2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony

People's Liberation Army Navy Band performed the "Welcome March" song to welcome IOC members and Chinese leader Hu Jintao.

Fireworks display

The welcoming ceremony began by a flame and an ancient Chinese sundial, awakened by the light of time from the sky, lights up 2008 bronze Fou drums. The drums, running like a time machine, form giant digits (in both Hindu–Arabic and Chinese numerals) to count down the seconds to the Games. The digits is formed in ten-second intervals starting from sixty before switching over to the final ten seconds. At the end, a huge fireworks display is set off from the top of the stadium.

The 2,008 drummers play the bronze Fou drums and sing the quote from The Analects of Confucius written 2000 years ago: "Isn’t it delightful to have friends coming from afar?” to welcome friends from all over the world.

The firework footprints were set off at the rate of one every second; each represented one of the 29 Olympiads, signifying the Beijing Olympics as the XXIX Olympiad of the modern era. The 29th footprint arrived at Bird's Nest and transformed into Star Olympic Rings. Next, the rings were lift up by twenty "Dunhuang fairies" (Mahayana Chan (Zen) Chinese Buddhist apsaras of the Mogao Caves).

China's national flag carried into the National Stadium

Attention was then turned to 56 young children representing the 56 ethnic groups of modern China, and donning respective costumes. They marched in the flag of the People's Republic of China as a young girl in red, 9-year-old Lin Miaoke (林妙可 Lín Miàokě), was seen performing "Ode to the Motherland", while miming to the voice of Yang Peiyi.[22] Only one-third of "Ode to the Motherland" was sung, to save time. The flag of the People's Republic of China was then handed over to eight well-dressed PLAGF Honor Guard Soldiers who carried the flag in a slow, goose-stepping march over to the flag podium and the Chinese national anthem "March of the Volunteers" was sung by a 224-member choir while the flag was unfurled and raised with red and yellow fireworks going off at the end.

The Artistic section tells about China's history and art.

• Includes the historic scroll painting
• And the bamboo books and bird

Dancers painting on the scroll

The disciples of Confucius chanted a famous quote from the Analects, translated as "All those within the four seas can be considered his brothers".[23]

At the prelude to the section, Beautiful Olympics, a short film, was screened depicting the making of paper, another of the Four Great Inventions, ending with a rolled-up scroll painting to set the stage for the next segment. Ceramics, porcelain vessels and other Chinese fine arts artifacts were beamed on a giant LED scroll, representing the first of the Four Great Inventions of China, paper, and displaying animated graphics, slowly unfurling. At its center was a piece of white canvas paper, which then ushered in a performance of black-costumed dancers whose hands hid brushes that had been dipped in ink. They performed a dance while leaving their trails on the block of white paper, reminiscent of Chinese ink and wash painting.[24] This was accompanied by the sounds of the guqin, China's ancient seven-string zither, as played by Chen Leiji (S: 陈雷激, T: 陳雷激, P: Chén Léijī). The LED scroll then showed an old, rare painting by Wang Ximeng.

The giant scroll was then moved aside to show a fluid array 897 movable type blocks that formed three variations of the character 和 (Hé "harmony"), representing the third great Chinese invention: the movable type press. The character was shown, consecutively, in bronze inscription, Seal script and KaisScript (Modern Chinese script). Performers in Zhou-era clothing representing the "3000 Disciples of Confucius", carrying bamboo slips, recited excerpts from the Analects: "Isn't it great to have friends coming from afar?" (Chinese: 有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎?; pinyin: Yǒupéng zì yuǎnfāng lái, bù yì lè hū) and "All men are brothers within the Four Seas" (Chinese: 四海之內，皆兄弟也; pinyin: Sìhǎi zhī nèi, jiē xiōngdì yě). The blocks changed into a small version of the Great Wall, which then sprouted peach blossoms, the Chinese symbol for openness.[25][26] At the end of the sequence the tops of the movable type blocks came off to reveal 897 performers, who waved vigorously to the crowds, indicating that the individual pieces of type block were not computer controlled and synchronized, but rather the combined efforts of 897 perfectly in-sync performers.

A scene of Beijing opera performers

The next segment saw ancient terracotta soldiers and Chinese opera,[27] followed by a Beijing opera puppetry performance. The Wusheng type of Beijing opera performers was also enacted.

