In their latest media blitz, Beijing Olympic organizers impressed the public by announcing details of the torch design and a proposed relay route that will even take the torch to the top of Mount Everest.
But further details will probably remain shrouded in mystery until the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games on August 8, 2008. As with all good stories, audiences are going to have to wait until the end of the final act for the denouement and the delight this brings.
This is in line with previous editions of the Games. In 1988, for example, Seoul imposed news embargoes on local media to prevent them reporting rehearsals for the opening ceremony ahead of time.
This means that any clues about what the grand finale is going to look like will have to be pieced together from comments by Olympic directors and organizers.
Zhang Yimou, chief director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Games, has indicated that he was most impressed by the lighting of the Olympic flame in Barcelona in 1992, when the cauldron was lit by a burning arrow, and at Sydney in 2000.
"It was quite spectacular when Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame at the center of a waterfall. The Australians had a perfect combination of fire and water," he said.
Now expectations of Zhang at home are sky high in the wake of last year's opening ceremony for the Doha Asian Games, when the captain of the Qatari equestrian team carried the torch on horseback and rode up a flight of stairs to the top of the stadium to light a giant cauldron amid blazing fireworks.
As an indication of heightened preparations for the ceremonies, Beijing organizers have said the completion of the Bird's Nest (National Stadium) will be delayed until March, 2008, as the scripts of the opening and closing ceremonies are still being finalized. The directors are probably already thinking hard about how to use the architectural triumph and the gigantic interwoven twigs as props.
However, the delivery of a technological spectacle with some masterful choreography may be just one of the challenges for the designers of the opening ceremony, who also have to deliver in terms of content.
At the opening ceremony for the Seoul Games, known for its theme of the Unity of Heaven, Earth and Man, torchbearer Sohn Kee-chung, 76, was said to have "bounded around the track, leaping for joy and bursting with pride for himself and for his country," a touching scene that also symbolized the rise of a nation from its troubled past.
Similarly, the end of the torch relay at the Beijing Olympics will be imbued with symbolism. The Games has been described as a century-old dream come true for the Chinese people. But will the torch ritual build up to an emotional climax, combining the past and the present, technology and culture?
Zhang must have felt the mounting pressure. Recalling an inside joke among the directors on his team, he said that, come Aug. 8 next year, "you'll know if you're a hero or a criminal of one thousand years."
Email: yuanzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
