Beijing Olympics 2008: Opening Ceremony

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.
However, the Olympic spotlight has also cast a harsh glare on the vast Asian nation, bringing the unrest in its Tibetan region to a wide audience and showing that China's leadership is not ready to brook any internal dissent.
Pounding drums launched Friday's ceremony on a hot and humid evening before giant fireworks in the form of footsteps blasted above the heart of the capital, crossing Tiananmen Square as they progressed to the steel-latticed Bird's Nest.
The authorities opened the vast square, scene of a doomed student uprising in 1989, to let people watch the pyrotechnics, prompting thousands of delighted Beijing residents to rush into the esplanade screaming "Go China!"
Thanks:Rab
Source:TOI