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2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony
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The 2008 Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

 opening ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium
Beijing National Stadium
Beijing National Stadium, also known officially as the National Stadium, or colloquially as the Bird's Nest , is a stadium in Beijing, China. The stadium was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.-History:...

, also known as the Bird's Nest. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8
UTC+8
UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. In ISO 8601 the associated time would be written as .With an estimated population of 1.53 billion living within the time zone, roughly 22.5% of the world population, it is the most populous time zone in world, as well as a possible...

) on August 8, 2008, as 8 is considered to be a lucky number. The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture. The stadium was full to its 91,000 capacity according to organizers.

The ceremony was directed by Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 filmmaker Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum....

, who was the chief director and was assisted by Chinese choreographers Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang is an internationally acclaimed Chinese choreographer and a Lieutenant General in the People's Liberation Army. He was the former director of the Song and Dance Ensemble with the People's Liberation Army before promotion in 2006...

 and Chen Weiya. The director of music for the ceremony was composer Chen Qigang. It was noted for its focus on ancient Chinese culture, and for its creativity, as well as being the first to use weather modification
Weather control
Weather control is the act of manipulating or altering certain aspects of the environment to produce desirable changes in weather. Weather control can have the goal of preventing damaging weather, such as hurricanes or tornadoes, from occurring; of causing beneficial weather, such as rainfall in...

 technology to prevent rainfall. The final ascent to the torch featured Olympic gymnast Li Ning
Li Ning
Li Ning is a well-known Chinese gymnast and entrepreneur. He was born in an ethnic Zhuang family.-Gymnastics career:...

, who appeared to run through air around the membrane of the stadium. Featuring more than 15,000 performers, the ceremony lasted over four hours and was reported to have cost over US$100 million to produce. The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and various international presses as spectacular and spellbinding and by many accounts "the greatest ever".

Attending heads of state

More than 100 heads of state, heads of government and sovereigns attended the opening ceremony. The number of heads of state who attended the opening ceremony was by far the largest in Olympic history.

Sequence of events

Welcoming ceremony

The opening ceremony proper began with a contemporary drum sequence by 2,008 Fou
Fou
The fou is an ancient Chinese percussion instrument consisting of a pottery or bronzeware crock, jar, pot, or similar vessel, which was struck with a stick. Its origin dates back to the Xia or Shang dynasties, where it was used in ritual music...

 drummers. The LED-embedded Fou
Fou
The fou is an ancient Chinese percussion instrument consisting of a pottery or bronzeware crock, jar, pot, or similar vessel, which was struck with a stick. Its origin dates back to the Xia or Shang dynasties, where it was used in ritual music...

 drums and their glowing drumsticks were lit up by the drummers. In formation, the drummers lit their drums to form giant digits (in both Arabic
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...

 and Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. Today speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems:the ubiquitous Arabic numerals and two indigenous systems....

) to countdown the final seconds to the Games and herald the start of the opening time of 8:08 p.m. local time, in continuation of the 8/08/08 opening date.

A trail of 29 fireworks, another of the great Chinese inventions of China, in the shape of footprints were let off marching along Beijing city's central axis into the national stadium. The firework footprints were set off at the rate of 1 every second, each represented one of the 29 Olympiads, signifying the Beijing Olympics as the XXIX Olympiad of the modern era.

Next, twenty "fairies" (Buddhist apsaras of the Mogao Caves
Mogao Caves
The Mogao Caves or Mogao Grottoes , also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas , form a system of 492 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China...

) were suspended in midair as they hovered near giant Olympic rings which seemed to float in the stadium, each holding 45,000 beads. The Olympics rings were then lifted up high vertically to show the complete Olympics emblem.
Attention was then turned to 56 young children representing the 56 ethnic groups of modern China. Each was Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

, but donned an ethnic costume. They marched in the flag of the People's Republic of China
Flag of the People's Republic of China
The flag of the People's Republic of China is a red field charged in the canton with five golden stars. The design features one large star, with four smaller stars in a semicircle set off towards the fly...

 as a young girl in red, 9-year-old Lin Miaoke (林妙可), was seen performing Ode to the Motherland while listeners heard the voice of Yang Peiyi
Yang Peiyi
Yang Peiyi is a Chinese child singer. She is well known for her performance of China's anthem, Ode to the Motherland , which she sang behind the scenes of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on August 8, 2008.-Biography:...

 (楊沛宜), a seven-year-old. Only one-third of Ode to the Motherland was sung to save time.
The flag of the People's Republic of China was then handed over to eight well-dressed People's Liberation Army
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...

 soldiers who carried the flag in a slow, goose-stepping march over to the flag podium and the Chinese national anthem March of the Volunteers
March of the Volunteers
March of the Volunteers is the national anthem of the People's Republic of China , written by the noted poet and playwright Tian Han with music composed by Nie Er. This composition is a musical march...

 was sung by a 224-member choir while the flag was raised.

Artistic section

At the prelude to the section, Beautiful Olympics, a short film was screened depicting the making of paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, another of the Four Great Inventions, ending with a rolled up scroll painting to set the stage for the next segment. Ceramics
Ceramic art
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...

