Opening Ceremony: Meh

China dropped the ball on this one. The Chinese are supposed to be good at two things: Rice, and Fireworks. And dumplings. And kungfu... and calligraphy... and ping pong... whatever the point is fireworks are something they can do well. After being here for last year's Chinese New Year celebration I assumed that last night would be crazy. After all, the whole world was watching this show, so why not start the whole Olympics off with a bang and go all out with the craziest firework show ever? Instead, all I got were a few glimpses of some dinky fireworks (conveniently obscured by a building), and only one minute of actual impressive fireworks. It was a let down.

The day started with Estee (my girlfriend, in the off-chance someone who doesn't know me actually decides to read this blog) and I getting lunch with my Chinese friend Zhangyi and a family friend Joan (also Chinese). Joan works for a tour guide company, so she knows a thing or two about the city. She decided it was worth ignoring the warnings of the Chinese government not to approach the Birds Nest unless you had a ticket in hand, and so we set out towards the stadium to try and get a glimpse of this supposedly amazing firework show. Rumors were spreading that the show would last 3o minutes, so despite the 95 degree heat all areas leading up to the stadium were packed with sweaty, exposed Chinese man bellies -->

One thing the Chinese do have a lot of is nationalism, and there was plenty of it on display yesterday. As I said before, the streets were packed, and literally everyone was covered head to toe in Chinese paraphernalia, complete with painted red faces and flags. I even saw a few people with the Olympic rings shaved into their heads. Apparently though it's illegal to sell Chinese flags (who would have guessed, considering you see them for sale every 30 feet), and we witnessed two undercover cops starting to push a man around and demand he turn over his flags and leave. Of course my trusty Coolpix camera sucked the nut yet again and prevented me from getting a picture of the accosting, but I can assure you it got pretty heated! The man ended up just running away, so who knows what happened with that.

It turns out the Chinese are as racist against middle easterners as most Americans, and so everyone had been told to keep an eye out for any Arabs on the subways or anywhere else, since they'd most likely be strapped with TNT. As a measure to keep the Bird's Nest safe from any Arabs, security was particularly tight and everything was closed off within a mile of the stadium. According to Zhangyi, anyone living within a mile of the stadium was told by the government not to leave their homes under any circumstance and were essentially under house arrest last night. As a result, we were left struggling to find a place to watch the fireworks. We ended up on crowded a pedestrian overpass, where a man pushed me aside so his daughter could take a piss right where I had been standing. Thanks, that's awesome, I love pee.

Anyways, I've learned that no one enjoys looking at pictures of fireworks, so I decided to film the show instead. This is what I waited three hours to see:

After the fireworks we headed over to the Hou Hai bar district, a neat cluster of bars right alongside a beautiful lake. This place was hopping with people from all nationalities who were watching the opening ceremonies on the many big screen TV's. Apparently the Chinese really like North Korea and Russia, because when those countries came up the bars erupted. I think there were some Saudi Arabians in the bar too, since that got a disturbingly loud applause. The French were vehemently booed, as was President Bush. Kobe got a big applause though (apparently rapists are cool here). And when the Chinese finally came out, the entire Hou Hai district went crazy, chanting "Zhongguo! China!" I gotta say, the Chinese love their country! And that was that.