As you all know, I’m sure, today is the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The final part of the Olympic torch relay went through Beijing today, and part of the track was close to Tsinghua University. We set out to see it with great excitement, only to eventually be told that that part of the track was blocked off or cancelled, apparently for security reasons. Very disappointing, of course, but it was still fun seeing so many excited people.

I read a couple of days ago an article about the way the Chinese cheer along the torch relay track. It described first the scene we could see all the time on television – runner changing runner every 50 yards, all jogging in the same monotonous pace and way. Nothing exciting, indeed. But all along the track were spectators, cheering the runners on. The author called this “mandatory cheering”, to what he felt was the government prescription for this. I had my doubts either way.

Today changed all that. Mandatory cheering? Are you kidding me? People are just excited; the Olympics are very much a matter of national pride for the Chinese people. think the pictures show this well enough. Mandatory cheering my ass.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 1:59 am and is filed under China, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.