Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony was held at Beijing National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest). It began at 8pm, which means the 2008 Summer Olympics officially started at 2008-08-08 8:00pm. Yeah, Chinese do fancy of number “8″, as it symbolizes the prosperity, wealth and confidence.
The opening ceremony was fantastic, breathtaking and probably unforgettable. It was directed by the famous Chinese filmmaker, Zhang Yi Mou, and featured a cast of 15,000 performers. It was being recognized as the most spectacular Olympics Opening Ceremony ever produced. No doubt, the ceremony actually presented Chinese culture and their 5000 years of history in one single night.
The opening ceremony can be divided into 4 main parts, starting with Welcoming Ceremony, Performances, Parade of Athletes and finally Lighting of Flame Cauldron. You can check the details here. The gigantic painting scroll is one of the interesting part, as it marks the origin and development of China’s history and culture. Besides that, the children were mainly highlighted in the ceremony as they are the future. They looked so naive and cute, with lovely smiles. Another interesting part would be Dream, where a gigantic Globe was elevated, with the performers running on it, seemingly free from gravity. Then, both Sarah Brightman from Britain and Liu Huan from China performed the theme song, You and Me.
Wonderful Song~~
After these fascinating performances, the parade of athletes started, but their entry did not follow the alphabetical order of their countries. Instead, how many strokes are in their Chinese character transcriptions were used to determine their order, starting from the lowest. But of course, Greece was still the first, and the host country, China came as the last team.
Both Liu Qi, the head of the Beijing Olympic Committee and the Beijing mayor and Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee turned up and gave their speeches. And Hu Jin Tao, the Paramount Leader of China, formally announced the opening of 2008 Summer Olympics.
Great… The Olympic Flame entered the stadium and relayed around by 7 athletes. The 8th athlete would be Li Ning, the former Olympic gymnast champion. He took the responsibility to light the Flame of the Cauldron. This was wonderful, as this guy was suspended by wires, and ran horizontally along the walls of stadium through to the Olympic cauldron. Of course, this followed by wonder fireworks, in various colors and shapes, projecting Olympic rings, forming hoops, flower outwards, fountain or float down.
That was the end of the Opening Ceremony. The competitions will last for 16 days, starting from tomorrow until 24th August 2008. All the best to the athletes, and well done to the dream opening, in Beijing 2008 Olympics. Congratulations~~~
Popularity: 36% [?]
Recent Comments