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• Olympic Journal: Bird's Nest and Water Cube

  Monday, Aug 11, 2008 3:16AM / Standard Entry / Members only
  22 comments
  
  
  
  The night is really the best time to take pictures. It was well past 1 a.m. when I finished work, so my video editor and I ran around the Olympic Park without anyone bothering us. No one was around to tell us where we can and can't go. (Not there, or there, or there, maybe there, sure, you can go there. Wait! I change my mind, no, definitely not there ... etc, etc.) No one asked to see our access pass. It was — dare we get used to the idea — Freedom!
  
  August 10, 2008
  
  
  
  
  The Olympic Flame
  
  
  Let the games begin ... at last! My wits have been shredded into bits by all the buildup, and now I can finally report on a reality — a palpable, cover-able, occurring event — instead of a phenomenon in the future, like Doomsday. The Doomsday analogy is not so far-fetched. During the pre-Olympic days, we reporters were collectively driven mad by anticipation of a terrorist attack, an embarrassment in BOCOG management, or worse, an Olympic letdown. Anything but a letdown. Let the world end, but don't let it end on a whimper.
  
  
  
  
  
  The world did not end, and the opening ceremony was anything but a letdown. I watched some of it (face it, no one watched the whole thing), like most of you, on a TV screen. (Actually, on about 30 TV screens at the TVB studio in the Olympic Park, just down the road from the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest, at the International Broadcast Center. And when we saw the fireworks on TV, we all ran out into the streets in time to see the Bird's Nest flare up like a fiery porcupine, and the sky light up from North to South as pyrotechnic fever swept up and down the spine of Beijing.) It looked spectacular. The show looked spectacular. The Bird's Nest looked spectacular. But the important word there is looked. I couldn't help but feel that the hallways of the Bird's Nest looked familiar to … the Kingdome. The multi-purpose stadium that used to serve Seattle and King County (hence the name) was the cause of much ambivalence. It was ugly. Walking through its monochrome of nothing but grey concrete made me feel like I was paying a visit to Dystopia. But the Big Momma, which was torn down while I was in college, was an underdog stadium, which had humbly housed the most consistently underachieving and disappointing sports teams in the U.S. (That would be the trifecta — The Seahawks, the Mariners, and the Sonics — yes, the Sonics played some games at the Kingdome.)
  
  
  
  
  The Bird's Nest has no such underdog charm. It is an arrogant specimen of the class Aves, and it knows it. I feel proud of China as it whips up a colossal Summer Games — but too proud. I cannot help but know that my feelings have been manipulated by a lot of patriotic persuasion. “Don’t you feel proud?” “Isn’t Beijing great?” “Wasn’t that the best opening ceremony ever?” I’ve heard everyone from Mrs. A to Mr. Z say things like that. Can I say no? They’re not expecting a no, and they’re not gonna take it. (By the way, for me, the torch moment of the ages is still Muhammad Ali. His mere presence was much more emotional to me than Li Ning's blatant disregard for gravity.
  
  
  
  
  Anyway, the Bird’s Nest looks pretty good, but it does remind me of the Guangdong Olympic Stadium, a structure I detest and consider a complete waste of resources. There’s still far too much of that sort of wastage in Beijing. By the way, at least two people (the official report is two — sometimes you can trust official numbers, sometimes not) died building the Bird’s Nest. Maybe, just maybe, your sacrifice was worth it. You did good.
  
  August 8, 2008