The official Beijing Olympics Thread

[this_is_gav]

Originally Posted by HSK

i like how they cut to president bush as iraq's team were walking by.

That was epic. No emotion whatsoever.

Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

london hasnt got a chance mate. ceremony is gunna be rubbish

It'll be great. China whittled it down from 1 billion to 8 for the pride of carrying that olympic flag into the stadium. We'll have a reality TV show.

[Barrichello]

I think i will take my holiday and leave London for the Olympics in 2012, dont fancy the daily commute with even more tourists than usual

[Emirzan]

Not a fan of opening ceremonies but they were good fireworks. Looked and sounded a bit like a massive explosion in the stadium on the crappy tv I was watching it on. They might have to have fireworks like that everyday, without the intense blasts of light the athletes might not be able to see through the beijing smog otherwise.

[Mithrandir]

Just started to watch the recording

Quite impressive so far, especially the drummers at the start, just watching the huge scroll painting.

[TeePee]

[MadduckUK]

thats ace

[SSK]

lol thats quality teepee

saw abit of the opening ceremony and was amazed by the amount of effort they put in...jus means we gonna try and beat that in 2012...causing the costs to become even higher

[Emirzan]

1st one decided.

Originally Posted by BBC News

First gold in Beijing goes to Katerina Emmons of the Czech Republic in the women's 10m air rifle competition.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

can someone explain to me the politics side of the olympics please with all this protest and what not

[daniel.phillips]

Do you not watch the news/read newspapers ?

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Originally Posted by daniel.phillips

Do you not watch the news/read newspapers ?

yep almost every morning mate but i never realy followed stuff about the olympics. nevermind if its a long process to explain then nevermind i will just google it. all im looking for is abit of a summary

[Saracen]

It's the whole background of China, or to be more accurate, the background of the regime in power, and the way they treat both their own people and Tibet .... though they would no doubt say that is their own people.

It's an oppressive regime. It doesn't stand for dissent, and rules by virtue of a mailed fist. It locks up anyone that criticises, is in no sense democratic and then, of course, there's events like the Tiananmen Square massacre which, depending on which reports you believe, left several hundred to several thousand protesters dead.

China is coming out of a self-imposed isolationist period. Until very recently, by which I mean a few months, foreigners (and especially foreign media) couldn't travel outside Beijing or a few other tightly controlled areas without a permit, and often as not, a minder. China also (somewhat unsuccessfully) tried to clamp down even on internet access for it's citizens. All this, of course, was supposed to change as part of the agreement for hosting the Olympics and, to be fair, it has to a certain extent.

But there's still been the recent problems and violence in Tibet, they are still preventing large numbers of people from going anywhere near Beijing if they're on a watchlist and might protest, and a significant number of people have been arrested and detained to ensure they don't protest. As I said earlier, numbers of people have had their houses knocked down and been forcibly relocated to make way for Olympic facilities, and this is all so that China, or again I stress, the current regime, can put on a pretty face while the eyes of the world are on them. In other words, it's a PR exercise by an oppressive regime, and the rest of the world is going along with it, and by and large, pretending not to notice the huge warts on that pretty face.

And the great shame of it all? China is a great nation. Ancient, sophisticated and highly cultured, with an extremely intelligent people. One of the, and arguably the greatest nation on Earth. It's the regime that lets it down.

There are signs that the regime is slowly dragging its attitudes into the 21st Century. It's woken up to at least some aspects of freedom and free enterprise, and clearly, is shaping up to be an economic powerhouse of the future .... if it hasn't already achieved that status. It's going to be a major player at least, if not the dominant one. But it needs to lose that oppressive, dominating, centrist and paranoid political culture that oppresses and suppresses it's own people. If it does, if either the regime can change or China can get rid of the regime, then hold on to your hats because it's going to be an impressive ride. The trouble is, the regime fears that the people won't let the regime change but will get rid of the regime, and like most people with effectively unlimited power, they're determined to hold on to it, whatever the means they have to employ.

That's my gripe. The regime needs to exercise a little (actually a lot) less control over it's people and instead, let the people of China take their rightful place on the world stage as one of it's most (rightly) proud nations.

[Stewart]

Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

can someone explain to me the politics side of the olympics please with all this protest and what not

No offense mate, but how can you be this ignorant of the situation? You honestly have no idea what the protests are about?

How old are you?

[TooNice]

People protest about one or more of several issues:

- Human rights (including freedom of [...]).
- Tibet (massive can of worm).
- North Korean refugees.
- Darfur
- Territorial dispute with neighbouring countries.

I am not going to expand each of those, 1. it would be a dissertation, and 2. I do not fully understand each issues. People protest for different reasons, some may protest for one issues, others on many, and I suspect there are protesters who protest for the sake of protesting.

On the other side of the fence, there are people protesting about media bias against China and against some of the aforementioned issues some of which have two sides to the story.

Then there are also stories about a couple of protests going violent or protesters getting mobbed.

[Russ]

its not just how they treat humans either. the animal cruelty on China is sickening

[TooNice]

I don't think that's what the protests were about though (in terms of 'issues/criticisms' there are probably a big list).

Is that her own hand or is a security guard coping a good feel here? I can't quite make out the picture, but the hands look too big to be her own.


Back to the games, it looks like China has started strong in terms of collecting golds and medals in general.

South Korea is doing well so far too it seems.

I haven't really followed many games (just the random things that's on TV when I go to places), but have there been any 'upsets' so far?