, porcelain vessels and other Chinese fine art
Chinese art
Chinese art is visual art that, whether ancient or modern, originated in or is practiced in China or by Chinese artists or performers. Early so-called "stone age art" dates back to 10,000 BC, mostly consisting of simple pottery and sculptures. This early period was followed by a series of art...

s artifacts were beamed on a giant LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....

 scroll
Scroll
A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper, which has been drawn or written upon.Scroll may also refer to:*Scroll , the decoratively curved end of the pegbox of string instruments such as violins...

, representing the first of the Four Great Inventions of China, paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, and displaying animated graphics, slowly unfurling. At its center was a piece of white canvas paper, which then ushered in a performance of black-costumed dancers whose hands hid brushes that had been dipped in ink. They performed a dance while leaving their trails on the block of white paper, reminiscent of Chinese ink and wash art
Ink and wash painting
Ink and wash painting is an East Asian type of brush painting also known as ink wash painting. Only black ink — the same as used in East Asian calligraphy — is used, in various concentrations....

. This was accompanied by the sounds of the guqin
Guqin
The guqin is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family...

, China's ancient 7-string zither, as played by Chen Leiji (陳雷激). The LED scroll then showed an old, rare painting by Wang Ximeng
Wang Ximeng
Wang Ximeng was a Chinese painter during the Song Dynasty. A prodigy, Wang was one of the most renowned court painters of the Northern Song period, and was taught personally by Emperor Huizong of Song himself...

.

The giant scroll was then moved aside to show a fluid array of 897 movable type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

 blocks that formed three variations of the character 和 (harmony), representing the third great Chinese invention: the movable type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....

 press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

. The character was shown, consecutively, in Bronze inscription, Seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...

 and Kai Script
Regular script
Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 , 楷体 and 正書 , is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is the newest of the Chinese script styles Regular script , also called 正楷 , 真書 (zhēnshū), 楷体 (kǎitǐ) and 正書 (zhèngshū), is...

 (Modern Chinese Script). 810 Zhou
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...

-era performers representing the 3000 Disciples of Confucius, carrying bamboo slips
Bamboo and wooden slips (writing material)
Bamboo and wooden slips were one of the main media for literacy in early China. The long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo typically carry a single column of brush-written text each, with space for several tens of Chinese characters. For longer texts, many slips may be bound together in sequence...

, recited excerpts from the Analects: "Isn't it great to have friends coming from afar?" and "All men are brothers within the four seas." The blocks changed into a small version of the Great Wall, which then sprouted plum blossoms, the Chinese symbol for openness. At the end of the sequence the tops of the movable type blocks came off to reveal 897 performers, who waved vigorously to the crowds, indicating that the individual pieces of type block were not computer controlled and synchronized, but rather the combined efforts of 897 perfectly in sync performers.
The next segment saw ancient terracotta soldiers and Chinese opera
Chinese opera
Chinese opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back as far as the third century CE...

, followed by a Beijing opera
Beijing opera
Peking opera or Beijing opera is a form of traditional Chinese theatre which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century. The form was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court...

 puppetry performance. The Wusheng type of Beijing opera performers was also enacted.
Next, a female dancer dressed in Tang
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

-era clothing entered, suspended by a rectangular extension held by hundreds of performers. On the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road
Silk Road
The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...

. This was followed by a procession of men, in blue costumes, who with huge oars formed formations of junks
Junk (ship)
A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages...

, symbolizing the expeditions of Zheng He
Zheng He
Zheng He , also known as Ma Sanbao and Hajji Mahmud Shamsuddin was a Hui-Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa, collectively referred to as the Voyages of Zheng He or Voyages of Cheng Ho from...

. A performer holding another great Chinese invention, the compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...

, in its ancient form a metal spoon floating in a fluid suspensible vessel, danced in the center of the giant LED scroll that showed images of sailing junks
Junk (ship)
A junk is an ancient Chinese sailing vessel design still in use today. Junks were developed during the Han Dynasty and were used as sea-going vessels as early as the 2nd century AD. They evolved in the later dynasties, and were used throughout Asia for extensive ocean voyages...

 and maps of Zheng He's seven voyages.
The next segment featured Kunqu
Kunqu
Kunqu , also known as Kunju , Kun opera or Kunqu Opera, is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. It evolved from the Kunshan melody, and dominated Chinese theatre from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The style originated in the Wu cultural area...

, one of the oldest extant Chinese opera
Chinese opera
Chinese opera is a popular form of drama and musical theatre in China with roots going back as far as the third century CE...

s, with two opera artists, a man singing and a woman accompanying on a guzheng
Guzheng
The guzheng or "gu zheng", also called zheng is a Chinese plucked zither. It has 18-23 or more strings and movable bridges....

. Another male performer then painted on the scroll painting with a Chinese brush in front of several guzheng players. The giant LED scroll expanded and showed several beautiful classic paintings in succession. At this point, two rows of huge royal dragon pillars called huabiao (华表) emerged and stretched skyward, with the performers dancing to the ancient tune Chūnjiāng Huā Yuèyè (春江花月夜), as pink and orange fireworks were set off overhead.

