I think this is my first time ever to watch an Olympics opening ceremony from start to finish. Not that I forced myself to finish it. The performances just had me in awe and mesmerized. So beautifully choreographed. So intelligently birthed. So intriguingly exciting that it kept me glued to my sofa. Don't even dare move to go to the loo.The performances highlighted the history of China and its great inventions. Paper. Paint. Cop mohor (what's that in English? Haha. Tak tau...). Peking Opera. Silk Road. Taichi. For every moment I was watching the event live on TV, I remember thinking and feeling proud to be a Chinese and proud that my forefathers were from China.
My Best Moments
The percussion drum performance. This was a brilliant idea. And I mean brilliant. Period. Whoever came up with this idea deserve the award for originality. I mean, how on earth do you use 2008 drummers to do a countdown that looks like digitally programmed and animated??? It's just way, wayyyy, wayyyyyyyyy too cool.The Chinese singing their national anthem. You could actually feel the pride and patriotism of the people towards their country in spite of any misunderstanding and differences. No vibrations. No falsettos. No R&B turns in the song like what you always see the American singers do. Just the simple melody of the anthem. Each word sung passionately.
When the people underneath the boxes with Chinese characters (resembling a signature chop they use back in those days) opened the cover and waved crazily at the crowd. It is so hard to believe that these boxes were maneuvered by humans by hard practice, because it looked so mechanically programmed. Haha. Now I know that anything is definitely possible when you have the Chinese kiasu-ism.The lighting of the Olympic torch. We've seen its lighting with lighted-arrow in 1992 Barcelona. But whoa, who had expected suspension high up on the roof top with the Chinese great gymnast running the last lap in the stadium's roof??? So cool. I have never seen so bleak originality and individuality in a single event in my life.
Those were the best moments for me. Another thing I found intriguing was the marching in of the delegates from 200 over countries. This is the most boring segment. But I think this time, people were kept curious and more interested (not that it was sooooo interesting either) because for the first time in the history of Olympics they are marching in order of the Chinese alphabet. God knows how it works. I think it probably go by the number of strokes in the first word. Don't know if the letter of its pinyin actually plays a part.
