The Chinese people have waited years for the Olympics. So did the lavish Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremony deliver? Five cultural commentators gave me their views: most gave a thumbs up to director Zhang Yimou’s portrayal of China’s ancient culture. However, they were less keen on the scenes of China’s modernized present and promising future which they found tacky or sentimental.

Basically, the opening ceremony was in three parts: a gorgeous series of tableaux covering China’s history and culture; an endless parade of athletes; and the stodgy ceremonials surrounding the Olympic flag and flame.

Part One was a magnificent light show that used hundreds of twirling dancers, switching from red and gold scenes to quieter blue and white ones, from wild drumming to delicate taichi. It acted as condensed guide to China’s history, Confucian culture and famous inventions – paper, printing, fireworks, and the first compasses for navigation. Luckily, I got walked through all of this by an expert, Prof Chen Xia from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“It’s very beautiful, oh yes, very beautiful,” she murmured. Early scenes showed performers painting on paper by twisting their bodies like dancers. A scroll of lights unrolled itself across in the middle of the stadium, scripting the story like an old Chinese book as the picture on it changed from desert Silk Road to maritime exploits exporting tea and porcelain.

This bit was easy enough for a foreigner to grasp, but the invention of wood block printing, coupled with readings from the philosopher Confucius were tougher going. Prof Chen was so inspired, particularly by the fireworks, that at one point she set out from her home towards the Bird’s Nest for a closer view. Disappointment followed, as the taxi driver told her the roads were blocked off.

I was grateful though that she explained some of the more opaque sequences, such as the link between the scenes of musicians and Confucian beliefs that joyful self-restraint is internalized by playing music. Perfect for encouraging the harmonious society China’s leaders want to see.

Prof Chen’s verdict was mixed though. The history was beautifully done she thought, but “a little hard for foreigners to understand, and even some Beijing people”. More modern-day sequences showing the Bird's Nest, trains, tower blocks and school kids were cloying, with “too many things from the children”, she said.

Victor Yuan, founder of opinion polling company Horizon gave the show 65%, praised the fireworks and loved the writhing dancers who painted with their feet. Overall, though he was “really disappointed” that the show’s magic was limited to the past with “not so much imagination about the future” and critical of Zhang for failing to consult more radical artists. Journalist Yu Ping, who writes about culture and fashion, also dismissed tableaux of modern China showing children and space ships as “too simple”.

So far, three of my commentators had approved the show’s portrayal of China’s ancient culture, but I expected TV anchor Rui Chenggang to be a hard guy to please. He shot to fame after objecting to the presence of Starbucks in the Forbidden City as trampling on Chinese tradition. Did Zhang Yimou’s popularization win his approval? Overall, yes. “It’s appropriate, it’s imaginative”, he said.

While my commentators were mostly watching on TV, philanthropist Hiu Ng was in the Bird’s Nest, and bombarding me with excited text messages. “The atmosphere is unbelievably vibrant”, she yelled when I called her. Ng, co-founder of civic action groups 51SIM.org and 51give, saw the lavish portrayal of the past as packaging a message about the present. China “went through a phase when we were unhappy with our culture” and is now “at peace” with history. As a result, it’s poised to promote its traditional approach of harmony to the wider world, she says. As for the performance, “this is a show that everyone from all over the world can love”.

Ping was waiting to see the Chinese team stride out to test that theory. Chinese Netizens had failed to love their team’s yellow and red outfits, savaging them as a “tomato [and] scrambled egg” look. She’d interviewed the design company Hengyuan Xiang who’d protested that the clothes' vivid colors were meant to enhance the group in a big arena not flatter individuals. To her relief, she found that “if they are walking together they look very wonderful”. Here at least, harmony ruled. But based on my unscientific straw poll few Chinese will have found an enduring image of the future in tonight's events.

From inside the 91,000-seat Bird's Nest stadium, fireworks dazzled and the thunder of 2,008 performers drumming on traditional fou percussion instruments rolled throughout the stadium. High-tech special effects gave even the kitschiest subject matter a startling edge. An ode to China's invention of movable type -ho hum, you might say - morphed into a vast sea of undulating cubic shapes, simulating a giant computer keyboard--and took my breath away. When five-time Olympic medal winner Li Ning prepared to ignite the Olympic flame, invisible wires swooped him skyward for a gravity-defying space-walk around the stadium's rooftop opening. When gymnast Li, who launched a successful sports clothing and accessories empire after snagging three gold medals in Los Angeles, finally lit a gigantic torch perched on the rim of the Bird's Nest, the crowd went wild.