Silk Road segment

A Dunhuang fairy dances on the paper—which has become golden desert under the projection, held by hundreds of men in clothing of ancient diplomatic envoys. On the giant scroll is a depiction of ancient Silk Road on the land. This was followed by a procession of men, in blue costumes, who with huge oars formed formations of junks, symbolizing the expeditions of Zheng He. A performer holding another great Chinese invention, the compass, in its ancient form a metal spoon floating in a fluid suspensible vessel, danced in the center of the giant LED scroll that showed images of sailing junks and maps of Zheng He's seven voyages on Maritime Silk Road in the Ming Dynasty.

Actors' performance on top of a huabiao

A musician playing pipa

Ending segment of the first half "Brilliant Civilization" before the second half "Glorious Era"

The segment represents the prosperity of ancient China as "The State of Li and Yue". Accompanied by the music of Kunqu, one of the oldest extant Chinese operas, the giant scroll expands and shows several beautiful classic ancient paintings from Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. At this point, two rows of huge royal dragon pillars called huabiao emerged and stretched skyward, with the performers dancing to the ancient tune Flowery Moonlit River in Spring, as pink and orange fireworks were set off overhead.

Lang Lang playing together with five-year-old Li Muzi on a white grand piano

Then followed the modern segment where pianist Lang Lang and five-year-old Li Muzi[28] performed a melody from the Yellow River Cantata. Around the pianists a sea of rainbow-coloured luminescent performers swayed in wave-like unison to suggest the flow of the Yellow River. The illuminated performers, symbolizing modern-day China, then arranged themselves in the shape of the Dove of Peace, which wings were then set into motion as the performers moved about. They formed the bird's nest shape of the Beijing National Stadium. When a young girl flew a kite – also a Chinese invention – above them in mid-air, the performers' lights flickered in an intricate pattern.

A Tai chi performance by 2,008 masters[29] showed the fluid movements achieved when in harmony with nature. They demonstrated martial arts while combining to form geometric mass human formations. A skit was shown with schoolchildren drawing and coloring on the paper scroll and chanting poetry. These were the same children representing the 56 ethnic groups of China. They symbolized a Green Olympics (to protect the world). As their sequence drew to an end, the giant white paper was lifted vertically to reveal a drawing of mountains and waters with a smiling face as the sun. Then, there was a light presentation showing brightly coloured flying birds, symbolizing the rebirth of the phoenix and the bird-nest stadium itself.

Performers dance on the surface of an illuminated sphere in the middle of the National Stadium

The next segment was a celestial show and the arrival of astronauts symbolizing Chinese space exploration, with a gigantic, 60-foot, 16-tonne[27] ball structure representing the earth. 58 acrobats tumbled rightside up, sideways or upside down on its surface, which was then transformed into a giant glowing Chinese lantern.

Chinese singer Liu Huan and British singer Sarah Brightman stood on the central platform and sang the 2008 Olympic theme song: "You and Me."[26]

2,008 performers then held out parasols with smiling faces of young children.[30] This was followed by red and orange fireworks in the form of smiley faces. The representatives from the 56 ethnic groups danced a vigorous folk dance.

The athletes taking part in the XXIX Olympiad parade of nations marched out to the centre of the stadium.

In accordance with Olympic tradition, the national team of Greece, which hosted the last Summer Olympics, in Athens, entered first, in honor of Greece's status as the birthplace of the Olympics, while China, as the host country, came last. Traditionally nations are ordered in alphabetic order of the national language of the host country (or if there is more than one, the more dominant of the languages of the host city); as Chinese writing is not alphabetic, the teams paraded by stroke order of the first character of their respective countries' names in Simplified Chinese.[4]

Countries with the same number of strokes in the first character are sorted by the order of the five basic strokes in Chinese characters (一,丨,丿,丶 and 乙). If the name of two or more countries has the same first character, then they are ordered according to the stroke order of the second character. For example, Latvia (Chinese: 拉脱维亚), Great Britain (Chinese: 英国), and British Virgin Islands (Chinese: 英属维尔京群岛) were the 114th, 115th and 116th to enter respectively while the first characters of their names are all eight strokes. However, the stroke order of Latvia's first character (拉) is 一丨一丶一丶丿一 while that of Great Britain is 一丨丨丨乙一丿丶. Latvia's third stroke (一) is before that of Great Britain (丨), which gave Latvia precedence to Great Britain. Great Britain and the British Virgin Islands share the same first character, 英. However the second one in Great Britain's name is 国, which has 8 strokes, while the second in British Virgin Islands is 属, which has 12 strokes. Thus Great Britain entered before British Virgin Islands. Guinea (Chinese: 几内亚) was the second country to enter following Greece as it only takes two strokes to write the first character in the country's name (几). Australia (Chinese: 澳大利亚) marched 202nd, just ahead of Zambia (Chinese: 赞比亚), which was the last country to march before China.[31] The first characters of these countries' names (澳 and 赞) are written with 15 and 16 strokes respectively.

Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in French, English (the official languages of the Olympics), and Standard Chinese with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium. The leading signs of delegations, carried by young Chinese women in red dresses, had their names printed in these three languages: the Chinese version in traditional Chinese calligraphy; and above it in the other two languages, using a Roman alphabetic typeface that mimicked brush calligraphy.

Chinese names of most states were condensed to their short forms when possible. For example, Bosnia and Herzegovina (波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那) entered as 波黑 Bō hēi in Chinese, while Saudi Arabia (沙特阿拉伯) entered as simply 沙特 Shātè. One exception was the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which entered in Chinese as its full designation (前南斯拉夫马其顿共和国) because of the Macedonia naming dispute (though the country was sorted according to its short name, 马其顿). China entered as People's Republic of China/République populaire de Chine in English and French, but simply as 中国 Zhongguo in Chinese, the most common short name.

The athletes marched along the tracks toward the center of the stadium, which was encircled by white-capped Chinese cheerleaders welcoming each contingent. As they did so, they would step on colored ink before treading on the Chinese painting done earlier by the children and the performance artists.

Throughout the entire Parade of Nations, the Olympic athletes were treated to live traditional music ensembles, hand-picked by the Chinese Olympic committee from around the world. Each ensemble represented a continent from the five Olympic rings. The groups included Chinese orchestra, Scottish bagpipers Mains of Fintry Pipe Band (Fintry Pipe Band), Aboriginal musicians and dancers from Australia (William Barton),[32] South African drummers (Drum Cafe),[33] and North American mariachi group Mariachi Mujer 2000.[34]

Unlike in previous years, North and South Korea did not send a unified team; their athletes marched in separately as Republic of Korea (South Korea, Chinese: 韩国) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea, Chinese: 朝鲜民主主义人民共和国; pinyin: Cháoxiǎn mínzhǔ zhǔyì rénmín gònghéguó).[35] Taiwan marched under the name "Chinese Taipei" (Chinese: 中华台北; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Táiběi) as per a 1989 agreement and in the Olympics since then – and the Chinese media has followed suit, referring to Taiwan as Zhonghua Taibei instead of the previously used and controversial Zhongguo Taibei (Chinese: 中国台北; pinyin: Zhōngguó Táiběi, literally "Taipei, China").[36][37]

The Chinese contingent, which was last, was led by Yao Ming and Lin Hao, the 9-year-old primary school student who had rescued two schoolmates during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.[38][39]

Liu Qi, the President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, gave a speech in Mandarin welcoming the athletes. His Excellency Count Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee, followed with a speech in English, praising the Chinese for their warm reception and effort. The Count urged the athletes to "have fun" and to reject doping and performance enhancement drugs. This reminder was reiterated in French. Afterward, Hu Jintao, the paramount leader of China, formally announced the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics by speaking in Mandarin:

Chinese: "我宣布，北京第29届奥林匹克运动会…开幕！"; pinyin: Wǒ xuānbù, běijīng dì èrshíjiǔ jiè àolínpǐkè yùndònghuì…kāimù; lit. '"I declare, the XXIX Olympic Games of Beijing ... open!"'

— Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China

[40]

Afterward, the Olympic flag was carried in by eight former athletes from China. They were:

• Zhang Xielin (table tennis)
• Pan Duo (Everest mountaineer)
• Zheng Fengrong (athletics)
• Yang Yang (A) (short-track speed skating)
• Yang Ling (shooting)
• Mu Xiangxiong (swimming)
• Xiong Ni (diving)
• Li Lingwei (badminton)

They then passed on the flag to the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army (the PLA) and the Olympic anthem played while the flag was being raised. A multinational chorus of 80 children sang the Olympic anthem in Greek. Chinese table tennis champion Zhang Yining and arbiter Huang Liping took the Olympic oath, representing athletes and officials respectively.

