Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Let The Pageantry Begin!

My favorite Beijing Olympic opening moments, aside from all the fireworks of course? In no particular order:

• The drummers with their lighted drums in the countdown;
• The human printing press pegs;
• The bulb-clad men in white who formed the small bird’s nest;
• The men holding up the gigantic oars that formed a painting and mimicked fan-like movements;
• The revealing of the huge Olympic torch on top of the Bird’s Nest;
• The lighting of the torch; it was a very Chinese martial arts movie moment.

It was clear that the producers had a simple mandate: do not use the same Chinese citizen twice. At least each person will need to memorize the steps to only one production number. Given China’s billions of citizens, I wonder if the participants to the Olympic opening was just a tenth of the whole Chinese population. (And if so, I wonder if it’s the gay population—just a random thought.)

6 comments:

ArchieMD said...

I think the opening ceremony of the 29th olympiad was very simple yet artistic and modern. They used alot of fireworks indeed. My favorite were the 28 foorprints and the Smileys. It was truly a showcase of China's culture and contribution to the world. But where are the dance of the dragons and lions? In terms of the lighting of the cauldron, this Olympiad's would still rank second to that of Sydney.

Anonymous said...

I liked the firework footsteps "walking" from Tianamen Square to the Bird's Nest as well.

Panalo talaga!

Regarding your comment about the gay population performing the synchronized movements, we were also wondering about the same thing, haha.

Sabi namin, bawal magkamali ang kahit isa. The Chinese government is watching and kapag may isang nagkamali sa timing, lagot siya. Kaya ang saya saya nila everytime matatapos ang isang number.

Anonymous said...

Hi McVie,

Please read this. This is not funny at all. How dare him publish this in his blog

http://www.bryanboy.com/bryanboy_le_superstar_fab/2008/08/lost-in-translation.html#more

Thanks

Dats said...

I LOVED IT!!! the best show on TV so far!!!!

PikaBucks said...

hahaha not even a tenth of the population i think...

Joaqui said...

Great show indeed! The fireworks display was overwhelming! :)