This was China's soft-power version of "shock and ." Or at least, that metaphor ran through my mind as the pyrotechnics reminded me of watching the U.S. "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad in 2003 from my Palestine Hotel room balcony. Just as Washington's adventure in Iraq today symbolizes the beginning of the decline of U.S. influence around the world - despite its military might - so will China's hosting of these Olympics be seen as a sign that it has arrived as a global power, despite its tarnished human rights record. Nowhere will this tilting balance of power be more pointedly symbolized than in the Olympic medal count, where China may have a better than even chance of snagging the highest number of gold medals, displacing the U.S.

Flanked by the leaders of the United States and Russia - among 80-some other foreign dignitaries--Chinese president Hu Jintao stiffly declared the 2008 Games had begun. Inside he had reason to feel triumphant: one theme hammered (or, more accurately, drummed) into the audience again and again was "harmony," a codeword for Hu's Confucius-influenced call for a "harmonious society." Yet Hu could also be excused for feeling jittery and overwhelmed by today's tsunami of national pride. China has always felt more comfortable in the role of an underdog, as a feisty champion of the developing world, than as a big world power.


Read the Full Story Here

At 6:00PM on Friday, August 8, two hours before the Opening Ceremonies kicked off in Beijing, I braved soul-destroying weather to watch the festivities with flag-waving fans and fan-waving grannies. I'd chosen to view the momentous event at The Place, an enormous shopping center above Beijing's Central Business District (or CBD) that boasts Asia's largest LCD screen, on which, I'd been assured by a customer service representative earlier that very day, I could enjoy Zhang Yimou's carefully-choreographed ode to misguided nostalgia for a bygone era that never existed.

Alas, what a fool I was. This is, after all, Beijing, where very little ever goes according to plan. When I reached The Place, I was told by a remarkably well-informed Olympics volunteer that I would be unable to watch the Opening Ceremonies on Asia's largest LCD screen, which loomed overhead, because Beijing Cable Television (or BCTV) had exclusive rights to broadcast content on the screen, but China Central Television (or CCTV) had exclusive rights to broadcast the Opening Ceremonies, and although a deal had been in the works to resolve the impasse for some time, negotiations had fallen through earlier in the day.

The Opening Ceremonies were still being shown in the nearby Coca-Cola "Shuang Zone" (shuang or 爽 here means "refreshment"), but you needed a ticket to get in, which I neither possessed nor found it in my power to purchase. Thus began the sort of scramble for reliable information that is all too common in Beijing. Several cellphone conversations with friends and colleagues yielded useless rumor and innuendo. Along the way, my girlfriend lost her cellphone (she'd lost her voice the night before, and you can imagine the kind of mood this unfortunate series of events engendered). But finally, fortified by noodles and smiled upon by a higher power, we found out that the Opening Ceremonies were being shown on two huge flatscreen TVs in Ditan Park (Ditan or 地坛 is the Temple of Earth, homely fraternal twin of Tiantan or 天坛, the Temple of Heaven).

And it was awesome. After wading our way through an interminable line, we got seated on the grass with several hundred other spectators from all over the world and watched what proved to be a nice, kinda underwhelming, but still impressive Opening Ceremony. In typical Chinese fashion, the best parts were when thousands of performers were moving simultaneously (they do conformity so well over here -- it's why their synchronized divers are so darn dominant), either banging drums or unrolling scrolls. There was a tense moment around 8:36 when the image on the screens froze for a few seconds, the crowd let out a collective groan, and then the broadcast switched to pre-recorded footage of the torch-lighting in Athens earlier this year.

Speculation ran rampant amongst us expats as to what must have happened: Had a protester disrupted the performance? Had the SAMs near the stadium been deployed? But after about 30 seconds, the broadcast resumed, and none of my colleagues watching the Opening Ceremonies elsewhere even noticed the temporary interruption.

The procession of nations was fascinating. I was surprised by which countries earned large cheers from the crowd, which was predominantly Chinese and otherwise a mix of everything else, kinda like a microcosm of the world's population. Iraq, Cuba, Pakistan, and Timor-Leste (I know, what the heck?), received surprisingly robust rounds of applause. And although I later learned that Taiwan was cheered heartily in the Bird's Nest, they got very little love in the Temple of Earth. Of course, the roar when China appeared after Zambia was deafening. It warmed the heart to see so much unabashed national pride. On the cab ride back to our Bureau to write this post, I heard Hu Jintao officially open the Games. And when I got back here, my colleague Mary Hennock was watching the torch-lighting on TV. By then it was after midnight, and I'd survived to tell the tale.
 

Many people believe that Olympic Opening Ceremonies are essentially the equivalent of Mardi Gras or The Rose Bowl Parade--with, of course, the addition of athletes in cool or very uncool national uniforms. But Opening Ceremonies are far different, far more complex affairs. Indeed each is a sophisticated and and nuanced traversal of a proud nation's history, culture and myth. Prospective viewers of this performance can really use a guiding hand from somebody well versed in all those aspects of China.

