Silly Little Country

Olympic Opening Ceremonies Follow-Up

It has been entertaining watching the step-by-step revelations of the various fakeries involved in the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies, from the fireworks CGI, to the singer who was too ugly to be allowed to appear, to other tricks. None of this news changes my original review.

What I have loved to discover is that my initial response was somewhat like a widespread response at home, apparently shared via the Web!

Others focused on the sheer numbers of people involved - more than 16,000 performers, mostly from People's Liberation Army song and dance troops.

"That certainly showed China's unique character," said one comment. "Namely, that we have 1.3 billion people."

I have rarely seen an opening ceremony with zero whimsy and no humour, but the Chinese pulled one off!

As Ai Weiwei (architect of the Bird's Nest, and proving that not ALL freedom of expression is lacking in China)is quoted in the fireworks link above:

Ai Weiwei called it "a recycling of the rubbish of fake classical culture tradition; a sacrilegious visual garbage dump and an insult to the spirit of liberty; low class sound play that's just noise pollution."

posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:06 PM