Beijing Olympics

I watched part of the Opening Ceremonies to the Beijing Olympics tonight. I find something very moving about seeing the teams from around the world come together, marching into the stadium with their matching outfits (I like the countries where the men and women wear the same thing, although I did like the Chinese dresses the Swedish women wore) after years of preparing to compete. The Olympics are such a rare opportunity for the world to have a bit of that promised Star Trek future. When else do you see get to see Fijians on the International stage? It very much goes with the theme of this Olympics: One world, one dream. The Olympics get a lot of flack, especially when they take place in a country like China, where civil rights have not reached what they used to be in this country, pre-Patriot Act.

While I cannot support much of what China has done, or continues to do in places like Tibet, I believe that the benefit to the world of this coming together is too important to be derailed by any political issues. I noticed that most countries had their leader cheering their team on from the stands, from Prince Albert II of Monaco to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia to our own President Bush, with wife Laura and Henry Kissinger! I don't know if the assembled world leaders gets together at all, but that would make it even more
worthwhile: if they could spend time together as audience members, have a beer or some dumplings, and build more personal relationships.

It's been twenty years (!) since I was in China. I was there in another confluence of 8s-1988. It was the year of the dragon, too, which made it very auspicious. In many ways, China today is nothing like the China I knew. I remember being on a bus in Shanghai and being startled to see a young woman in a red dress. Back then, Mao blue and army green still dominated Chinese wardrobes. The stores, except maybe the Friendship Store, as they called the store open to those with foreign currency (as opposed to renminbi, the people's currency, which could not be exchanged with dollars), rarely had anything you really wanted to buy. There were few motor vehicles on the road (just a dense sea of bicycles and crowded busses). Entrepenuership was just starting to be accepted by the powers that be, and the Chinese roommates we had were among the first to need to find their own jobs after
graduation.

China is definitely more Western and more open than it was when I was there, but they still place a lot of value on saving face. I learned, from CBC, that the Chinese brought in coaches starting in 2004 to train their 600+ athletes for these games. That they are now powerhouses in sports they weren't a condender in four years ago. They're likely to win 42 medals, which will work out to $6 million spent per medal!