China arrives on world stage with smashing bash to open XXIX Summer Games
BEIJING - None of the controversy surrounding China and its hosting of the Olympics could penetrate the walls of the gargantuan steel National Stadium, where Chinese celebration and pride accentuated a visually stunning ceremony to open the 29th Summer Games.
With already heavy security stepped up substantially and parts of Beijing in a virtual lockdown, attention turned to the elaborate display of pomp and pageantry inside the Bird's Nest on Friday.
That is where organizers put together an opening ceremony with a dash of history and a glimpse of things to come for this emerging superpower - a spectacle that went off with striking military precision.
Despite the political and social overtones surrounding the Games, the focus of the 91,000 spectators inside the iconic stadium remained on the athletes, where the Canadians on hand to compete received an extra warm welcome from the generally polite Chinese fans.
There was an appreciative roar from the crowd as Canada entered the stadium 63rd out 204 countries. About two-thirds of Canada's 332 athletes took part and were led by kayaker Adam van Koeverden fiercely waving the Canadian flag.
"It was amazing," said van Koeverden, a gold medal hopeful from Oakville, Ont. "I could go through every adjective I know: amazing, incredible, exciting, awesome - it still doesn't do it justice.
"The best part about it was walking along and looking up in the stands and seeing (Canadian flags). Canadians in red standing up and then Chinese in red standing up and waving Canadian flags. So many Maple Leafs, I felt like I was walking into the stadium in Toronto."
The athletes were decked out in HBC-designed parade gear: red-and-white windbreakers with Canada emblazoned in a bamboo inspired script across the front with a maple leaf on the back.
"The opening ceremonies were incredible, all the show was amazing, I didn't expect this at all," said Roseline Fillion, a synchronized diver from Montreal participating in her first Games.
"I've never seen a stadium that big, it was just crazy waving at everybody. I'll do it again if it's possible."
The athletes sang the national anthem while entering the stadium.
"The coolest part was hearing everyone in the tunnel singing O Canada," said Alison Bradley, a softball player from Pinkerton, Ont. "I had chills as I walked into the stadium."
Part of the appreciative crowd roar may have been for Canadian Mark Rowswell, better known to millions of Chinese as longtime television star Dashan, who marched with the Canadian athletes in his role as team attache.
Four Canadian field hockey players from British Columbia also wore red turbans in celebration of their Sikh faith.
"The energy was extraordinary as we walked into the stadium," said Isabelle Ramping, a synchronized swimmer from Burlington, Ont. "The dancing, the music and all the Canadian flags gave me goose bumps. I was not expecting something like this."
Canada has hopes for a top-16 finish in Beijing despite sending a young team with 230 rookies. There are 15 past Olympic medallists and those returning from the 2004 Games marched in the front two rows of the Canadian contingent.
But all eyes - an estimated four billion worldwide - were on a once-reclusive China that commandeered the world stage, celebrating its first-time role as Olympic host with a stunning display of pyrotechnics to open a Summer Games unrivalled for its mix of problems and promise.
Now ascendant as a global power, China welcomed scores of world leaders and put on a show that was depicted as the largest, costliest extravaganza in Olympic history.
To the beat of sparkling explosions, the crowd counted down the final seconds before the show began. A sea of drummers - 2,008 in all - pounded out rhythms with their hands on the fou, ancient Chinese percussion instruments. Then acrobats on wires drifted down into the stadium as rockets shot up into the night sky from its rim.
It ended in equally spectacular fashion, when China's first Olympic superstar, 1984 gymnastics triple gold medallist Li Ning, was hoisted by wires to the top of the stadium, circled the entire circumference as though he was spacewalking, then used his torch to send a torrent of flame spiralling upward to light the Olympic flame in a huge cauldron overlooking Beijing.
That was preceded by the parade of athletes, climaxing with the entry of the 639-strong Chinese team; It was led by flag-bearer and basketball idol Yao Ming alongside a nine-year-old schoolboy who survived May's devastating earthquake in Sichuan province.
The welcome - by a frenzied, chanting, flag-waving crowd that sought to cool itself with paper fans in the stifling heat - was thunderous. And moments later, the crowd erupted again when President Hu Jintao declared the Games open.
Outside the stadium, crowds mostly gathered to wait for the fireworks display. Public showings of the ceremonies were hard to find.
Wei Yin Fang, 57, said he was extremely happy about the coming of the Games. He left his house to join a crowd at a sponsored party because he wanted to celebrate with other people.
"It's motivating for the whole Chinese people," he said through a translator.
David Guscott, executive vice-president with the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC), watched from the National Stadium and applauded the Beijing organizers for outdoing themselves.
He'll oversee the opening and closing ceremonies in 2010 and admits that Vancouver will be hard pressed to outdo China.
"They have really done something we'll never see again - a big elaborate coming out party for China," said Guscott. "The performance is the perfect coming out party - an amazing performance and something Chinese people will be so proud of."
U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were among the glittering roster of notables who watched China make this bold declaration. Bush, rebuked by China after he raised human-rights concerns this week, is the first U.S. president to attend an Olympics on foreign soil.
Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson represented Canada.
Second-guessed for awarding the Games to Beijing, the International Olympic Committee stood firmly by its decision. It was time, the committee said, to bring the Games to the homeland of 1.3 billion people, a fifth of humanity.
The Games, said IOC President Jacques Rogge, "are a chance for the rest of the world to discover what China really is."
The story presented in Friday's ceremony sought to distill 5,000 years of Chinese history - featuring everything from the Great Wall to opera puppets to astronauts, and highlighting achievements in art, music and science. Roughly 15,000 people were in the cast, all under the direction of Zhang Yimou, whose early films often ran afoul of government censors for their blunt portrayals of China's problems.
He produced some majestic and ethereal imagery - at one point a huge, translucent globe emerged from the stadium floor, and acrobats floated magically around it to the accompaniment of the games' theme song, "One World, One Dream."
The show's script steered clear of modern politics - there were no references to Chairman Mao and the class struggle, nor to the more recent conflicts and controversies.
For Chinese dissidents who have dared to challenge the Communist Party's monopoly on power, the start of the Olympics meant tighter surveillance and restrictions.
"It's not my Olympic Games," said Jiang Tianyong, a human rights lawyer. "It's not the Games for the ordinary people."
By all indications, however, most Chinese have embraced the Games, buying up tickets at a record pace, volunteering by the thousands for Olympic duties, nursing expectations of triumphs by their home team.
"This is the most important time for China," said one Beijing resident who gave his family name as Tan, a 40-year-old sporting a yellow wig as he showed off a fistful of tickets for different events at the Games, including basketball, shooting and table tennis.
To their eyes, the omens were good. The ceremony began at 8 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 - auspicious in a country where eight is the luckiest number.
"It not easy to meet with such a date," said Wang Wei, secretary general of Beijing Organizing Committee. "Hopefully this lucky day will bring luck."
(Canadian Press reporter Willis Fong provided translation for some of the interviews. With files from The Associated Press.)
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