Beijing 2008: A house divided

Did you see the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics? I woke up at 7:00am on August 8th to catch the first 2 hours of it. I thought the opening ceremonies were pretty impressive. There was a bit of family pride because I know that one of my in-laws were involved with the fireworks preparation in Beijing. My favorite were the fireworks footprints that were stepping towards the stadium. Wow!

My wife and I are pretty excited about the Olympics being in Beijing, as that is where Royal Pinguo's family is from. We hope that this event will challenge the views of many people who have held onto stereotypes about China that are embarrassingly out-of-date.

The media have been emphasizing that Beijing has bad air pollution, which motivated the American road racing team to invest in masks. Well, they wore them upon arrival at the airport, and were properly ridiculed. I've been to Beijing, and for those expecting to see pea soup thick smog... you will be disappointed. Beijing has air pollution, but it's not freakishly bad as the media would have you believe.

One rumor that my wife and I are in disagreement about is China's weather control technology. My wife is insistent that China is capable of controlling rainfall, and has had this technology for some time. Well, apparently China used this technology to ensure a rain-free opening ceremonies. The news article is here. There are more in-depth news articles about this, but they are all in Mandarin. Apparently, the rain that was due to fall on Beijing during the opening ceremonies, was dumped on the nearby city of Baoding instead. We have relatives in Baoding, and they did get dumped on by some pretty heavy rainfall on August 8th. So can China control the weather? I'll leave that for you to decide. I'm still skeptical.

The Olympics in Beijing have left Royal Pinguo and I with divided loyalties. This was apparent when we were watching the Women's soccer match between Canada and China. When the Canadian women were first to score a goal, I cheered for them (despite my weak interest in soccer). When China scored a rebuttal goal just a few moments later, Royal Pinguo began to cheer for them! From that moment, it was obvious where our Olympic loyalties lie.

PS: We'll see which country wins the most medals, and one of us will be acting smug in front of the other. I support our Canadian athletes tooth and nail... but if China beats Canada in the medal count, I'll have a better chance at looking smug in 2010.