There was a short dance presentation, followed by bright yellow fireworks – representing the release of doves of peace.

Lighting of the cauldron by Li Ning

At this point, the Olympic flame entered the stadium as a continuation of the Beijing relay leg from the outside. The Olympic torch was relayed around the stadium by seven athletes, and was finally passed on to Li Ning, the former Olympic gymnast champion, the eighth and final athlete.

The eight athletes were, in order:

• Xu Haifeng (shooting, China's first Olympic gold medalist in any event, 1984)
• Gao Min (diving, China's first repeat Olympic gold medalist in any event, 1988 and 1992)
• Li Xiaoshuang (gymnastics, China's first gymnastics all-around World Champion and Olympic gold medalist, 1992 and 1996)
• Zhan Xugang (weightlifting, China's first double Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting, 1996 and 2000)
• Zhang Jun (badminton, double Olympic gold medalist in mixed doubles badminton, 2000 and 2004)
• Chen Zhong (taekwondo, China's first and double taekwondo gold medalist, 2000 and 2004)
• Sun Jinfang (volleyball, member of team that won China's first major championship in a team sport)
• Li Ning (gymnastics, China's most decorated athlete at its first Olympics, 1984)

The hidden cauldron is pictured at this photo (on the left side)

Li Ning, who was suspended by wires, then appeared to run horizontally along the walls of the stadium through to the Olympic cauldron, which at this moment was still not shown. As he ran along the upper wall of the stadium, the projection displayed a scroll opening ahead of him, on which was beamed footage of the entire torch relay. At the final moment, a spotlight revealed the final resting place of the Olympic flame, which had appeared during the torch run. A colossal torch situated at the top of the stadium was lit by a proportionately large fuse.[41]

A flurry of spectacular fireworks of various colours and shapes, some projecting Olympic rings, others forming hoops, flower outwards, fountain or float down, accompanied the ending of the ceremony. The ceremony ended at 12:09 am, 9 August 2008 CST, which was later than the time originally planned: 11:30 pm, 8 August.

As the audience started to exit the stadium, singers from Mainland China and Hong Kong came onto the stage to provide music as a way to stall the audience from leaving all at once. Jackie Chan, Karen Mok, Han Hong, and Sun Nan sang the first song, "Stand Up", while Andy Lau, Nicolas Tse, Joey Yung, Wakin Chau, Wang Feng, and Sun Yue sang the second song, "Cheering for Life". Since the ceremony was already over time by then, this portion was not televised in the CCTV coverage; however, it can be still partially heard in the coverages of television stations such as the BBC Sport and the NBC.[42]

Liu Yan, one of China's top Chinese dancers, fell from a three-metre high platform during practice on 27 July 2008 and sustained severe spinal injuries. She was paralyzed waist-down after a six-hour operation. Despite her not performing in the ceremony proper, deputy director Zhang Jigang ensured Liu's name was written in the programme as the lead dancer.[48]

In an interview after visiting Liu Yan in the hospital, Director Zhang Yimou said, "I feel sorry for Liu Yan, my heart is full of regrets, I’m deeply sorry. Liu Yan is a heroine. She sacrificed a lot for the Olympics, for me, for the opening ceremony." Shortly after the opening ceremony, in an earlier media interview, Zhang expressed: "I regret many things, many details of this performance, many things I could have done better. For example, there are performers who were injured. I blame myself for that."[49]

The South Korean Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) secretly filmed rehearsals of the opening ceremony and leaked parts of it, violating a prohibition by the Organizing Committee.[50] The video was uploaded at YouTube on 30 July 2008, but was deleted soon after its upload. However, several additional videos have been uploaded by other users.[51] The Organizing Committee investigated the unauthorized filming,[52] and on 6 August 2008, banned SBS cameras inside the stadium during the ceremony as reprisals for the leak.[53]

The song "Ode to the Motherland" appeared to be sung by Lin Miaoke at the ceremony, but it emerged she had mimed her performance to a recording by another girl, Yang Peiyi. It was a last-minute decision to use lip-synching, following a Politburo member's objection to Lin's voice.[22][54][55][56] International Olympic Committee executive director Gilbert Felli defended the use of a more photogenic double.[57][58] Although the names of both Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi appeared in the programme notes,[59] the vast majority who watched the broadcast did not realise Yang Peiyi's role until several days later when music director Chen Qigang acknowledged it.

