Beijing Opening Ceremonies

[deutsch100]

Hey guys,

Totally non-BMW related, but did any of you watch the 4+ hours of the Opening Cermonies? $300 million for the Opening Show, and $40 Billion, yeah $40 Billion spent on the city to prepare for the games. It was surreal, yet I couldn't stop thinking about how many Chinese people are basically starving, have zero basic human rights and how China is going to take over the world ( I know un PC of me, sorry!)

Being German, I could not help but feel that the Chinese Opening Ceremonies and their use of technology was so reminiscent of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, where Hitler used the games as Propoganda. Honestly, last night's opening Ceremony made me nauseous!

 

[Kirby]

I did watch the last hour or so. Yes it was very much a lot of propoganda considering all the issues China has - human rights, pollution, etc. I did see an interview on TV with some displaced residents whose homes were torn down for Olympic improvements. Apparently the government gave them no choice and no support. The lady and her husband had to move into a tiny flat with their daughter.

Read this excerpt from this article:

More than 1.25 million people in Beijing - at times as many as 13,000 people a week - have been evicted since the city won its Olympic bid in 2001, according to the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions.

These residents are facing an issue that surfaces in every Olympics, gentrification in the name of improving a city's image. But in China, where the government is clamping down hard on anything that incites instability, those trying to fend off what appears to be inevitable have fewer options and face greater risk.

Some have posted homemade signs vowing to protect their homes until death, but others have looked for room to negotiate.

As Yu stood outside his store recently, neighbor Wang Zhenjiang pedaled up on a bicycle and asked how much the government had offered him. Yu replied: $49,523 for 398 square feet, a third of what it would take to buy a new apartment in the same neighborhood.

Wang, whose house is also scheduled to be torn down, reminded Yu that he had doubled the size of the place over the years and urged him to demand more.

"It's all about money," Wang said, jabbing the air. "Under a one-party dictatorship, ordinary people have to put up with being wronged."

But Yu said, "If they come, we can do nothing but let them tear it down. When have you ever heard of the weak winning a case?"

Not far from Yu's house, two sisters are facing eviction from a home that has been in their family for six generations. The women and their families sleep in leaky rooms sandwiched between their half-demolished small restaurant and grocery store. The government has torn down houses on both sides.

The sisters have erected a large wooden sign declaring, "Protect property ownership in line with the constitution; guard your home until death." Above their front door, a smaller paper sign asks, "Where is the law of the God?"

"The Olympic slogan is 'One World, One Dream,' " said Zhang Donghua, the younger sister's husband. "The constitution protects the private property of citizens, and our livelihood depends on this place. . . . How can this represent one world, one dream?"

A court order says the Yu house will be demolished Sunday, but the family has staved off confrontations in the past by gathering television crews and citizens angry about evictions.

"There's apparently a notice from Beijing municipality that all these cases must be solved" by July 20, said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. "There are some cases about which nobody wants to take the responsibility of ordering or carrying out the actual eviction, which is telling about the lack of legal basis for many of these evictions."

 

[deutsch100]

Oh Kirby, you missed the first hour or so then, which was the 'scariest'. 2000+ Chinese men banging ancient drums is freakish unity, with robotic moves & cryptic smiles. It was just a "prettier" version of the Sturmabteilung, marching with drums in their brown outfits. China scares the hell out of me, and us "former super powers" can do nothing to stop this. Auf Wiedersehen USA!

 

[Kirby]

Napoleon supposedly pointed to a map and said 200 years ago “Let China sleep, for when China wakes, she will shake the world.”

I think the earthquake is happening right now....