Opening Ceremony of Beijing 2022 Showcases ‘Chinese Beauty and Romance,’ Ignites Cultural Confidence

By Global Times

Feb 05, 2022 07:29 PM

Photo: Li Hao/GT

After airing on Friday night, the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics continues to occupy Chinese social media platforms with more details discovered and discussed by netizens, who praised the opening ceremony as “Chinese-style beauty and romance” and a perfect representation of cultural confidence.

Almost all the entries on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo have been about the opening ceremony directed by well-known director Zhang Yimou, including its colors, LED floor, 24 solar terms of the traditional Chinese calendar, and the 44 Chinese children singing Olympics Anthem in Greek.

“The opening ceremony let me see the Chinese-style beauty and Chinese people’s romance. The colors used during the grand gala are harmonious, and the Chinese cultural elements stunned me and almost everyone surrounding me,” one audience member surnamed Feng living in Beijing who watched the live stream online told the Global Times.

One detail at the opening ceremony caught the attention of netizens. At the end of the show, “Shining Snowflakes” was performed by 500 children with model lanterns of pigeons. During the show, a little pigeon falls behind and is found by another pigeon, who leads it back to the team.

The related hashtag “hope lost child comes back home soon” has become one of hot topics on Sina Weibo and has earned more than 210 million views on Saturday. The “lost pigeon” was designed by Zhang’s team and lots of netizens speculated that the “lost pigeon” refers to the island of Taiwan, saying the performance was calling Taiwan to come back to the motherland as soon as possible.

The center stage within the venue comprised 11,600 square meters of HD LED screens, which is reportedly the largest of its kind in the world and imitated "a crystal clear ice surface" throughout the ceremony.

The LED floor can capture each step of performers to achieve the effect of snowflakes growing at each footprint.

“This time we made the largest screen around the world, equal to 15 IMAX film screens,” Wang Zhiou, the visual effect director of the opening ceremony, told the Xinhua News Agency. 

Forty-four children from China’s rural areas attracted the attention from all over the world on the night and also sparked huge discussions on social media.

The children who sang Olympics Anthem in Greek at the opening ceremony are all from Fuping county, Baoding of North China’s Hebei Province, which was elevated from poverty two years ago.

The music teacher picked these children from five local schools and some of them even just knew how to sing a song four months before standing on the stage.

The chief director Zhang said that he loved the children’s performances as they can display China’s next generation’s attitude.

At the opening ceremony, cultural self-confidence was on display everywhere. For example, the production team simulated the ice and snow to carve beautiful door and window patterns. 

The doors and windows displayed patterns of China’s famous rivers and mountains in four seasons. These most representative patterns are all from traditional Chinese decorations.

The short film themed on “Lichun” (Beginning of Spring) at the beginning of the opening ceremony also ignited the social media platforms.

The 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar correspond to different ancient Chinese poems, showing the beauty of Chinese literature.

“This is a feast for our eyes. I believe that netizens in other countries can also feel the charm of Chinese culture through the opening ceremony,” a Sina Weibo user commented.

On Twitter, many overseas internet users did offer positive feedbacks to the ceremony. “China always does it up with their creativity for the opening ceremony,” a Twitter user named “DCHomerSports” wrote.