Now Playing in Beijing: TRIUMPH OF THE PAGEANT
On the eighth hour of the eighth day of the eighth month in 2008 (Beijing time), the Communist run economic powerhouse and 1.5 billion people strong Chinese Machine finally had their coming out party.
The first images are streaming in from the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Famed filmmaker Zhang Yimou (who has been responsible for Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Curse of the Golden Flower) staged the epic event with all the grand pageantry of his signature films.
The images are dreadfully beautiful and sumptuous, though the particular slide show linked below also features a hilarious shot of our President Dubya and the wife Laura with horrified looks on their faces as they are shown to their seats. Could they be afraid of a little propaganda? I highly recommend clicking the link and flipping through all the photographs to get the full effect of the power of what has been staged:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/destinationbeijing/photos/galleryid=183709.html?GT1=39003
I’ve been trying to avoid political commentary on this blog lately, but these amazing images couldn’t go unnoticed. Why does it all remind me of Leni Reifenstahl, Triumph of the Will, and the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics?
The Opening Ceremonies will be televised tonight on NBC.
To keep track of the overall Medal Standings as the Olympics progress, click below:
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml
Written by David H. Schleicher
The Schleicher Spin 
I sincerely hope that every American over there tried learning some native tongue. I plan on traveling over there year after next and I am trying to learn mandarin now. http://www.petergreenberg.com/2008/08/07/when-in-beijing-speak-like-the-chinese-do/
Americans in general have this arrogance that seems to give us most of our bad reputation we always expect others to learn English when they come and visit America, but we do not have the same logic when we ourselves are traveling. Double standards are bad.
David, yours would seem sound advise for anyone traveling to another country. I think the “arrogance” you speak of comes from the latter half of the 20th century when other nations so desired American investors and American money that they catered to our people traveling over there and wanted to impress us when they visited here by speaking our language. Times certainly have changed, and with the emergence of the Chinese economy on the global market, learning their tongue would seem a wise idea. –DHS
opening ceremony videos
http://lugardoconhecimento.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/video-da-cerimonia-de-abertura-dos-jogos-olimpicos-de-pequim/