Incredible ceremony hailed locally

DOZENS of expatriates hailed the spectacular opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games at Ryan’s Bar on the street behind Jusco in Wanzaisha on Friday night while thousands of people gathered on Bar Street in Gongbei, for bigger-screen viewing of the event Friday night.
Decorated with small red Chinese national flags and white Olympic flags and equipped with a TV set and a video projector screen, the bar effused a festive atmosphere. Holding beers and cocktails with eyes focusing on the screens, people from Australia, England, Ireland, Canada, America, and other countries and territories were expecting the wonderful moments when the countdown for the opening ceremony began just before 8pm. Applauses could be heard at the dazzling moments unfolding the 5,000 Chinese history.
Bar owner Ryan Fedoruk in a red T-shirt felt lucky that he got his visa that day and rushed back to the bar in the afternoon. “I hope, I hope that everybody will not have any more negative comments about China,” he said emotionally.
Ryan showed understanding to the country he lives in. China is a big country, he said, noting it has the most comprehensive situations in the world and Chinese people have to work things out themselves. He regretted that some foreigners criticized China for allegedly misdoing this or that. “It’s bad,” he said.
To celebrate the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, Ryan’s Bar provided a red cocktail for customers in red that night. However, only a few people were red clothing. Talking about his expectations for the Olympic Games, Ryan hoped that everyone, China and his home country Australia, would win a lot of medals.
David Ormrod, an Englishman having worked at Wolverine Sourcing Inc for four years in Zhuhai, call the Beijing Olympics wonderful. He has kept eye on how the Chinese government organized everything concerning the Olympics and responded to the world. “I think China has done a wonderful job in preparation,” he said, adding, “I hope it will be a huge success and I think it will be.” In the meantime, he said he hoped Britain would win some medals.
David still remembers when China was awarded the Olympic Games eight years ago when he was in a hotel in Zhuhai. “Everybody in the hotel was laughing and cheering. We were very happy,” he said.
Sean Moran, an Irishman and headmaster of Global IELTS School, said he hoped his Cuban cousin, Fidel Lopez, would get a Gold Medal on the first day. He also made a series of good wishes, saying: “I hope it’s a very good ceremony, and I hope it goes smoothly with no terrorist interruption. I hope Ireland will get a Gold Medal, and I hope Cuba get one more medal -- my cousin in the boxing. I hope everybody will know China very well. I hope the Irish ‘caravan guy’ will get a Gold Medal.”
Marian Lenehan, a former Irish nurse who now teaches English at a local language school, had once applied to be an Olympics volunteer in Beijing but failed. She smiled that she is too old for the young China. She felt excited though when she was in Beijing a few years ago, seeing the capital’s preparations for the Game. Her son, a teacher at United International College (UIC) in Jinding Town, also came to the bar wearing an “I love China” T-shirt.
As the opening ceremony kicked off with splendid fireworks, everyone in the bar waved and cheered. As the performance went on, Chinese guests explained to foreigners that the “painting scroll” showed the origin and development of China’s history and culture, which in the ceremony served as the performances stage.
Several cultural icons in China’s historical advancement appeared on the scroll, including porcelain potteries and bronze vessels. Performers used unique body language to tell the charm of Chinese ink and wash painting in black-and-white.
Chinese characters are among the oldest script in the world and represent the time-honoured history of Chinese civilization. A movable-type printing performance showed the four other great inventions after papermaking and images of both ancient and modern fonts of the Chinese “he” character, which means harmony. All three character representations showed not only the evolution of Chinese characters, but also the Confucian idea of humanism, which is, “Harmony is precious.” All performers had trained more than 10 months and each had a unique movement sequence, which can be accomplished only with a good memory and diligent practice, according to the explication on TV.
Hearing the commentaries, Marian and her friends nodded with praises. Mark Lee, an educator from Portsmouth, the United Kingdom, agreed that the performances were incredibly marvelous. He said that Chinese people are doing these for pride and doubted if London could get as much passionate performers when the 2012 Olympic Games started.
Exclamations like “Wow” and “Look at that” came when performers reproduced Zheng He’s seven voyages to the West 600 years ago in the Ming Dynasty. Zheng He admiraled fleets with 27,000 people on board on voyages starting from Quanzhou of China and arrived in Western Asia and Eastern Africa, thus creating the “Maritime Silk Route.”
A performer held an ancient compass in his hand to demonstrate the third of the four great inventions of ancient China, which had contributed greatly to China’s ancient expeditions to the rest of the world.
The theme song “You and Me” was sung by famous Brit Sarah Brightman and Chinese Liu Huan atop the Globe. Two thousand and eight students holding umbrella each with a smiling face and entering the field were all volunteers. The 2008 smiling faces from throughout the world were collected by the Beijing Organizing Committee of Olympic Games (BOCOG) over the span of a year.
Scottish bagpipers and orchestras from five continents played melodies with performers representing 56 Chinese ethnic groups dancing joyously to greet all the athletes. Expatriates complained about the annoying commercials while watching the ceremony, worrying they might miss their home country’s parade of athletes.
Marcus James Hurley saluted with his pals to his home team when Australian athletes entered the stadium and cheered with his Chinese wife and the others when the Chinese team paraded in.
Marcus said China did a great job at the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, and as far as he saw, he thought China organized better performances than Australia did.
The commercial cuts during the performances caused a one-hour delay from the live broadcast. However, viewers were enlivened again when world-famous former Chinese gymnast Li Ning, dubbed King of Gymnastics, lit the Olympic Torch in the wee hours of Saturday, the first day of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
“We’ve looked forward to the Olympic Games for a long time, and we’re proud that we have succeeded in unfolding a great picture of thousands of years of Chinese history and culture to the rest of the world,” a young man surnamed Li said in excitement after watching the opening ceremony on Bar Street. “It’s like what a great nation should do. We’re proud of China!” he exclaimed.