Unfortunately, that person couldn't score a ticket and I did. So I will be delivering Opening Ceremonies play-by-play in the hopes of clarifying this affair for you. While I may not be an expert, I am not ill-equipped to the task. My father took me out for my first authentic Chinese meal when i was just five years old (egg rolls, chop suey, sweet and sour pork, shrimp in lobster sauce and fried rice). I took a course in Chinese history in college 40 years ago (admittedly I got my only collegiate 'C' because I somehow got Sun Yat-sen mixed up in the Ming dynasty), I saw "The Last Emperor" (twice!) and, despite being from Boston, thought "Infernal Affairs" with Tony Leung was a far superior movie to the Martin Scorcese knockoff, "The Departed" with Jack Nicholson.

So follow along with me and we will enjoy this Chinese spectacular, three years in the making, together--and with a level of sophistication that most viewers won't even approach.

The ID of the final torchbearer is supposed to be a well-guarded secret. So it might look odd that in China of all places the official news wire seems to be tipping its hand just hours ahead of time:

"Chinese legendary gymnast to light Olympic flame?

    "BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The hot tip on who will light the Olympic flame at the Olympic Games opening ceremony tonight is gymnastics legend Li Ning.

    "As sports stars Liu Xiang and Yao Ming appeared out of the possible candidate list, Li has been considered a prime choice to light the cauldron at the National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest.

    "Lighting the cauldron with the flame from Olympia is an immense honour and the most symbolic act of the ceremony.

    "The final torch bearer should be able to represent the image of China, communicate with the world, display the Olympic spirit, and be fully recognized by the public, Feng Jianzhong, deputy head of the General Administration of Sport, has said.

    "Li, 45, won three gold medals, two silver and one bronze in gymnastics at the 1984 Olympics. Known as China's gymnastics prince, he has been garlanded with success. And nowadays, he is a successful businessman with his own sports goods company."

Xinhua came out with the above item over its English wire at a little after three o’clock p.m. Beijing time today. There did not appear to be a corresponding report in Chinese.>

We shall see whether Xinhua spoke too soon or not. But clearly this matter is being treated as a sports secret, rather than a political one. Xinhua, among many others, has been speculating a lot in recent days. Already, the roster of torchbearers posted on web site of the State General Administration of Sport had hinted that Li would be among the last at the Bird's Nest tonight.

Li served his country proudly, then went on to build a lucrative brand out of it. Who better to represent the 'New Beijing'?

President Bush has flown into Beijing to attend the Olympics opening ceremony Friday night. However, his first duty call was to open the new US embassy at 8.08 AM on Aug 8, mirroring the Games ceremonial start time of 8.08 PM on the same day. The gesture was "a nice tip of the hat" to China, says one US businessman invited to the dedication ceremony.

How far to tip the hat to China has been a tricky issue for the outgoing US president in recent days. He has garnered headlines by sprinkling his farewell mini-tour of East Asia with critical remarks about China’s human rights record. Yet he has made clear for months he won’t be repeating those comments publicly once he arrives on Chinese soil. Face-to-face chats with China’s leaders are more productive, he says. The new embassy’s muted colour scheme aims for a similar concept: "It’s...sophisticated and serious in keeping with the level of diplomacy”, State Department architect Jay Holleran who oversaw the project with designers Skidmore, Owings and Merrill told journalists during an open house tour on Tuesday.

As the embassy opening got underway, Reporters Without Borders tipped its hat in the other direction with an illegal radio broadcast in support of free speech. The 20-minute show went out in Beijing at 8.08 AM on the 104.4 FM frequency and contained interviews with an exiled journalist and other dissidents to highlight the “dozens and dozens of journalists and internet users in prison” in China, said RWB general secretary Robert Ménard who anchored it. The show used mini transmitters and antennae and is posted on RWB’s website. (The White House press corps accompanying the president had their own run-in with China's control-meisters; authorities kept them waiting for hours on the tarmac, until around dawn, to sort through red tape and "procedures" for disembarking).

The political juggling at the heart of diplomacy is embodied in the design elsewhere in the embassy compound. The central tower appears to be a glass-fronted office block. Not lack of imagination, but a deliberate "architectural statement about clarity", Bill Prior of the State Department's overseas buildings bureau told me Tuesday. But take a second look, because the real wall of the main building sits a few feet behind the glass curtain. It’s actually a concrete fortress pierced by small, oblong windows, like a gun turret. Transparency can be a tricky thing for diplomats and their governments.

And so it is with the White House dance over human rights in the last few days. Bush hosted five exiled dissidents (but no Tibetans) at the White House last week, and in Bangkok spoke of America’s  “firm opposition” to China's suppression of human rights and religious freedom. This drew an equally ritualistic response from China’s Foreign Ministry; it condemned “any words or acts that interfere in other countries' internal affairs”. Hard to tell where the windows and walls are here too.

