Aoyunhui Kaishi!

08.08.2008 08:00 pm

Welcome to the start of the greatly anticipated 2008 Beijing Olympics!

After seven years of anticipation...finally the opening ceremony.

As students who only recently decided to study in Beijing, we obviously did not have tickets to the opening ceremony.  Nonetheless we still wanted to experience Beijing's excitement.  Although we originally wanted to head to the Bird's Nest and watch from the big screens, we found out -- to our disappointment! -- that you ALSO need tickets to see from the outside!

Instead we went to Wangfujing Street, Beijing's famous walking street.

People came gathered early to get a good view of the opening.  By the start of the ceremony, there were thousands of people crowding the streets to get a good glimpse of the big screen.  Strangely enough, in such a central area...there was no sound on the TV!  Eventually the sound was turned on a little bit, but unless you were listening carefully it was barely audible.

Meiguo Jiayou!

After a good deal of waiting around and walking about...we were in the crowd and the countdown began...

WU...SI...SAN...ER...YI...!!

Also despite what everyone is saying (even in news articles I've read), it started at 8PM, not 8:08PM.  Of course everyone was cheering and celebrating when the moment finally came!  It felt a little like New Year's Eve, especially with the countdown.

The opening ceremony was really amazing.  China did a fantastic job.  I've heard that 100,000 people performed!  Clearly a resource China can provide...

The fireworks looked absolutely amazing.  We were only able to see the fireworks duing one portion when they went thorugh the streets of China and passed us by on Wangfujing Street.

To my greatest surprise...shortly into the show...I heard massive chanting of a different sort.  Not "Zhongguo Jiayou!" (go China!), but "Zuo xia! Zuo xia!" over and over again...  "Sit down, sit down..."  Who sits down at a public celebration/sporting event like this!?!?!

The crowd was ridiculously aggressive/loud about this issue.  We ended up having to sit down.  Imagine thousands of people squished together standing.  Now try to have them all sit down...there was physically not enough space...not at all comfortable...


That didn't last too long thankfully -- people were standing up soon enough and gradually more and more people did as well.

The ceremony lasted over four hours!  A great deal of standing around.

Some things I found noteworthy:
1) I was the only person that I could hear cheering for Japan (I stopped that after about two seconds when everyone stared and glared).  This was immediately followed by booing.  When the crowd saw the Japanese athletes holding Japanese AND Chinese flags they started yelling "Zhongguo Jiayou, Zhongguo Jiayou."  The chanting/yelling was not this loud again until China came out...
2) The booing with South Korea was FAR worse than with Japan (to my great surprise).  Apparently this was because one TV station posted a video of the Opening Ceremony practicing.  They were clearly very angry.
3) Lots of loud cheering for the world's most random countries.  Usually maybe one person from that country would cheer and the Chinese would join in.  Or they would cheer if someone was wearing really cool looking clothes.
4) Not much excitement for Meiguo (USA).  We were cheering and screaming but the Chinese instead cheered for China again instead.

Great cheering for the Chinese leaders, of course.

And when Yao Ming / China came out at last the cheering was insane.

Imagine thousands of Chinese clapping and screaming and shouting "Zhong guo jia you! Zhong guo jia you!" at the top of their lungs over and over.  Very energetic!

Watching the opening ceremony here in China was lots of fun.  It was an incredible opening ceremony...especially the lighting of the torch...and will be insanely difficult to beat.

I am definitely very excited for the rest of the Olympics season.  Especially for the events where I have tickets: handball semi-final and track finals.