Found on Caijing.com.cn, a young local attends the Games’ opening ceremony on a whim and writes whatever comes to mind — mostly thoughts about the foreigners he sees. For all of his rambling, he’s a quick wit, and even a bit of a cad.

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THE POST:

Olympic Opening Ceremony Dream Tour

Concerning those people from every place in the world who have come to Beijing for two or three days, they mostly don’t know that, for the sake of everything in front of their eyes, this city worked really hard.

Being able to go to the arena to see the Olympics’ opening ceremony, for somebody like me who has unconditional love for the Olympic Games, was an entirely unexpected gift. This night’s experience could also be considered to be a celebration of China’s grand history, and as Zhao Huangrenyu said, “great history cannot wither.” Only afterwards disillusionment appeared; history sometimes does not tell clearly between truth and falsehood, and for the moment what is called the dream of tourism has diminished.

At ten in the morning I received a phone call from a sponsor of the Olympics who invited me to go see the Olympic opening ceremony. I hastened to ask my leader for permission, and after approval I began preparing. I waited until the second day at 3am to return home, unaware that the whole process of the Olympics took almost 17 hours before and after; it was a marathon scene that caused people to be extremely exhausted.

We rode a bus until 5pm to arrive at the Olympic sports center, and then walked to the “Bird’s Nest.”  From the Olympic sports center to the “Bird’s Nest,” we had to pass through the fourth ring road, and this meant passing through two time periods.  The Olympic complex was constructed from the 1990 Asian Games center; it cost a few hundred million yuan, but unfortunately the Asian Games came to seem “irrelevant,” and the result was that, after the “flurry of the Asian Games,” people were left out in the cold, giving the Olympics a chance, with sponsors giving 55 million yuan to remake it. By comparison, the “Bird’s Nest” investment shot up to 23 billion yuan; naturally there was a lot of potential. That is why the Bird’s Nest ran many risks — in case it goes poorly, barring the one time the Olympics are held, it is otherwise feared that even renovations would be difficult.

Inside the Olympic compound, the Olympic sponsor’s bus stopped completely; there was a large company motorcade, even though few were allowed to be more than eight cars. Every company had volunteers holding up signs to direct the cars, some contingents had uniforms, and at times there were pictures everywhere, a considerable amount seemed to be tourist groups coming from southeast Asia. This type had a happy frame of mind and smiles spread on everyone’s face. As far as these sight-seers coming from all over the world to Beijing for only two or three days, they all flew in planes, stayed in hotels, were treated as major guests, saw nothing but the host city’s most beautiful areas.

Naturally, most of them do not know that, for everything in front of their eyes, this host city went through a lot of very hard work: housing renovations stopped, new architectural projects stopped, steel production temporarily closed down, buildings along the street were all renovated, places that were unable to be renovated or unseemly were all covered with large pictures, shop signs on both sides of the street were all made uniform with each other, bus stops had people leading everybody into lines all day long, and the Shizi intersection had people holding traffic flags for anyone who wasn’t color blind. Small-time Tibetan trinket vendors in every underground passageway could no longer be found — old folks would walk out wearing “Yanjing Beer” [*1] T-shirts instead. They were full of passion on the roadside, talking and scrutinizing the safety of this host city.

But then, when this very large tour group arrived at the security checkpoint, all of their happiness died down during the long wait.  Unaware that the procession of people was too large, and the security checkpoint too small, eventually everybody clogged up the checkpoint area. Also, because nobody was waving a sign directing them — no matter whether they were Chinese people or foreigners — everybody actually forgot how to stand in line, shoving to the front. This immediately made me have the feeling once again of the 300 bus traffic jam a few years ago.

The ancients [*2] said, “Before God allows man to take on a major task, he must first make one take a toll on one’s mind, wear out one’s body, hunger one’s stomach, tire one’s body to emptiness…” But at this point, the Olympic spirit has already replaced this with “faster, taller, stronger,” becoming everybody’s whole experience. The group seemed to be waiting for some kind of sign [*3]. No matter whether they were international CEOs, national ministry chairmen, or the usual dazzling investment bankers, everyone was sweltering. Without question, this was an expensive sauna, and whether it was a door price of 200 yuan or 5000 yuan, everybody still paid the same price in perspiration. [*4]

Having sweated sufficiently, we arrived at the security checkpoint. Ticket barcodes were swiped, cameras all had to be checked by taking a picture in the presence of workers — they all seemed to be college student volunteers — in order to prove that they could not be used as James Bond-like secret instruments.  After going through the checkpoint, we still had to be scanned manually, but we did not have to take off our shoes; this treatment was better than that of British airports, where not only shoes must be taken off, but belts, too. Nevertheless, one is always ordered to carry identification and passport, which does not seem useful.