Then followed the modern segment where pianist Lang Lang
Lang Lang (pianist)
Lang Lang , born June 14, 1982, in Shenyang, Liaoning, China, is a Chinese concert pianist, currently residing in New York, who has performed with leading orchestras in Europe, the United States and his native China. He is increasingly well known around the world for his concert performances,...

 and five-year-old Li Muzi performed a melody from the Yellow River Cantata
Yellow River Cantata
The Yellow River Cantata is a cantata by Chinese composer Xian Xinghai . Composed in Yan'an in early 1939 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the work was inspired by a patriotic poem by Guang Weiran, which was also adapted as the lyrics...

. Around the pianists a sea of rainbow-coloured luminescent performers swayed in wave-like unison to suggest the flow of the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

. The illuminated performers, symbolizing modern-day China, then arranged themselves in the shape of the Dove of Peace, which wings were then set into motion as the performers moved about. They formed the bird's nest shape of the Beijing National Stadium
Beijing National Stadium
Beijing National Stadium, also known officially as the National Stadium, or colloquially as the Bird's Nest , is a stadium in Beijing, China. The stadium was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.-History:...

. When a young girl flew a kite
Kite
A kite is a tethered aircraft. The necessary lift that makes the kite wing fly is generated when air flows over and under the kite's wing, producing low pressure above the wing and high pressure below it. This deflection also generates horizontal drag along the direction of the wind...

 - also a Chinese invention - above them in mid-air, the performers lights flickered in an intricate pattern.

A Tàijíquán performance by 2,008 masters showed the fluid movements achieved when in harmony with nature. They demonstrated martial arts while combining to form geometric mass human formations. A skit was shown with schoolchildren drawing and coloring on the paper scroll and chanting poetry. These were the same children representing the 56 ethnic groups of China. They symbolized a Green Olympics (to protect the world). As their sequence drew to an end, the giant white paper was lifted vertically to reveal a drawing of mountains and waters with a smiling face as the sun. Then, there was a light presentation showing brightly-coloured flying birds, symbolizing the rebirth of the phoenix
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....

 and the bird-nest stadium itself.
The next segment was a celestial show and the arrival of astronauts symbolizing Chinese space exploration
Chinese space program
The space program of the People's Republic of China is directed by the China National Space Administration . Its technological roots can be traced back to the late 1950s, when the People's Republic began a rudimentary ballistic missile program in response to perceived American threats...

, with a gigantic, 60-foot, 16-tonned ball structure representing the earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

. 58 acrobats tumbled rightside up, sideways or upside down on its surface, which was then transformed into a giant glowing Chinese lantern
Paper lantern
Paper lanterns come in various shapes and sizes, as well as various methods of construction. In their simplest form, they are simply a paper bag with a candle placed inside, although more complicated lanterns consist of a collapsible bamboo or metal frame of hoops covered with tough paper.-In Asian...

.

The Chinese singer Liu Huan
Liu Huan
Liu Huan is a Chinese Mandopop singer and songwriter.-Biography:Liu graduated from Yaohua High School in Tianjin in 1981. Four years later, he graduated from the University of International Relations in Beijing, majoring in French...

 and British singer Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...

, stood on the central platform, sang the 2008 Olympic theme song: You and Me
You and Me (Olympic theme song)
You and Me is the theme song for the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, People's Republic of China, which was performed in the opening ceremony of the Olympics by Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman...

.

2,008 performers then held out parasols with smiling faces of young children. This was followed by red and orange fireworks in the form of smiley faces. The representatives from the 56 ethnic groups danced a vigorous folk dance.

Parade of nations

The athletes taking part in the 29th Olympiad parade of nations marched out to the centre of the Stadium.

In accordance with Olympic tradition, the national team of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, which hosted the last Summer Olympics
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...

, in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, entered first, in honor of Greece's status as the birthplace of the Olympics; while the host country came last. Greece entering first and China entering last symbolized the two most recent Summer Olympics host nations.

Traditionally nations are ordered in alphabetic order of the national language of the host country (or if there's more than one, the more dominant of the languages of the area of the host city); as Chinese writing is not alphabetic, the teams paraded by stroke order
Stroke order
Stroke order refers to the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Chinese characters are used in various forms in Chinese, Japanese, and in Korean...

 of the first character of their respective countries' names in Simplified Chinese.

Countries with the same number of strokes in the first character are sorted by the order of the five basic strokes in Chinese characters . If two or more countries have the same first character, then compare the strokes of the second one. For example, Latvia , Great Britain , and British Virgin Islands are the 114th,115th and 116th to entry respectively while the first character of their names are all 8 strokes. However,the strokes order of Latvia's first character (拉) is 一丨一丶一丶丿一 while that of Great Britain is 一丨丨丨乙一丿丶. Latvia's 3rd stroke (一) is before that of Great Britain (丨), which made Latvia enter ahead of Great Britain. The first character in Britain's name and the one in British Virgin Island are the same one （英）. But the second one in Great Britain's name is guo (国), which has 8 strokes, while the one in British Virgin Islands is 属, which has 12 strokes. So Great Britain entered before British Virgin Islands. This made Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

 (几内亚) the second country to enter following Greece as it only takes two strokes to write the first character in the country's name (几). Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

  marched 202nd, just ahead of Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

 (赞比亚), which was the last country to march before China. The first characters of these countries' names ( and ) are written 15 and 16 strokes respectively.

Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 (the official languages of the Olympics), and Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....

 with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium. The leading signs of delegations, carried by young Chinese women in stylish red dresses, had their names in these three languages printed in Chinese calligraphy style. Chinese names of most states were condensed to their short form when possible. For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 (波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那) entered as Bohei (波黑) in Chinese, while Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 (沙特阿拉伯) entered as simply Shate (沙特). The exception was the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

, which entered in Chinese as its full designation (前南斯拉夫马其顿共和国) because of the Macedonia naming dispute
Macedonia naming dispute
A diplomatic dispute over the use of the name Macedonia has been an ongoing issue in the bilateral relations between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia since the latter became independent from former Yugoslavia in 1991...

. China entered as People's Republic of China in English and French, but simply as Zhongguo (中国) in Chinese.

The athletes marched along the tracks toward the center of the stadium, which was encircled by white-capped Chinese cheerleaders welcoming each contingent. As they did so, they would step on colored ink before treading on the Chinese painting done earlier by the children and the performance artists.

Throughout the entire Parade of Nations, the Olympic athletes were treated to live traditional music ensembles, hand-picked by the Chinese Olympic committee from around the world. Each ensemble represented a continent from the five Olympic rings. The groups included Chinese orchestra, Scottish bagpipers (Fintry Pipe Band), Aboriginal musicians and dancers from Australia (William Barton), South African drummers (Drum Cafe), and North American mariachi group (Mariachi Mujer 2000).

Unlike in previous years, North and South Korea did not send a unified team; their athletes marched in separately as Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Taiwan marched under the name "Chinese Taipei
Chinese Taipei
Chinese Taipei is the designated name used by the Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan, to participate in some international organizations and almost all sporting events, such as the Olympics, Paralympics, Asian Games and Asian Para Games...

" per a 1989 agreement - and the Chinese media has seemed to follow suit, referring to Taiwan as Zhonghua Taibei .

The Chinese contingent, which was last, was led by Yao Ming
Yao Ming
Yao Ming is a retired Chinese professional basketball player who last played for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association...

 and Lin Hao, the 9-year-old primary school student who had rescued two schoolmates during the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake
2008 Sichuan earthquake
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan Earthquake was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Msand 7.9 Mw occurred at 14:28:01 CST...

.

Speeches by the Presidents

Liu Qi, the head of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, gave a speech in Mandarin welcoming the athletes. Jacques Rogge
Jacques Rogge
Jacques Rogge, Count Rogge , is a Belgian sports bureaucrat. He is the eighth and current President of the International Olympic Committee .-Life and career:...

, the President of the International Olympic Committee, followed with a speech in English, praising the Chinese for their warm reception and effort. He urged the athletes to "have fun" and to reject doping and performance enhancement drugs. This reminder was reiterated in French. Afterward, Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao is the current Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang...

, the President of the People's Republic of China, formally announced the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

.

The Olympic flag was carried in by eight former athletes from China. They were:
  • Zhang Xielin
    Zhang Xielin
    Zhang Xielin is a Chinese table-tennis player who carried the Olympic flag in 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony.He was active in the 1960s and uses a rare pen-grip chopping style...

     (table-tennis)
  • Pan Duo (Everest mountaineer)
  • Zheng Fengrong
    Zheng Fengrong
    Zheng Fengrong , born in 1937 in Shandong, is a former Chinese athlete, who competed in the high jump event....

     (athletics)
  • Yang Yang (A)
    Yang Yang (A)
    Yang Yang is a former Chinese short track speed skater and current IOC member. She is a two-time Olympic Champion from 2002 Winter Olympics and a five-time Overall World Champion for 1998-2002. She was formerly a member of the Chinese national short track team...

     (short track speed skating)
  • Yang Ling
    Yang Ling
    Yang Ling is a male Chinese sports shooter. He won both the 1996 Summer Olympics and the 2000 Olympic Games in 10 metre running target, being the only shooter to successfully defend an Olympic title in that event.-Olympic results:...

     (shooting)
  • Mu Xiangxiong (swimming)
  • Xiong Ni (diving)
  • Li Lingwei
    Li Lingwei
    Li Lingwei is a Chinese badminton player of the 1980s who ranks among the greatest in the history of the women's game. A brilliant all-around player whose court coverage and net play were particularly impressive, she maintained an overall edge on her teammate, rival, and sometimes doubles partner...

     (badminton)


They then passed on the flag to soldiers of the People's Liberation Army
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...

 as the flag was raised and the Olympic anthem played. A multinational chorus of 80 children sang the Olympic Anthem in Greek. Chinese table tennis
Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...

 champion Zhang Yining
Zhang Yining
Zhang Yining is a female Chinese table tennis player. She is considered one of the greatest female table tennis players in the history of the sport.-History:...

 and arbiter Huang Liping
Huang Liping
Huang Liping is a former Chinese Gymnast, and is now a gymnastics magistrate.-Career:Huang Liping started as an amateur in 1978, joining the Hubei team in 1985, and then selected to the China's national gymnastics team the following year...

 took the Olympic oath, representing athletes and officials respectively.

There was a short dance presentation, followed by bright yellow fireworks - representing the release of doves of peace.

