Tuesday, 26 August 2008
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Unhappy Thoughts About the Closing Ceremony
After what's been hailed as the most extravagant Opening Ceremony in Olympic history, Zhang Yimou does it again... Just not as well.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the thousands of volunteers and the symbolism of handing off the torch to the Brits- yeah, it really felt like a corny reversal of the 1997 Hong Kong Handover.
I even teared up at that scene where the Chinese volunteers waved goodbye to the reluctantly-leaving foreign athletes, which was followed by an appropriately somber extinguishing of the Olympic flame... then the passionate re-ignition via sheer manpower!
What I was annoyed at was what immediately preceded and then followed the meaningful handover segment- the disappointing performance of Leona Lewis, which was only rescued (somewhat) by Jimmy Page's skilled riffs. The good folks at Fourth Place Medal did a good job poking fun at all of that. And while certainly jubilant, the "Olympic Carnival" was a strange mess of dancers, acrobats, pyrotechnics, and stars the Western world is totally unfamiliar with.
What is up with NBC?! I have been generally impressed with NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics, but they totally botched the music portion of the Closing Ceremonies. Not only was the camerawork shaky, switching from acrobats to dancers to Jackie Chan, but they didn't even bother to acknowledge the Chinese superstars singing on stage... and the one they did identify, Wei Wei, is hardly "the biggest pop star in China".
At least they could've acknowledged Korean superstar Rain (whose singing in Chinese below, with Kelly Chen), whose long running feud with Stephen Colbert is the stuff of comic genius. Shame on you Bob Costas!
I'm pointing all of this out because I CLEARLY remember NBC analysts identifying Greek pop stars when they performed at the Athens Closing Ceremony- even though they weren't singing in English either! They even took time to ID the Greek American winner of Pop Idol in Greece... yet totally ignored Chinese American superstar Wang Lee-Hom!
But what really disappointed me was not seeing the REAL king of the pop music charts in China.
According to his reps, Jay Chou was invited to perform, but chose not to because "it didn't suit him" and because his company was afraid that he wouldn't "perform well".
In retrospect, perhaps President Chou and Co. made the right decision- if cameramen would focus on Jackie Chan and Wei Wei, while totally panning past Andy Lau and AMERICAN Alexander Wang Lee-Hom, it would've been a waste of time for Jay... especially because he's always talking about crossing over "one day" to the American music market. Then again, given NBC-Universal's lack of interest in even talking about Asian stars, I doubt it'll make that much of a difference.
All of this really proves something I heard a month ago from a Chinese professor at ASU,
"America has globalized the world, but it itself is not globalized."
In other news, people seemed to have made a huge fuss about Australian basketball player Lauren Jackson going in for some love from the most famous Chinese athlete on the planet.
Dude, look at Yao's face!
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Comments (4)
good for lauren jackson. if i was like... 6'7", i'd go for her. jay chou's mumbling probably isn't suited for worldwide consumption. i guess that's a good call by his management company.
I thought Leona (and the cheesy stage-production dancing) was terrible, but THE most embarrassing part for London was when the mayor (or whoever he was) went up for the flag-passing ceremony. SO AWKWARD! Disheveled look, unbuttoned coat, awkwardly putting his hands in his pants pockets.. twice!! Then using just one hand to casually side-pass the flag back to the soldier.. and putting his hands back in his pockets. That guy had no class or cross-cultural etiquette whatsoever, totally pooh-poohing on the formalities. He was a stark contrast to the other two men (Chinese and Canadian). It really made me cringe, multiple times. I was yelling at him on the TV.
I have to agree, the closing ceremony was a bit of letdown after the opening ceremony. I don't know about how NBC did, but CBC (Canadian broadcasting showed it live) showed nearly the whole event with almost no commentary. With a lot of the singing being done in Chinese by singers most Westerners don't know, I'm sure many of viewers did the same thing I did: switch to another channel. It looked like it was well received by the people and athletes there, but 20+ minutes of singing by stars that nobody knows (except for Jackie Chan), doesn't go over well on TV. In fact, I don't think 20+ minutes of mostly singing goes over well on national TV even if it is by stars that people know.
hi marc, you have nice some photos on your xanga. can you remind me of how i know you?