Two Sides to the Olympics

Even if you hadn’t watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics, by now you’ve heard how over-the-top they were. Each moment was nothing short of breath-taking and left you wondering "how did they do that?" I think everyone marveled at the enormity of the ceremony just from the sheer numbers of people it took to pull off most of these routines. If I heard correctly, no one had to perform twice, so we’re really talking a lot of people.

I conjecture that part of the appeal of the ceremony was the innate balance that unfolded----the mingling of fire and water, rigidity and flow, dark and light, children and warriors, marching soldiers and dancing calligraphers, yin and yang. Each sequence was balanced by the sequence prior and the one after. How appropriate the arena was termed the "bird’s nest" since at times a phoenix all but flew out the top, symbolic of China’s rise and re-birth.


Having studied Chinese history while recently in graduate school, I know there were periods of history when the Chinese wanted to not only forget their past, but destroy it as well----the cultural revolution being the most recent movement. But this night, they remembered----their calligraphy, their printing blocks, their tai qi. Hopefully those of us who study Feng Shui noticed a mock-up of an original compass with the spoon. They proudly claimed these aspects as part of who the Chinese are, even down to walking in the athletes based on the number of character strokes in their country names, not in alphabetical order. For the last century, the Chinese have been trying to accommodate this language disparity by romanizing their characters so those of us learning it could alphabetize and find things. Not this evening. It was done the Chinese way.

Perhaps the most important piece that fell into place was to break the idea that "made in China" means cheap and slip-shod. I pity the next city who hosts the summer Olympics—this was a first-class act and will be a hard one to follow.