Torch relay and the lighting of the flame cauldron

At this point, the Olympic flame entered the stadium as a continuation of the Beijing relay leg from the outside. The Olympic torch was relayed around the stadium by 7 athletes, and was finally passed on to Li Ning
Li Ning
Li Ning is a well-known Chinese gymnast and entrepreneur. He was born in an ethnic Zhuang family.-Gymnastics career:...

, the former Olympic gymnast champion, the 8th and final athlete.

The eight athletes were, in order:
  • Xu Haifeng
    Xu Haifeng
    Xu Haifeng is a male Chinese pistol shooter, and the first person to win a gold medal for China in the Olympic Games. He specializes in the 50 metre pistol event....

     (shooting, China's first Olympic gold medalist in any event, 1984)
  • Gao Min (diving, China's first repeat Olympic gold medalist in any event, 1988 and 1992)
  • Li Xiaoshuang
    Li Xiaoshuang
    Li Xiaoshuang is a Chinese gymnast and Olympic champion. Li Xiaoshuang and his twin brother Li Dashuang's gymnastics talent was discovered at the age of six...

     (gymnastics, China's first gymnastics all-around World Champion and Olympic gold medalist, 1992 and 1996)
  • Zhan Xugang
    Zhan Xugang
    Zhan Xugang is a male Chinese weightlifter who competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics, in the 2000 Summer Olympics, and in the 2004 Summer Olympics.In 1996 he won the gold medal in the 70 kg class...

     (weightlifting, China's first double Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting, 1996 and 2000)
  • Zhang Jun (badminton, double Olympic gold medalist in mixed doubles badminton, 2000 and 2004)
  • Chen Zhong
    Chen Zhong
    Chen Zhong is a retired Chinese taekwondo competitor who represented her country at international level for more than 10 years, including three consecutive Summer Olympic Games. She won China's first Olympic gold medal in taekwondo at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and successfully defended...

     (taekwondo, China's first and double taekwondo gold medalist, 2000 and 2004)
  • Sun Jinfang (volleyball, member of team that won China's first major championship in a team sport)
  • Li Ning
    Li Ning
    Li Ning is a well-known Chinese gymnast and entrepreneur. He was born in an ethnic Zhuang family.-Gymnastics career:...

     (gymnastics, China's most decorated athlete at its first Olympics, 1984)


Li Ning, who was suspended by wires, then appeared to run horizontally along the walls of the stadium through to the Olympic cauldron, which at this moment was still not shown. As he ran along the upper wall of the stadium, the projection displayed a scroll opening ahead of him, on which was beamed footages of previous torch relays
2008 Summer Olympics torch relay
The 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay was run from March 24 until August 8, 2008, prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics, with the theme of "one world, one dream". Plans for the relay were announced on April 26, 2007, in Beijing, China...

 around the world. At the final moment, a spotlight revealed the final resting place of the Olympics flame, which had appeared during the torch run. A colossal torch situated at the top of the stadium was lit by a proportionately large fuse
Fuse (explosives)
In an explosive, pyrotechnic device or military munition, a fuse is the part of the device that initiates function. In common usage, the word fuse is used indiscriminately...

.

A flurry of spectacular fireworks of various colours and shapes, some projecting Olympic rings, others forming hoops, flower outwards, fountain or float down, accompanied the ending of the ceremony. The ceremony ended at 12:09 am, August 9, 2008 CST, which was later than the time originally planned: 11:30 pm, August 8.

Encore

As the audience started to exit the stadium, singers from Mainland China and Hong Kong came onto the stage to provide music as a way to stall the audience from leaving all at once. Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

, Karen Mok
Karen Mok
Karen Joy Morris, known more commonly in the Sinosphere as Karen Mok or Mok Man-Wai, is a three-time Golden Melody Award-winning Hong Kong-based actress and singer-songwriter.- Biography :...

, Han Hong
Han Hong
Han Hong is a Chinese singer and songwriter of ethnic Tibetan and Han Chinese origin. She is one of the most famous female singers in China, and has maintained her diva status since 2003. She is also a songwriter who specializes in a variety of Chinese folk music. Her signature works are Tibetan...

, and Sun Nan
Sun Nan
Sun Nan born February 18, 1969) is a famous pop singer from mainland China. He is a native of Dalian.He is one of the most popular artists from mainland China.-Career:In the 1990s he was considered a frontline singer in the Beijing music scene...

 (孙楠) sang the first song, "Stand Up"; while Andy Lau
Andy Lau
Andy Lau MH, JP is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actor, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time...

, Nicolas Tse, Joey Yung
Joey Yung
Joey Yung is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and actress from Emperor Entertainment Group. She won the prestigious JSG "Most Popular Female Singer" and "Ultimate Best Female Singer - Gold" awards a record breaking six times, thus emerging as one of the premier Cantonese singers in Hong Kong...

, Wakin Chau
Wakin Chau
Wakin Chau is a Hong Kong singer and actor. Chau's popularity has spread throughout Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and parts of Southeast Asia. He was known as Emil Chau through the 1980s and 1990s, and by 2000 he reverted to his given name Wakin...

, Wang Feng
Wang Feng (singer)
Wang Feng is a Chinese rock musician. He was the founder and lead singer of the band No. 43 Baojia Street. After two albums "No. 43 Baojia Street" and "No. 43 Baojia Street 2" , he signed a solo contract with Warner Music Beijing Co., Ltd. The third album "Fireworks" was the beginning of his...

