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Beijing Games kicks off

By Raymond Zhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-08-09 07:19

Writing

My grandma used to say that Chinese words were created by Confucius. Of course it was not true, but this number seems to be based on this urban myth.

Artists perform during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at the National Stadium, also known as the "Bird's Nest", on August 8, 2008. [Agencies]

The Chinese character he, meaning harmony or peace, is shown to evolve from various stages of calligraphy. [Agencies]

There are 3,000 dancers clad in Confucius period costumes, supposedly playing the Sage's disciples. Carrying bamboo scrolls, one of the earliest forms of books, they intone familiar mantras from his Analects, mandatory for a Chinese education.

In the center are 897 dancers, each hidden inside a cube. They simulate the movable type, which was first invented by Bi Sheng of the Song Dynasty (969-1276AD). This invention was instrumental in the growth of human civilization.

Later, the cube matrix graduates to a computer keyboard.

The Chinese character he, meaning harmony or peace, is shown to evolve from various stages of calligraphy. The Great Wall and peach flowers are also replicated, with the help of the LED painting.

This is probably the most ingenious in the whole program. The wonder of Chinese writing and things associated with it, like calligraphy, the progress of printing, and the great thinking facilitated by it, is visualized in a splendid feat of cohesion. Even my grandma would have enjoyed it.

Opera

With the accompaniment of Peking Opera music, 900 actors and several puppets put on a show on a makeshift stage and all around it. Group actors are dressed as the famous terra-cotta soldiers.

Artists perform the traditional Pekin Opera of China during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. [Agencies]

This is said to be a last-minute replacement, and it shows. It's noisy, it's fun, but it just doesn't congeal into the framework. It simply lacks fine details.

The Silk Road

The Silk Road starts from Chang'an, now known as Xi'an, and goes all the way to Europe. It is a trade route that connects East and West Asia, central to cultural dissemination by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years. The development of the great civilizations -- of not only China, but Egypt, Persia, Arabia, India, Rome and Byzantium -- were made possible by this route.

Performers take part in the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium, August 8, 2008. [Agencies]

Zheng He's seven expeditions were, in a sense, a Silk Road on the sea. It made use of the compass, another great invention from ancient China.

This number begins with the music set for Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei's immortal lines of farewell. It is about parting, about leaving for a foreign land, for the unknown, and ultimately about the connection of cultures, and the shrinking of our world. The solo dancer is first a flying celestial nymph from the Dunhuang Grotto, an indelible image on the Silk Road, and later changes to one of Zheng He.

The real attraction, however, is the long oars, which turn sailing into a dream of formations.

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