Beijing welcomes world to 2008 Olympic Games

Source: beijing2008.cn

08-09-2008 07:58

Special Report:   2008 Beijing Olympic Games

(BEIJING, 8 August) -- China welcomed the world to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Friday with the roll of thunder from two thousand fou drums and a battering of fireworks across the Chinese capital -- from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square to the National Stadium.

Fourteen thousand performers offered the 91,000 people in the National Stadium, popularly known as the ''Bird''s Nest,'' a history lesson in China''s contribution to world civilization. The spectators that packed the stadium held the first of some seven million tickets to the 2008 Beijing Games, in which nearly 11,000 athletes will jump, run, cycle, fight, swim, sail, ride and shoot their way to Olympic glory.

The Opening Ceremony began with a 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 countdown in the Beijing dusk. Then a roar of thunder came from the floor of the National Stadium where 2,008 drummers beat line after line of fou, an ancient Chinese percussion instrument. The drummers chanted as they struck the fou, "Friends have come from afar, how happy we are." This phrase comes from the work of Confucius (551 BC-479 BC), one China''s most important educators and thinkers.

Then came the fireworks.