Eric's Beijing Diary

Last night, Jordan and I went to the live site at the University of Science and Technology to watch the opening ceremony. Beijing has set up 26 live sites throughout the city. The one we chose is right up the street from the East Gate of Beihang, so it is very convenient. In addition to that, though, it is situated just north of the Bird's Nest, so when we saw fireworks on the screen, we could see the lights from the same fireworks in the background.

Zhang Yimou did a good job presenting China as China. That really stood out. In the past, so much about China was not really China. Several years ago, I attended a banquet in the Great Hall of the People. I felt like I was in Moscow. I have been told that my own university (Beihang) was patterned after Moscow University. I didn't know that when I came here, but I do remember thinking how Russian it looked.

But the opening exercises definitely looked Chinese. For that, I do think the producers of this presentation deserve credit. It was also quite artistic. I did think it was a little too long, but I suppose it is hard, once you have a bunch of material put together, to decide what gets cut.

During the parade of the athletes, I heard several students groan when the Japanese were introduced. Young people in China are programmed from childhood to hate the Japanese. But the Japanese were clever. Each Japanese athlete had two small flags, one for Japan and one for China, and they carried them together in one hand. That did the trick.