Both President Bush and his father will attend this evening’s Olympic Games opening ceremony in the Bird’s Nest stadium. In 1989, Bush Senior faced calls for boycotts and sanctions against China far more intense than anything his son has skated around in the months since the Lhasa riots. The elder Bush mostly ignored them, amid criticisms of toadying to commercial interests that every US president has faced since. But China prospered, opening the way to WTO entry accords (finally clinched by President Bill Clinton) that transformed the relationship into mutual economic dependency. Bush senior’s 1989 stance makes him arguably the most influential American president in shaping modern US-China ties. I'm pondering these uncomfortable truths: without his indifference to the human rights lobby China today might much poorer.

Next year marks 30 years of US-China diplomatic relations since Washington switched its embassy from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. Bush is leaving office with the US’ reputation weaker than at any time since WWII, its soft power sapped by its adventures in Iraq, its economy in distress back home. His legacy for US-China relations may prove as lasting as his father’s, but in a wholly different direction. China’s rise may be over-hyped but it’s real and there’s more space for it than previously as the US depends on the partnership much too heavily to offend.

Finally, it’s a shame that embassies are seldom open to the public because this is a fine building. It’s a fortress, of course. There’s a moat in front of the visa office, the gravel paths all double up as fire truck access roads, and the coyly-named dragon wall is a windowless band of black stone two stories high along the base of the building. But it’s also home to a stunning collection of modern Chinese and American art – and red lobby chairs in different heights and sizes that’ll make the place a paradise for behavioral psychologists.

I got my 15 seconds of fame--and took one helluva pounding for the privilege. At Kobe Bryant's press availability, your intrepid Newsweek correspondent, though remarkably slow afoot, somehow maneuvered into a prime position right right behind the superstar and directly in front of the cameras.

But if American media has a reputation for being somewhat rude, we're wimps compared to the foreign press with its willingness to push, shove, trip and do whatever it takes to get cameras/telephones/tape recorders near their target--in this case the Los Angeles Lakers superstar.The result was a beating, the likes of which I haven't experienced since I was a 16-year-old at a one-day basketball camp and the man covering me in a pickup game was the Boston Celtics's power forward Jim Loscutoff, a man who earned his nickname "Jungle Jim" every time out.

Bryant described his Olympic experience as "a kid in a candy store," adding, "I love everything." But when pressed on whether "everything" included the scrum crashing around him, he conceded, "This I could do without. I guess it's a necessary evil." It quickly got even eviler as local volunteers stripped off their shirts, begging Kobe to autograph them and even some reporters joined in, shoving their notebooks and other paraphernalia forward trying to cadge a Kobe souvenir.

Amid the hysteria surrounding him, Kobe did actually get a chance to talk--about both basketball and human rights in China. He passed rather than shoot on the latter, insisting that it was the domain of President Bush who had arrived in Beijing a few hours earlier. "We stay in our lane," he said. "You want to talk about screen and roll or alley-oops, we answer that. I don't think President Bush is skilled to answer that." The famous duo, the president and Kobe, may cross paths at the team's opening game Sunday night against China. Bryant said that when he heard the president would be cheering the team on, he thought, "Damn! Pretty cool."

The foreign press has dubbed the U.S. squad not the "Dream Team," but the "Redeem Team" after a bronze at the Athens Olympics and third and sixth-place finishes at the last two world championships. And Bryant was appropriately respectful of the opposition in explaining the unexpected turn in American basketball fortunes. "Other countries have all-stars too," he said, " and they've been playing better basketball than us." When the Chinese clamored to hear what he expected from Yao Ming, he said, "Same thing that happens when we face him in the NBA--20 points, 20 rebounds and he'll be a handful."

While Bryant said he didn't believe the Americans deserved to be favored over teams like Argentina, the last Olympic old medalist, Spain, the last world champion and Greece, the team that beat the U.S. in the semis of the 2007 worlds, he left little doubt that he was confident that redemption would be theirs. "We're certainly expecting to win the gold. That's the goal. That's why we're here." Asked what would happen if the team were to lose again, he said, "If we want to return U.S. citizens, we've got to win gold. Then Bryant, who spent part of his childhood in Italy, added that anything less than a gold medal and "I'll be Italian. You'll call me Kobe Giovanni."

Bryant insisted there was no great secret as to what it would take to make this and his teammates' Olympic dream come true: "Defense and rebounding. No matter whether you're playing in Beijing, at home in the NBA or on Mars, defense and rebounding wins games."

(P.S. I'm the guy standing right behind Kobe. And it's safe to look because I kept my shirt on.)