, and Sun Yue sang the second song, "Cheering for Life". Since the ceremony was already overtime by then, this portion was not televised.

Creative team

The creative team for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games consisted of a roster of renowned individuals. The artistic performance of the Opening Ceremony, titled the "Beautiful Olympics", had the internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum....

 as General Director, and Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang is an internationally acclaimed Chinese choreographer and a Lieutenant General in the People's Liberation Army. He was the former director of the Song and Dance Ensemble with the People's Liberation Army before promotion in 2006...

 and Chen Weiya as Deputy General Directors. Its core planning team comprised some of the best artists and technology experts in the world, including Yu Jianping, Lu Jiankang, Cai Guoqiang, Chen Qigang, British stagecraft designer Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher
Mark Fisher is a British Labour Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central from 1983 to 2010 and Minister for the Arts between 1997-98.-Early life:...

, Chen Yan, Sha Xiaolang, Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka
Eiko Ishioka
is an Oscar-winning costume designer, known for her work in stage, screen, advertising, and print media, and has been called "Japan’s leading art director and graphic designer," though she now works primarily in New York City....

, Xu Jiahua, Cheng Xiaodong, and Tan Dun
Tan Dun
Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...

.

In 2006, the Beijing Organizing Committee (BOCOG)
Beijing Organizing Committee
The The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, or BOCOG, also known as the Beijing Organizing Committee, is an informal name for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. It was also the organizing committee for the Games of the XIII Paralympiad...

 initially chose American film-maker Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

, Yves Pepin
Yves Pépin
Yves Pépin is one of the world's leading creator of multimedia shows and large-scale events including the multi-awarded Eiffel Tower Millennium Show...

, head of the French entertainment group ECA2, and Sydney Games
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 opening ceremony director Ric Birch
Ric Birch
Ric Birch, born in Australia. Former Rock TV producer and director.He started his career studying Law, but his lifetime profession took him down a different path...

 as special consultants. In February 2008, Spielberg pulled out of his role as advisor in protest over China's alleged continuing support of the Sudanese government and the ongoing violence in the Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...

 region. American composer Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

 offered to write a theme tune for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and decided to stay on and contribute to the Beijing Olympics. Chinese film-maker Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...

 was also part of the team creating the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games.

Gillian Chung
Gillian Chung
Gillian Chung is a Hong Kong based singer and actress. She is a member of Cantopop group Twins, along with Charlene Choi.-Early life:...

 was originally scheduled to be a performer at the opening ceremony, but due to the Edison Chen photo scandal
Edison Chen photo scandal
The Edison Chen photo scandal involved the illegal distribution over the Internet of intimate and private photographs of Hong Kong actor Edison Chen with various women, including actresses Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan, Rachel Ngan and Cecilia Cheung. The scandal shook the Hong Kong entertainment...

, director Zhang Yimou replaced her and her partner, Charlene Choi
Charlene Choi
Charlene Choi is a Hong Kong based actress and singer. She is a member of Cantopop group Twins, along with Gillian Chung.-Biography:...

 (not involved in the photo incident) with PRC
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 C-pop
C-pop
C-pop is an abbreviation for Chinese popular music , a loosely defined musical genre by artists originating from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Others come from countries where the Chinese language is used by a large number of the population, such as Singapore and Malaysia...

 act A-One
A-One (band)
A-One is a mandopop group created in 2008 under the label Hong Kong Kiss-star entertainment Beijing company .-Names:A number of names have been used for this group.* A-One * A-One * A-One -Career:...

. A-One was not a part of the performances on August 8.

Accident during rehearsal

Liu Yan
Liu Yan (dancer)
Liu Yan is a classical Chinese dancer. She has performed in many dance dramas and won many dance competitions in and outside China.-Early life:...

, one of China’s top classical Chinese dancers, fell from a three-meter high platform during practice on July 27, 2008 and sustained severe spinal injuries. She was paralyzed waist-down after a six-hour operation. Despite her not performing in the ceremony proper, deputy director Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang
Zhang Jigang is an internationally acclaimed Chinese choreographer and a Lieutenant General in the People's Liberation Army. He was the former director of the Song and Dance Ensemble with the People's Liberation Army before promotion in 2006...

 ensured Liu's name was written in the program as the lead dancer.

In an interview after visiting Liu Yan in the hospital, Director Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum....

 said, "I feel sorry for Liu Yan, my heart is full of regrets, I’m deeply sorry. Liu Yan is a heroine. She sacrificed a lot for the Olympics, for me, for the opening ceremony." Shortly after the opening ceremony, in an earlier media interview, Zhang expressed: "I regret many things, many details of this performance, many things I could have done better. For example, there are performers who were injured. I blame myself for that."

Rehearsal leakage

The South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

n Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) secretly filmed rehearsal
Rehearsal
For other uses, see Rehearsal or Dress rehearsal A rehearsal is a preparatory event in music and theatre that is performed before the official public performance, as a form of practice, and to ensure that all details of the performance are adequately prepared and coordinated for professional...

s of the opening ceremony and leaked parts of it, violating a prohibition by the Organizing Committee. The video was uploaded at YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 on July 30, 2008, but was deleted soon after its upload. However, several additional videos have been uploaded by other users. The Organizing Committee investigated the unauthorized filming, and on August 6, 2008, banned SBS cameras inside the stadium
Beijing National Stadium
Beijing National Stadium, also known officially as the National Stadium, or colloquially as the Bird's Nest , is a stadium in Beijing, China. The stadium was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.-History:...

 during the ceremony as reprisals for the leak.

