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August 24 闭幕式 Closing Ceremonies The Beijing Olympics are officially over. The closing ceremonies were nice, not as long or impressive as the opening ceremonies, but they were still inspiring. I liked that they had all of the athletes run out into the stadium en masse instead of in country groups. Not only was it faster but it was more celebratory, like a party. It was interesting though that the footage of the procession of 204 flags never showed the American flag, and that the scores of shots of excited athletes blowing kisses, posing, and waving at the cameras, only once did I see an US athletes, and then only a couple. Personally I think the Olympics have too much pomp and that China made even more of it. Chinese government officials need to take lessons in smiling. I only saw two of them smile. Hu Jin Tao was one but he always looks like he's in pain when he wears what he considers a smile. The music was beautiful, including some lovely choral numbers. I think only two of the vocal performers all night actually sang their songs live, the rest were recordings with lip syncing. The 2012 games in London put on a little show. The contrast from the Chinese spectacular and the little English show was very high. The Chinese celebrations were very classy and celebrated humanity and human accomplishment. The English festivities celebrated sexuality and celebrity. It seemed completely out of place and even irreverent in a culturally offensive way. After the London hand-off it turned into more of a party with more Chinese singing stars lip syncing. All in all it was very nice. Where did all of the grass go? It fascinates me how the entire field is grass one day and a huge stage the next (or a couple days later!). I really liked when they sang the "I Love Beijing" song. Beijing, Beijing, I love Beijing, in Chinese: 北京北京我爱北京 Way to go China! August 11 他们正在吃我的楼 They're Eating My Floor When I first walked into my Nanning apartment there was dust on the kitchen counter, a yellowish dust. I wiped it off. Every few days there was more dust. I thought the wood putty covering the nails in the untreated cupboard doors was falling off. There were also little circles of dust on my floor. The living room, den, bedroom, and kitchen all have wood flooring. When I looked closer there were tiny holes in the middle of these dust circles. The dust was actually sawdust! I checked my bamboo cutting board, hanging near the sink, and there were tiny little holes in it too. BUGS! They're eating my floor! I took the cutting board down and ran superhot water over it for several minutes. Then I set it aside to check for sawdust over the next few days. No more! Eventually I took the broom and a can of bug spray and saved my floor. I swept up the little circles of sawdust and sprayed the tiny holes. The interesting part was that they preferred certain pieces of wood. One of the slats in the floor by the door has dozens of tiny holes in it, while the slats all around it have zero. So far so good, no more sawdust circles. August 10 我的电动自行车-红色的马 My Electric Bicycle - Hong Ma My graduation present to myself was an electric bicycle! It's so fun. I named it Hong Ma, which means red horse, because there is a red horse on it. Electric bicycles are so great. They're virtually silent, quite fast, have a headlight, horn, turn signals. Mine has three gear settings and a lot of space on the back for carrying things, including another person. I bought the model that's made for delivery people. The huge piece on the front from the fork down to the foot platform, is the battery. Mine goes about 48km on one charge. The battery is very heavy but can be removed for charging. I just put my whole bike in my living room so I don't have to take the battery off. It's a pain getting in and out of the elevator (I'm on the 10th floor) and my apartment but I know it's safe and not getting rained on or baked in the subtropical sun. I have no idea how much it would cost to ship to America, but that would be so great! 银河动物园 Galaxy Zoo I heard about Galaxy Zoo on Chicago
Public Radio the other day. (I love that I can listen to it online).
It's a website that lets common people participate in astronomical
research. Basically space telescopes have collected trillions and trillions of images of very distant galaxies. They originally wrote computer programs to identify which type of galaxy each one is but the computer proved ineffective compared to people categorizing the galaxies. You can make an account, go through the tutorial, pass the test, then you can start classifying actual galaxies!!!! It really is quite easy and fun to participate. I've already done nearly 600! You can also go back and look at the images of all of "your" galaxies. It's amazing. I've added an album of some of my favorites. www.galaxyzoo.org August 09 北京奥运会的开幕典礼 Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony I just got home from Han Wenbing's apartment where I watched the opening ceremony for the olympics on live TV. It was about 4:15 so it was quite long, but the program was so amazing. I've never seen so many hundreds of people in such unison. It was beautiful. The only thing I could compare it to is watching a school of fish or a flock of birds as they remain together through direction changes. It was breathtaking. I've always loved the olympics, it's one of the handful of things that I have an unexplained spiritual and emotional connection to. I was the American who was crying during the opening ceremony in the small Chinese apartment. I think they built the world's largest video screen (unreferenced). It was basically the length of the football field inside the running track. The center section of it opened and amazing things came out of it. Underneath the center doors, that slid outward, was additional video screen. The effect was large. They projected video footage onto the interior rim of the opening in the stadium. That stadium is amazing. I hope you get to watch it later today. Hopefully you'll have an edited version so it won't be so long and you'll have English commentary throughout. There was a LOT of bad camera work. The procession of athletes always seems to take too long. I know the games are theirs, but they don't have to walk so slowly. One of the cool things was a huge painting that dancers made with ink on their hands and feet, children colored, and all of the athletes walked across it after stepping on some colored pads. Their collective footprints made a rainbow across the huge canvas. The central axis of the city had lots of fireworks as part of the show. It was a superb way to expand the ceremony beyond the stadium. One of the fireworks displays started at the Forbidden City and made its way to the stadium. They were footprint shaped fireworks as though some celestial giant were walking toward the stadium leaving footprints of light. I didn't particularly like the torch lighting or the torch design. I always hate it that the athletes don't enter the stadium until after the show. They deserve to see it the most and they never get to. They didn't even get to sit down. They were all corralled into the center of the track, some having to stand for hours. I think some sat down but it looked like most didn't. It was kind of cool that they could all mingle with each other, but it seemed so inconvenient for them, especially since many of them have to compete tomorrow morning and the ceremony ended past midnight. They were literally the center of attention, but it was so hot and most of their costumes were not made for summer weather. It's still completely inspiring. I just love it. I wish I would have had $2000 to go there myself. Oh well. I've given up, mostly, on going to any events. I'd have to put it on my credit card, and tickets are so expensive. The CEO of my company is thinking about taking me with him when he goes for a few days next week. That would be amazing. At least I have CCTV and can watch the olympics live, except for when I'm at work. I'm getting to know Chinese culture better. The opening ceremony had a similar flavor. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. I had to finish my thesis and was just sick of being at a computer after that. I hope you catch the ceremony wherever you live. May the olympic spirit take you away in the next 16 days. 08-08-08 at 8:08pm = an EXTREMELY auspicious day and time. Many people got married today in China, and expecting mothers scheduled c-sections so their babies could be born today. 8 is the luckiest number in China. Happy 8-8-8 to you! |
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