I'm watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies as I type this. It's a politeness thing. If, in the next couple of weeks, any of my Chinese acquaintances e-mail me and ask if I've been watching the Olympics, I can honestly say yes. I'm assuming they'll all be tuning in during the games, as the Olympic hype was already going on back when we stepped off the plane in 2005. Of course, it could be that nobody back in Yunnan is watching--that they're going to be watching some other channel. My watching the show will have been for naught.

Well, not exactly. I could really care less about the Olympic games, but I am enjoying the spectacle. Real time interruption: Hmmmm, cool. The athletes aren't marching in according to Western alphabetical order, but rather in order of the number of strokes in the first Chinese character in the country's name. Anyway, I have to confess that I'm enjoying the show. Once again: Hmmm, the Taiwanese athletes got a real rousing reception by the stadium crowd. Of course, they were following the Japanese... Anyway, I'm not writing much. I could have written during the last annoying commercial break, but I ran upstairs to get a Pop-Tart. Hmm, and now I have another annoying commercial break in which to write. It's been a while since I've endured network TV. Anyway... I find that I'm getting a bit excited over this. I know the politically correct thing to do is to be wearing a frowny face and hoping that Hu Jintao will spill his beer or do something else embarrassing. But when I think about China gaining face over these Games, I don't think of the government that deserves a lot of criticism over its actions, I think of the kids I met in Yunnan who can bask in some national pride. So I'm hoping everything goes well.

Anyway, I'm going to shut up now. I don't know if I'll be able to stay awake during the next commercial block.

Labels: China, commentary, TV