Performers at previous Olympic opening ceremonies had occasionally synched to recordings of their own performance, however never to that of another person. Examples include the tenor Luciano Pavarotti at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, due to his pancreatic cancer.[60] Then nine-year-old Eleonora Benetti also lip-synched to a previous recording of the Italian National Anthem.[61] The Sydney Symphony Orchestra appeared to perform at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, but the music spectators heard was entirely pre-recorded, with some of the music pre-recorded by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.[62]

Television coverage of the fireworks show which displayed the 29 firework "footprints" outside the stadium was simulated by computer animation.[63][64] Twenty-nine sets of fireworks in the shape of a footprint did actually go off,[63] but it was decided that it would be difficult and dangerous to get a good shot from helicopters capturing all 29 of the footsteps (which went off every two seconds), so a CGI of 27 of the footprints was made for television broadcasts, and only the last two were filmed live. The 55 seconds of display took the BOCOG a year to choreograph. The substitution of CGI footage was mentioned during the time-delayed U.S. broadcast of the ceremony on NBC by announcers Matt Lauer and Bob Costas.[60][65][66]

On 15 August, Wang Wei, the vice president of the BOCOG, confirmed that children who appeared in the opening ceremony in the costumes of the 56 ethnic groups of modern China did not belong to the ethnic minorities their costumes indicated, as described in publicity materials, but instead all or most were members of the majority Han Chinese. Wang said it was "traditional" and not unusual for actors in China to wear different ethnic costumes.[67][68]

During the opening ceremony, many spectators saw the blue screen of death at the ceiling of the stadium for 2 hours. Li Ning, who lighted the cauldron, actually passed the error screen. The error was caused due to computers running on Windows XP instead of Windows Vista because it was so stable.[69]

Estimates of the global television audience varied: "around one billion" (Reuters);[89] "experts estimated ... more than two billion" (The Wall Street Journal);[90] "2.3 billion" (MindShare);[91] "Billions ... probably the largest live television audience in history" (Bloomberg);[92] "3 billion" (Sky News);[93] "nearly 4 billion" (Xinhua);[94] "as many as 4 billion" (The Washington Post);[95] "estimated 4 billion" (McClatchy).[96] This included an estimated 842 million viewers watching on host Chinese broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), with polls ranging from 63 and 69 percent of the Chinese viewing population, exceeding that of the 51–58 percent who watch the network's annual Chinese New Year gala.[89] The BBC reported five million viewers in the United Kingdom, the Seven Network had 7.8 million viewers in Australia, The Hollywood Reporter said 4.4 million in France watched the ceremony, the ARD estimated 7.72 million viewers in Germany, while in Italy, RAI had 5.5 million viewers, and in Spain, TVE obtained 4 million viewers. Rádio e Televisão de Portugal obtained 591 thousand viewers, a record breaking audience for RTP2, even surpassing programming from popular private broadcasters and its sister channel in the same time slot, with the tape delayed broadcast in the evening on RTP1 managing a more modest 4.4 rating and 20.4 share.[97][98]

A report made a year later for the International Olympic Committee estimated that 1.5 billion people (including 739 million within China itself) watched at least one minute of the ceremony, and 1.4 billion worldwide watched at least 15 minutes.[99]

In the United States, the NBC network delayed its telecast by 12 hours for evening primetime viewing, though Americans in markets bordering Canada could watch it on CBC Television, and others watched clips of it earlier on YouTube and other online video websites.[100] Still, it managed to capture an average of 34.2 million viewers[101][102] and a total of 69.9 million viewers.[66]

The Opening Ceremonies in Beijing became the most watched Olympic Opening Ceremony ever held in a non-U.S. city by an American audience,[102] a record previously held by the Lillehammer Games of 1994.[101] It was the biggest television event in the U.S. in 2008 since the Super Bowl, and it also surpassed the ratings for the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony and that year's finale of American Idol.[102]

In the United States, NBC concluded its broadcast with a message saying that their coverage of the opening ceremony was dedicated in memory of Jim McKay, longtime Olympics broadcaster with rival ABC, who died on 7 June. ABC "loaned" McKay to NBC to serve as a special correspondent during their coverage of the Salt Lake City Olympics.[103]