically at the intersection of the stadium. With a single touch from the fire of his, the Cauldron was lit, thus, marking the starting of the Olympics in China.
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I actually cried as I was watching the whole event LIVE. The beauty of the ceremony and the effort and hard work behind it, of how the people of China or the Chinese population around the World dreamt of hosting the auspicious Olympic Games.
It is truly China at Her BEST! Zhang YiMou did a marvelous job and I urged those who never heard of this great man, go watch some of his directed movies, such as ‘House of Flying Daggers’, ‘Hero’, ‘Curse of the Golden Flower’ and much more.
The next host will have a hard time catching up to China’s Opening Ceremony.
Lastly,
GOOD LUCK BEIJING 2008!!
‘BEIJING HUAN YING NI’
