Opening ceremony last night (was watching it on TV, don't think I could afford the tickets to the actual event)...totally amazing, really well choreographed, etc., etc....would have been much better without the constant commentary from the NBCites.
Seriously. Every two minutes they were all, 'whoa so many people' and 'mindboggling' and 'wow, no hydraulics! human labor?!' With a population of over one billion, what did they expect?
Irritation aside, though, it's particularly interesting to note how Americans react to a massive use of labor as opposed to complete automation primarily directed by one person.
Seems to relate to the fundamental clash of eastern and western views: community vs. individual.
Funny, because the Olympics seem to include both. Individual events, relays...how much you rely on your country....
Also, America's fear of being overtaken by other countries. No empire can last forever; we need to deal with this fact before it's too late and we're all embarrassed. I mean, there was this sort of phobia of the amount of people that countries like China are able to mobilize visible the whole time: the shock of 2008 tai-chi masters; 15,000 individual performers...amusing. We are still terrified of mass armies.
(Really funny: Dubya talks about all the people in India and China using up the world's food supply...half those people are starving. There aren't all that many 400-pound Asians around.)
No comments:
Post a Comment