After entering the door, everything became more comfortable, the previous period of over an hour of waiting was also forgotten.  Nevertheless, because the wait was so long, the expected free supper did not occur, unavoidably stomach rumbling flared up.  But there were only ten minutes to go until the Olympic opening ceremony; there was no choice but to starve until the end.

The moment of entering the “Bird’s Nest” could only be called a “shock.”  Because the “Bird’s Nest” did not have a “door,” passing among the red lacquer pillars, it seemed adversity became the basis of hope, in front of our eyes unfolded a spectacular, unparalleled scene — in the expansive, spectacular stream of people, thousands upon thousands of glow sticks were shaking, everybody jointly let go a roar, causing people to feel like they would need to stop due to loss of breath.

Under such a trance, I felt myself entering an Electric Arts soccer computer game, and met for a moment a scene as though a battle between the Chinese and Brazilian teams would appear on the field. But after this I thought of an actual dilemma, again causing me to be at a loss.

As a matter of fact, the majority of the content of the opening ceremony performance was all just a festival for the incredible population size. This is naturally one of China’s comparative advantages; it is obvious that Chinese movie directors understand more about economics than Chinese economists.

A comparatively more profound impression was the celebration of printing — it seemed to have some of the feeling of an earthquake. Even to sleep on the ground in Wenchuan, the sensation of the aftershocks would lack the magnitude of this visual impression. This made me realize again the certainty of the sentence “art is rooted in life and exceeds life.”

But then, even as entering the Orchid Castle and not asking if it stinks [*5], every program easily became hundreds of people, we watched so many that, in the end, aesthetic appreciation was somewhat fatigued. The converse is that in the crowd, there was no lack of familiar men, and sitting next to them were beautiful women I didn’t know, deserving careful study.

After the Opening Ceremony finished, everybody was so hungry they stopped being sleepy. This would conform to the Olympic Committee’s fancy, quickly returning to the parking lot. It’s just that, because of the strong winds and darkness, many people broke away from the group. The Australian Financial Review “gossiped” [*6] that after the conclusion of the Opening Ceremony, BHP Billiton CEO [*7] Marius Kloppers and his wife were lost; they did not return to the hotel until 1:30am.

Not far outside the gate, a German youth named Joerg held up a piece of cardboard in either hand, on one written “gathering tickets” [in Chinese], on the other written “need tickets for collection” [in English]. Joerg told me he works at an insurance company; he rode a train to Beijing. Collecting tickets is not a scheme to make money, only for commemoration’s sake. I was dubious of his sweet talking, but still gave my ticket to him; he had already received three tickets. There was no lack of people around him using practiced English, asking him, “how much?”  He used a not-fluent Chinese reply, “don’t have money.”

I don’t dismiss the thought that, maybe many years later, among this Joerg’s progeny, perhaps they will have Chinese blood, and will hold in their hand a red Beijing Olympics ticket and say to their friends, their forefather at some time braved wandering in Beijing, finally beginning this family’s heroic history. It’s just, at that time, will there still be an Olympics?

When I returned home, it was already close to 3 in the morning… sleep for a while, enter a dreamland. ❑

— Translated by Jason Weinberg

ORIGINAL STORY: 奥运开幕梦幻游

EDITOR’S NOTES:
[*1] A cosponsor of games

[*2] Unattributed, a paraphrasing of Mencius.

[*3] “Some kind of sign.” Literally, waiting for a homing pigeon.

[*4] “Paid the same price” 童叟无欺. An idiomatic phrase. According to Baidu, it means “we are honest even to children and aged people” and is used to mean “the price was evenly applied.”

[*5] “even as entering the Orchid Castle and not asking if it stinks” - too much of a good thing. This refers to a Confucius story: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/19999465.html?si=1

[*6] 八卦. “Bāguà.” Normally a noun, it’s used in the media as a verb to mean “gossip.” See Baidu’s explanation (in Chinese).

[*7] BHP Billiton supplied the metal for the Olympic medals. For a photo of Marius Kloppers, see the company’s website.