Count

8/09/2008

Olympic Ceremony


Wow. I watched the opening ceremonies of Atlanta (I covered it as a reporter!), Sydney, Athens, and now Beijing. The Beijing one tops them all by far, and, frankly, may never be topped given how expensive it is rumored to be (USD $40B!? Really!? Sometimes you just have to laugh at the media...) and how little economic benefit there is from hosting the Olympics (all rent extracted, low overall long term returns).

Anyway, what a spectacular way to start! Also, huge huge huge props to Zhang Yimou, architect of the ceremonies, whom I dismissed as one who can handle the big scene and big screen. My bad. You did well. Pad on the back. You make me proud to be Chinese.

On to the games... (Two golds so far for China, plus a bronze for Tai... um... Chinese Taipei)

2 comments:

shmoo said...

It's kind of sad that Chinese Taipei (how about Formosa?) can't call themselves their own name or even use their flag. They got a lot of cheers though. More than Hong Kong I think.

Speaking of, I was surprised HK had its own team, but I guess places like Puerto Rico and Bermuda do too.

Justin said...

What about Macau? Can't they do the Poker or Mahjong events?