Olympics open in Beijing

Aug 10, 2008

BEIJING<br><br>Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with volleys of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

BEIJING

Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with volleys of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

Drums thundered, firecrackers exploded and 14,000 performers poured through the Bird’s Nest stadium in a dazzling extravaganza that offered up a vision of global harmony echoing the Games’ motto “One World One
Dream”.

Around 80 world leaders watched the show which celebrated the achievements of imperial China, totally ignoring the fraught 20th century, when civil war, the Japanese invasion and hardline Communist rule left the nation mired in poverty.

“Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” an army of 2,008 drummers chanted, quoting the celebrated sage Confucius.

Friday’s ceremony caps seven years of work that has reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has turned the country into the world’s fourth largest economy.

Resurgent China opened the Olympics on Friday with volleys of fireworks at a spectacular ceremony that wove ancient Chinese history with modern wizardry and aimed to draw a line under months of political controversy.

Drums thundered, firecrackers exploded and 14,000 performers poured through the Bird’s Nest stadium in a dazzling extravaganza that offered up a vision of global harmony echoing the Games’ motto “One World One Dream”.

Around 80 world leaders watched the show which celebrated the achievements of imperial China, totally ignoring the fraught 20th century, when civil war, the Japanese invasion and hardline Communist rule left the nation mired in poverty.

“Friends have come from afar, how happy we are,” an army of 2,008 drummers chanted, quoting the celebrated sage Confucius.

Friday’s ceremony caps seven years of work that has reshaped Beijing and sets the seal on an industrial boom that has turned the country into the world’s fourth largest economy.

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