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Beijing Olympics opens with outstanding fantastic ceremony Fireworks, athletes and pageantry on a scale never before seen in the Olympics opened the Summer Games in Beijing on Friday. A global TV audience of four billion and 91,000 in the Olympic Stadium witnessed the opening ceremony. 20,000 fireworks torched the sky, fairies floated in a constellation of incandescent beauty and 56 children representing China's ethnic mix paraded the flag of the People's Republic. The eighth day of the eighth month, 2008, Chinese president Hu Jintao sat alongside Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee. 4,000 years of Chinese history was condensed into the mother of all floor shows to mark the opening of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. This was the choreographed demonstration of might the like of which the Olympic Games has never seen. This was history set to music and dance, every step reminding the assembled world leaders that Beijing stands at the centre of a universe every bit as legitimate as those born of Greece and Rome. Gunpowder, or the burning of medicines in these parts, we were reminded in a series of heady detonations was invented this end of the Silk Road half a millennia ago. Paper, another creation of ancient China, and writing utensils made of bamboo slips dating back to the fifth century BC, featured heavily in a display of artistic hegemony worthy of the great nation China believes herself to be. The Summer Olympics are now officially under way, the cauldron flame has been lighted in a manner that will be talked about for generations, China has a lot of new friends and "The Greatest Show On Earth" lived up to its $100 million expectations inside the incomparable Bird's Nest. What an Opening Ceremony. One World One Dream has just been replaced as the most useful phrase here by How Did They Do That? This Opening Ceremony was billed as the greatest show on Earth, and it quite possibly was. Artistic director Zhang Yimou had the daunting task of incorporating 5,000 years worth of Chinese civilization into one program, and it was done with mind-blowing technology and artistic flair. The stadium itself was the star, its open-roof ring stretching a few stories high above and serving as a projector screen for waterfalls, whales, flying doves, stars, ancient Silk Road travel and much more. Everything about this Opening Ceremony left one breathless and wanting more, and that is what a good Opening Ceremony is supposed to do of course.
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