From Beijing to London

The 2008 Beijing Olympic has come to an end.

This is the best Olympiad ever. It is near perfect, save for a number of controversies.

I have one minor gripe: the organizing committee has selected some of the most charming women in the country as ushers and cheerleaders. (Remember this is a nation with 1.3 billion populations.) As an avid photographer, I wish I could fly to Beijing to capture them with my camera. Nonetheless, I find their hand gestures to be too boring.

We have witnessed a very memorable opening ceremony on August 8, 2008, and an equally memorable closing ceremony on August 24, 2008. Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch always, at the closing ceremony, praised the games as “the best ever”. The one exemption was Atlanta 1996. Following the dissolution of Soviet Union, the United States became the only superpower. The over-confident Americans made a lot of mistakes in Atlanta. Now, given the success of the Beijing Games, one wonders how London can do better. In fact, the organizing committee of London 2012 has already admitted that the Beijing Games is difficult to surpass.

As the Middle Kingdom rises from a hundred years of humiliation by foreign powers and the peril of Great Cultural Revolution, the Chinese are nearly as confident as the Americans were in 1996. The spectacular opening ceremony was not meant to welcome the visitors, but to showcase their new-found prowess. Do you still remember the fake “ethnic minority kids”? The Britons who performed in the closing ceremony were truly multi-racial.

London can never match Beijing in terms of sheer scale. (North Korea probably can.) However, sincerity was something lacking in Beijing 2008. This is an area London can do better.