Dazzling Spectacle Could Only Be Made In China

The Age

Saturday August 9, 2008

By Greg Baum, Beijing

FOR one unforgetable night, China ruled the world.

With four of the Earth's six billion people watching, it was never likely that the Chinese would try to win them over with folksiness, as Australia did in Sydney, or charm them with elegance, as Greece did in Athens.

Simply, China put on the greatest show on Earth, a dazzling and breathtaking $100million extravaganza that burned a metaphorical hole through the omnipresent smog and subjugated, at least for one night, the diplomatic controversies that have beset the prelude to the 29th Olympic Games.

You could say China took no prisoners.

The military imprint was powerful. China won't apologise for that; it is a huge country, with a huge population, and its huge army is an institution. About 9000 of the 14,000 performers were from the People's Liberation Army.

"We have many professional and highly qualified performers in the military," said Ning Wang, director of opening and closing ceremonies operations centre. "The aim of getting these people involved is mainly so as to improve the artistic level of the opening ceremony."

If the military's influence and affectation resonated too strongly with images of the bloody crackdown in Tibet in March, again, China will not blush.

But it was more than soldiers and soldiering, so much more. It was a feat of imagination, choreography, co-ordination, talent, training and daring - yes, daring - to match any athletic endeavour likely to be seen here over the next fortnight, and on a scale no other country could hope to achieve.

For the People's Republic, people power - never before has the expression had such meaning. But it might mean the Olympics have stolen their own show.

It has become protocol that the Olympic Games opening ceremony instructs upon, elaborates and celebrates the host country's history, and China has so much more of it than Australia, more even than Greece.

Artistic director Zhang Yimou, a world-reknowned filmmaker, told Chinese media before the show that he meant to put on display "the ancient and long history of the Chinese nation, reflect the cultural aspects of Chinese society and showcase what modern China and its people are all about".

He delivered.

The Chinese gave the world paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass and fireworks - by such devisings, empires are built - and the ceremony rejoiced in all these last night.

So, too, martial arts. One performer, 19-year-old Fan Weipeng, reportedly can use a single finger to break 99 porcelain bowls in one minute, and can support his whole body on two fingers.

"Once, we trained (for the ceremony) for 48 hours because it rained while we were training," he said. "We trained until 3am, then fell asleep in the audience seats. When we woke up, we continued. So we trained for two days and two nights." Once, 16 were injured at a single rehearsal; none sought treatment until it was finished.

There was acrobatics. There was pageantry. There was rhetoric. Some of it was the work of Confucius, some International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge.

Moving right along, there was even a little environmental evangelism, the cheekiest touch as the gritty air swirled. But at your Olympics, you can do as you please.

It has been humbling to hear how easily Chinese translaters these last two days can say "inhalable particularates" and neither stumble over a syllable, nor bat an eyelid.

Children delivered the green message, for who can argue with children?

"The sky is indeed blue," proclaimed one line in an ode to regrowth. It was wishful thinking on an Olympian scale.

The Chinese augmented artistry and imagination with science and pragmatism, as they have, on and off, for five millenia. The weather in Beijing has been unseasonably still, hence the ever thickening smog, but organisers installed a fan in each of the flagpoles last night to guarantee that there would be fluttering when fluttering was needed.

It was the least feat of magic realism on a night on which, for instance, acrobats walked upside down, apparently unsuspended, on the bottom of a giant globe hovering above the arena. I guess we do that every day in Australia.

The order of the entering teams was determined by the number of strokes in each country's name in the Chinese alphabet, relegating Australia to an unaccustomed third-last, but giving Turkey and Yemen rare starts in the top 10.

Earlier yesterday, Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates implied that these Games would be remembered chiefly for the smog.

At least until the sun rises this morning - if it is visible - judgement must be, as the acrobats were, suspended.

© 2008 The Age

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