RAISE THE red lantern! At 8pm last night, the stirring beats of 2,008 fou drummers launched a breathtaking show of fireworks over the Bird's Nest and, just like that, one of the most contentious Olympics of recent decades had begun. Not even the deep summer steam hovering over Beijing could prevent the worldwide illumination of the Chinese capital.
The grumbling about the rights of the Chinese to host these Olympics will probably linger long after the last medal ceremony has concluded in Beijing. But last night was no evening for rows. There were no protests, no crazy terrorist attacks and no symbolic gestures from the athletes during the parade of
nations through the stultifying heat of the Olympic stadium.
This was Beijing's night and nothing was going to spoil it. If the Olympics have got one truth nailed, it is that everyone loves a good show. The global powerbrokers put their troubles and strife aside for one evening, at least, and took their places in the baking night before the spectacle of technical perfection and daring imagination. The ceremony lasted well over three hours but it took just 10 seconds for Beijing to leave the most audacious and impressive stamp on the long tradition of national pageantry and absolute extravagance that has defined these opening nights.
Old Confucius was invoked in a chant from the fou drummers that translated as: Friends Have Come From Afar, How Happy We Are. And the locals in the stadium looked it, cheering for Hu Jintao, the president of the republic, and cheering also when US president George Bush rose from his seat to wave in the US Olympics team.
It is, of course, the presence of the world leaders and the vague sense, however untrue, that the world has genuinely paused to watch this moment, that makes these ceremonies such a spine-tingling experience for those locked in the stadium. The flying carpets, the dream rings, the lavish costumes, the flying trapeze artists, the fireworks and the fabled torch are, of course, the ultimate in fabulist creativity.
But when you have 90,000 people buying into it, that creates an electric charge. And when you see superstars of world sport like US basketballer Kobe Bryant walking the same floor as the proud and tiny delegation from Rwanda, you can but bow to the unique and compelling power of the Olympic torch. When, at last, the Chinese team entered the arena, led by their basketball icon, Yao Ming, there was a surge of noise and body heat that might have tested the latticed steelwork of the Bird's Nest stadium.
As the vast Chinese team walked the floor, it seemed absurd to think that the People's Republic only won its first gold medal 24 years ago. It was close to midnight when Li Ning, the Chinese gymnast who won six medals in those LA games, lit the flame that will brighten all of China.
One wonders what Mao, locked in his Tiananmen Square mausoleum for all eternity, would have made of the great festival of fireworks that exploded over his old city at midnight. The chairman missed the Great Leap Forward. So raise the red lantern and hang it off the moon. It is China's world. The rest of us just live in it. At least while the Olympics are on.
