Category — Beijing Olympics

In ten days, the Beijing Paralympic Games will begin. I hope to blog about it of course and I hope that no unscheduled projects will come my way so that — unlike the Olympics that just passed — I can do the blogging regularly.

Who’s the athlete to watch in the Paralympic Games? I’m not sure if my kailiyan from the boondocks, Adeline Dumapong is going to the Games but she’s a force to reckon with in powerlifting.

Here’s the link for those of you looking for the official website of the Paralympic Games.

Photo credit: beijing paralympics

This, to me, is the most jaw-dropping part of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

What do you think of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony? Spectacular, eh? The parade of nations went on and on and on but I don’t think we can blame anyone for that. I was planning to put up a poll to get your feedback on the opening ceremonies but Blogger went crappy once again and wouldn’t allow me to save the poll. Darn!

But here’s some media reviews on the opening ceremony:

The New York Times: Until now, the most memorable of the ceremonies I have seen was thrown by Sydney, where the Australian irreverent sense of humor and magnificent backdrop of a gorgeous city made it a terrific show.

But this one was mesmerizing on such a grand scale, with the meaning of this event to a huge, formerly closed country obvious in every minute.

And the culminating lighting of the cauldron was jaw-droppingly cool. In a word, wow.

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The sign for the men’s restroom in Beijing’s National Stadium also known as the Bird’s Nest. Fortunately or unfortunately, the sign for the women’s restroom isn’t as, ehem, graphic.

PHOTO SOURCE: Beijing 2008.

Not sure what to say about the above video because I don’t understand the language. But here’s a report from newamericamedia:

A 50-second reporting piece on the Olympics and the earthquake from the Chinese Central Television (CCTV) might have been staged. The post on the Chinese-language website has a Youtube link to the story, which describes how Olympic torch bearers have donated to the earthquake relief efforts.

The post pointed out that in the last ten seconds of the story, the Olympic torch holders are shown putting money in a donation box, but a closer look shows that their hands are empty.

Newamericamedia based its report from this Chinese website. If the report is true, i.e., if the torch bearers didn’t really donate anything, one wonders what public relations benefit the authorities are trying to obtain by staging it.

But then again, maybe there are other torchbearers not included in the video who did donate to to China’s earthquake relief. At this point, let’s call this a non-scandal.