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International Law

: China Hearsay

Olympics Post-script

By Stan

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Seems like it is finally safe to climb out of the self-imposed cave I’ve been hiding in the past two weeks. All the media coverage of the Games was too much for me, so I sat it out for the duration, more or less.

As to the Games themselves, I mostly stayed away from them. I was persuaded, however, to attend the boxing semis last Friday. Having no interest in boxing whatsoever, my wife and I surprised ourselves by enjoying the fights quite a bit. Nationalism is, on the whole, an atrocious thing, but within the confines of the boxing arena, listening to the Mongolians and Irish cheering on their guy(s), it was cool.

As to the spectacle that was the Games, I have already commented (as much as I’m going to) on the opening ceremonies. The closing show got some decent press, but I was not really all that impressed. Didn’t match up to the opening at all, in my opinion, particularly at the end when it devolved into just another boring Spring Festival-ish variety show, complete with a bunch of singers from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Been there - done that - way too many times.

The London thing was sort of cute, perhaps too cute. Best part of the evening was Jimmy Page. Funny that I had the exact same reaction to the choice of song that Michael Pettis did, who had the following comment on his blog:

I am definitely curious to know what the very prim leadership were thinking as the guitar chords crashed about and as someone (presumably) screamed out “Wanna give you every inch of my love” (although perhaps in deference to the local leaders they skipped the vocals).

I guess this dates me. So be it.

Last but not least, was the Olympics a success and was Beijing a good choice? I’m biased, but NBC says that the Olympics was something like the highest-rated show ever (more than the last episode of M*A*S*H*???), and you can’t argue with that sort of thing. To paraphrase a popular TV personality, the market has spoken and the Olympics was a great success.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 28, 2008 (boomark / email).