STO: Best show ever

Hopefully you guys all got to see the Opening Ceremonies - I defy you to bring up a better performance of any kind witnessed by human eyes. It was part Cirque du Soleil, part DisneyWorld, part fireworks extravaganza, part mass demonstrate and part cinematic brilliance. And we barely found a place to view it. I may never know where we should have seen it, but some of the outdoor theaters that had been set up were closed without notice and most of the good bars were full. Crystal and I, trying to meet up with other Georgetowners, eventually made it to an abandoned bar/restaurant called Sangria club which had just 1 table of 4 Chinese nationals. It wasn't the ideal setting but it had its perks and we loved it.

The first hour or so of the Ceremonies were the best and absolutely spectacular. Several moments drew forceful and voluble gasps as we, and the entire stadium audience, were taken in by totally surprising perfection. The first example would be the opening firework that just shot into the stadium, and we joked about unintended casualties. Then the whole lit drum thing blew our minds. The show quite aptly represented Chinese culture and performance, and the mass of drums beating in coordination showed the great Chinese manpower and unity. If you haven't seen it, there was a rectangular mass of square drums, probably at least 800 of them (EDIT: there were 2008), each complete with a Chinese drummer of almost the exact same height and haircut. When the drummers beat the drum, it would light up, and the drummers would make images for the bird's eye view. When they began the countdown, the bar boiled over with sheer adrenaline. At first we had no idea what was going on, then we saw a 60 materialize. Then a 50. When they hit 10, they added the Chinese characters and counted down by 1 and you can hear the stadium go nuts and chant the Chinese numbers as it counted down. 十，九，八，七，六，五，四，三，二，一 and then FIREWORKS! The whole city exploded in fireworks down the median, through Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City and ended in an absolute conflagration over the Bird's Nest.

The other huge scream of shock was when they laid a set of sparkling Olympic Rings on the ground. While a bunch of people on wires hovered over the Rings, they suddenly started floating upwards and we went nuts. Then the Globe where people were running sidewalks along it was sensational, and the theme song was performed on top of it. Sarah Brightman apparently did sing in Chinese, but the effect was modest as we could barely tell. The little girl singer probably stole the show - she was indescribably adorable and seemingly showed not the slightest apprehension about singing in front of 91,000 live and 4 billion on TV. The following cultural show, including the character tiles and the dragonboat display, were meant to depict China's 5000 years of history. Although most of it flew by me, several of the people I was with had studied Chinese history and understood many of the references. They described the evolution of the Chinese character, using 和 which means so much more than "and," the beginning of trade, the silk road, the Great Wall and Confucius, to name a few. The show accurately and artistically demonstrated the essence of China in an authentic manner far differently than the commercialized depictions we often see in the West. It was Zhang Yimou making his country proud.

The countries' entrances was longer than ever, easily over an hour, but it was worth it just for the American entrance. Other countries had appropriate responses as well as the various students I was sitting with, nearly all American, had their own ancestries. Poland, Italy and Germany all got respective cheers, and I went particularly active during Hong Kong's entrance. For some reason when Ireland came in, we all finished our beers. I first spotted the US flag in the background and started going ballistic. We all instantly stood up on our chairs and took a shot of vodka and then proceeded to chant USA, USA, USA, a chant that may be stuck in my head for the next 2 weeks. While the sailor outfits didn't really do it for me, it was fantastic seeing Phelps, Kobe, Tyson Gay et alia come in the stadium, really proving that we are all in the same city. A rendition of the Star Spangled Anthem ensued, and then for some reason we snuck in a few Hoya Saxa chants (7 Hoyas were present at Sangria Club, amidst many other annoyed students of other less international universities). After the gigantic American entourage went through, we mulled around until the Chinese team entered. Finally Yao Ming stepped out holding the red Chinese flag and the place erupted again. In addition to the bartenders and 服务员 and the other Chinese people in the bar, we probably went more nuts to China's entrance than we had to the USA's. I don't know why but something about living here has given us all some loyalty to this country. Either way, everyone screamed 中国加油 for at least 5 minutes straight and that chant is probably still echoing in the Bird's Nest. The Chinese delegation was even bigger (cause they automatically get contestants in every event) and fucking delirious. You could tell how happy they all were to be there, parading in the capital of their country, the largest in the world.

There was an infuriatingly long time of inactivity between China's entrance and the lighting of the torch, but the torch lighting exceeded even our inflated expectations. As I correctly predicted, Li Ning was the final torch bearer - it's as if I'm good at sports predictions or something. I couldn't foresee though that he would be raised to a height of 15 stories and fly a lap around the stadium, before setting that gigantic torch ablaze. London - good luck.

A final word on torchbearers - basketball players were disproportionately represented, which goes to show how popular that sport is. In fact, basketball is the only global Olympic sport where all the well known superstars participate in, since the other other global sport, soccer, is essentially a U-23 tournament. Someone could argue tennis belongs in that conversation, but even tennis players don't care about the Olympics because it's not much different from any major except that it rewards no prize money. I think it was great that Manu Ginobili carried the Argentine torch - he carried that squad to gold in Athens - but I was surprised that Nowitzki carried the German one (there have to be some defending German gold medalists) or that Yao carried the Chinese one. I know Yao is clearly the biggest Chinese superstar, but I had heard it would carried by Liu Xiang and Guo Jingjing, who have actually won, and can win again, gold. It was cool to see Yao carry it though. The Americans were represented by Lopez Lomong - I was among few who actually knew who he was. I actually heard his story first on NPR, about his escape from Sudan and scholarship to Northern Arizona. I then saw him run in the NCAAs where he won the 1500 in a spectacular kick. I swear this guy absolutely flies - while he's a distance runner, his pure speed and strength is definitely not distance-like, and I bet he can run a sub 47 400 meter dash. His 800 pr is 1:45.79 and 1500 pr 3:37, so I don't know if he can realistically medal. While one theme of these Olympics have been to separate sports and politics, Lomong's nomination as flag bearer was CLEARLY political. A Lost Boy of Sudan and member of Team Darfur, his amazing story will undoubtedly bring resentment to China's pro-Sudan policies. I think I saw Hu Jintao cringe when the American team came in.

Btw, Bush was badly booed.