Girl lip-synching to recording by another singer

The song "Ode to the Motherland" appeared to be sung by Lin Miaoke at the ceremony, but it emerged she had mimed her performance to a recording by another girl, Yang Peiyi
Yang Peiyi
Yang Peiyi is a Chinese child singer. She is well known for her performance of China's anthem, Ode to the Motherland , which she sang behind the scenes of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony on August 8, 2008.-Biography:...

. It was a last minute decision to use lip-synching, following a Politburo member's objection to Lin's voice. International Olympic Committee executive director Gilbert Felli defended the use of a more photogenic double. Although the names of both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi appeared in the programme notes, the vast majority who watched the broadcast did not realise Yang Peiyi's role until several days later when music director Chen Qigang acknowledged it.

Performers at previous Olympic opening ceremonies had occasionally synched to recordings of their own performance, such as the tenor Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...

 at the 2006 Winter Olympics
2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics was held on February 10, 2006 beginning at 20:00 CET at the Stadio Olimpico in Turin, Italy....

 in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, due to his pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...

. Then nine-year-old Eleonora Benetti also lip-synched to a previous recording of the Italian National Anthem
Il Canto degli Italiani
Il Canto degli Italiani is the Italian national anthem. It is best known among Italians as Inno di Mameli , after the author of the lyrics, or Fratelli d'Italia , from its opening line...

. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra , commonly known as the Sydney Symphony, is an Australian symphony orchestra based in Sydney...

 appeared to perform at the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 in Sydney, but the music spectators heard was entirely pre-recorded, with some of the music pre-recorded by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...

.

Computer-simulated fireworks

Television coverage of the fireworks show which displayed the 29 firework "footprints" outside the stadium was simulated by computer animation. Twenty-nine sets of fireworks in the shape of a footprint did actually go off, but it was decided that it would be difficult and dangerous to get a good shot from helicopters capturing all 29 of the footsteps (which went off every two seconds), so a CGI of 27 of the footprints was made for television broadcasts, and only the last two were filmed live. The 55 seconds of display took the BOCOG a year to choreograph. The substitution of CGI footage was mentioned during the time-delayed U.S. broadcast of the ceremony on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 by announcers Matt Lauer
Matt Lauer
Matthew Todd "Matt" Lauer . is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1997. He was previously a news anchor in New York and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond...

 and Bob Costas
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...

.

Children representing minority groups

On August 15, Wang Wei, the vice president of the BOCOG confirmed that children who appeared in the opening ceremony in the costumes of the 56 ethnic groups of modern China did not belong to the ethnic minorities their costumes indicated, as described in publicity materials, but instead all or most were members of the majority Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

. Wang said it was "traditional" and not unusual for actors in China to wear different ethnic costumes.

Reception

Jacques Rogge
Jacques Rogge
Jacques Rogge, Count Rogge , is a Belgian sports bureaucrat. He is the eighth and current President of the International Olympic Committee .-Life and career:...

, President of the International Olympic Committee, described the ceremony as "spectacular" and an "unforgettable and moving ceremony that celebrated the imagination, originality and energy of the Beijing Games." He hailed the Beijing National Stadium as "one of the world's new wonders" and a "fitting setting for an amazing Opening Ceremony." Hein Verbruggen, IOC Member and Chairman of the Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, called the ceremony "a night to remember", "a breathtaking culmination of seven years of planning and preparation" and "an unprecedented and grand success" that exceeded all his expectations.

The AFP
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...

 called it "a spectacular opening ceremony." The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 concurred by calling it a dazzling and spectacular show in Beijing. The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 praised the show as spectacular with an extravaganza of pageantry and "interlude of fervor and magic" as well as being "spellbinding" and noted the show steered clear of modern politics. The USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

 described it as an exhilarating display of China's thousands of years of traditions of art and culture, and the Art Daily stated it was a celebration of China's ancient history, along with sumptuous costumes from different imperial dynasties. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

 commented that "the scope, precision and beauty of the production was, you will agree, astonishing." The Spanish media were impressed by the opening ceremony, with Antena 3
Antena 3 (Spain)
Antena 3 is a Spanish terrestrial television channel owned by Antena 3 de Televisión. Some of the more popular programmes broadcast by Antena 3 include Aquí no hay quien viva, El Barco, Los Protegidos, Los Simpson and El Internado....

 describing the ceremony as "an astonishing effort," while Cuatro called it "awesome and impressive." Cadena COPE
Cadena COPE
COPE, an acronym for Cadena de Ondas Populares Españolas is a private, right wing, commercial, Spanish radio network owned by a series of institutions within the Spanish Catholic Church...

 said it was "the most dramatic Olympic opening ceremony ever." Germany's Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle or DW, is Germany's international broadcaster. The service is aimed at the overseas market. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio on 98.7 DZFE in 30 languages . It has a satellite television service , that is available in four languages, and...

 also praised it as a spectacular and a firecracker of a show, and a trip through China's rich history.

Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 called the show "an unforgettable spectacle" and "arguably the grandest spectacle of the new millennium." At the end of 2008, the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 selected the coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony as one of their "Eight Moments of Significance" of the year of 2008, and states: "The opening ceremony, directed and staged by acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, marked the most significant live event of the year" and it described the opening ceremony as "staged with breathtaking poetry."

World leaders were also impressed by the opening ceremony. U.S. President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 described the ceremony as "spectacular and successful". Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 called it "the spectacular to end all spectaculars and probably can never be bettered."

While praise for the opening ceremony was widespread amongst the world's media, the Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...

 described some western media reactions as "cynical" and "hostile". The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...

 had a column with title "The iron hand behind the magic show", some questioned the "heavy military theme". Asia Times
Asia Times
Asia Times was a newspaper launched in Thailand by Thai tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul in 1995. The newspaper hired talent from around the world to produce a regional English-language newspaper....

, although praising the show as "stunning opening ceremony...with its panoply of color, painstaking choreography and sweeping portrait of Chinese culture and history" referred to the games as one devoid of "fun" in its article headlined "Awe (but no laughter) in Beijing".

Television

Estimates of the global television audience varied: "around one billion" (Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

); "experts estimated ... more than two billion" (Wall Street Journal); "2.3 billion" (MindShare); "Billions...probably the largest live television audience in history" (Bloomberg
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...

); "3 billion" (Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...

); "nearly 4 billion" (Xinhua); "as many as 4 billion" (Washington Post); "estimated 4 billion" (McClatchy
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 30 daily newspapers in 15 states and has an average weekday circulation of 2.2 million and Sunday circulation of 2.8 million...

). This included an estimated 842 million viewers watching on host Chinese broadcaster China Central Television
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...

 (CCTV), with polls ranging from 63 and 69 percent of the Chinese viewing population, exceeding that of the 51-58 percent who watch the network's annual Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

 gala
CCTV New Year's Gala
The CCTV New Year's Gala is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Central Television. Broadcast on the eve of Chinese New Year on its flagship CCTV-1, satellite channels CCTV-4, CCTV-9, CCTV-E, CCTV-F, and CCTV-HD, the broadcast has a yearly viewership of over 700 million viewers, making it...

.

The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 reported five million viewers in the United Kingdom, the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

 had 7.8 million viewers in Australia, The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...

 said 4.4 million in France watched the ceremony, the ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

 estimated 7.72 million viewers in Germany, while in Italy, RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...

 had 5.5 million viewers, and in Spain, TVE obtained 4 million viewers. In the United States, the NBC
Olympics on NBC
NBC Sports' coverage of the Olympic Games consists of broadcasts on the various networks of NBC Universal in the United States, including the NBC broadcast network, Spanish language network Telemundo, and many of the company's cable networks....

 network delayed its telecast by 12 hours for evening primetime viewing, though Americans in markets bordering Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 could watch it on CBC Television
Olympics on CBC
The Olympics on CBC was a sports telecast that aired on CBC Sports. The last airing of the telecast was for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.-History:...

, and others watched clips of it earlier on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 and other online video websites. Still, it managed to capture an average of 34.2 million viewers and a total of 69.9 million viewers. The ceremony, therefore, became the most watched Olympic Opening Ceremony ever held in a non-U.S. city by American audience, a record previously held by the Lillehammer Games of 1994
1994 Winter Olympics
The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event celebrated from 12 to 27 February 1994 in and around Lillehammer, Norway. Lillehammer failed to win the bid for the 1992 event. Lillehammer was awarded the games in 1988, after having beat...

. It was the biggest television event in the U.S. in 2008 since the Super Bowl
Super Bowl XLII
Super Bowl XLII was an American football game on February 3, 2008 that featured the National Football Conference champion New York Giants and the American Football Conference champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League champion for the 2007 season...

, and it also surpassed the ratings for the 2008 Academy Awards
80th Academy Awards
The 80th Academy Awards ceremony honored the best films in 2007 and was broadcast from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California on ABC beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST/8:30 p.m. EST, February 24, 2008 . During the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Academy Awards in 24...

 ceremony and that year's finale of American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

.

Dedication

In the United States, NBC concluded its broadcast with a message saying that their coverage of the opening ceremony was dedicated in memory of Jim McKay
Jim McKay
James Kenneth McManus , better known by his professional name of Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist....

, longtime Olympics broadcaster with rival ABC
Olympics on ABC
The Olympics on ABC was the branding for Olympic Games coverage which aired in the United States on the broadcast network ABC. ABC first televised the Winter Olympic Games in 1964. ABC first televised the Summer Olympic Games in 1968...

, who died two months before. ABC "loaned" McKay to NBC to serve as a special correspondent during their coverage of the Salt Lake City Olympics
2002 Winter Olympics
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated in February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated in 78 events in fifteen disciplines, held throughout...

.

See also

  • 2008 Summer Olympics national flag bearers
    2008 Summer Olympics national flag bearers
    During the Parade of Nations portion of the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, athletes from each country participating in the Olympics paraded in the arena, preceded by their flag...

  • Four Great Inventions
  • 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony
    2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony
    The 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest. It was directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time on August 24, 2008...


External links

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