The opening ceremony was amazing, truely exceptional and quite possibly the best we will see for decades to come.
Beijing looks amazing, much much cleaner and with far better facilities than I ever imagined possible.
Yes there is still a lot of pollution but your achievement in reducing the pollution levels, as well as the long term polution reduction steps you have taken in a very small period of time are truely amazing. In terms of actual reductions in pollution, you have delivered something that my government (Australia) and many others around the world can not even bring to the planning stages. This is an amazing accomplishment for a developing country with such a huge population and such massive resource and manufacturing requirements.
I am touched by the sacrifices individual chinese people have made for these games, many willing, many forced by the government, I don't approve of the old traditional houses being cleared out of many parts of Beijing for the olympics, but I can not deny that the China and Beijing we are seeing at these olympics looks amazing, and more importantly, was built on the sacrifices of regular chinese people. You deserve to be proud of what your sacrifices achieved, even if there are those in the chinese government who should be ashamed of asking for those sacrifices. You paid too much so that we could have a more modern Olympics.
The chinese people and military have performed some amazing feats of people power, both in the opening ceremony and in other areas such as clearing the sailing area's of algae after the massive algal blooms, this is a big problem in some areas of Australia too, but we have never succeeded in clearing the algae away, let alone by hand and in such a short time. This is thankless work and I know the world will be very quick to complain if the algae reblooms during the olympics. Some people fail to recognise how hard some people, real people have worked to try to present their country in the best possible light, no matter what it takes and regardless of what you had to work with (you can not compare the work it takes to make a highly polluted area pristine to doing the same in a relatively clean area).
The security of these games is astounding, it may have been perceived as excessive and has brought some ridicule from western media, but I think you have done a fantastic job. The criticism china has received for its city wide security crackdowns are nothing compared to the outcry that would have occured if a major (or minor) terrorist attack took place during the games. Never before has the risk of terror attacks been so real and you have done everything conceivable to protect the athletes, media and spectators.
On the topic of the chinese military, people and government. I am amazed at how much you have done to help your own people when the earthquake disasters struck. I would suggest more was done that in other recent disasters in much more developed countries. I am also amazed that in the face of this disaster you have still been able to produce such a magnificant olympic games.
Your athletes have been phenomenal so far, while i do not approve of the extreme training programs your athletes have gone through, I must give them credit for what they have achieved, their sacrifice was perhaps unnecessary, but the individual athletes deserve our respect as they have been through training most of us, even our top athletes, might not be able to imagine.
People of China, you have every right to be proud of what you have given us and what you have shown us. I think there is still a long way to go so that the governments of the world can accept the chinese government, but you have shown us you are capacble of great things and great change, I hope that in the future the area's of human rights and freedom of speech will also show as much progress.
ON THE SAME TOPIC:
The chinese government has been asking for the olympics to be kept politics free, this has been widely ridiculed for obvious reasons given the differences of opinion around the world relating to the chinese government and numerous issues such as human rights abuse etc.
But I can't help but feel they have a point, I love the olympics, never before have I been so excited about them, including the sydney olympics which were held in my own country, Australia.
But my enthusiasm is dwindling because of what I am seeing in the media, the spirit of the olympics, racial tollerance, amazement in seeing what some exceptional people are capable of, is all being dirtied by media obsession with picking at every perceived flaw in the beijing olympics. In Australia the only broadcaster is channel 7 who have not spent a cent getting anyone with any knowledge of china, it's history or people to commentate on the games. As a result we have been bombarded with racist commentary and news announcers with 0 acknowledgement of the good things about the games.
On the internet it is even worse, people are hiding behind the annonimity of the net and bashing china for all their worth whenever a flaw is found. The reason china has controlled these olympics so closely is EXACTLY that reason, no tollerance is being shown, no respect, every flaw is being made into a huge issue. The olympics should be about more that this, they should be about the best things in human kind, the best the worlds people can achieve, not an excuse to point out the flaws of others.
The flaws need work, but noone would take advice from someone who follows them around pointing out every minor mistake they made and never saying a positive word.
look at the current situation, every eye is turned on Beijing, there has never been so much negativity aimed at such a well executed event. The issues currently being discussed in the world media have been blown out of proportion in my opinion, not taking into account the two sides of the story or the facts on hand. Do faked images of real fireworks which were actually launched in exactly the way shown in the faked footage really matter this much? Lipsyncing, is this such a crime, has it never before been seen outside of china? Has anyone bothered to report on how proud the actual singer of the opening song was, how happy her family were and how insitant the director was to let the world know about her? Somehow the western media have changed her from a happy and proud performer, supported by a happy family and well respected director, into the ugly girl noone wanted who we should all pity. I put it to you that mistakes with losing 3 seconds of a national anthem, might be forgivable. I even suggest that an official in a shooting competition, might be human, and might have made a single bad call in one round of a single olympic event.
Give peace a chance, give china a chance, they are trying to show us their best, regardless of our political differences.
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