...and yet missed the whole forest.

The whole point of the opening ceremony was domestic. The whole point of the Olympics for China's rulers is domestic. Who, frankly, gives a damn whether Joe Q Sixpack and Suzie A Punchclock in Iowa got it? It wasn't for them.

The entire show, from start to finish, was designed as _internal_ propaganda, reinforcing the idea that although things might be tough, the Party is leading China in the "right direction".

To miss this fact is to miss everything about this opening ceremony, and indeed this games.

You may as well have stayed home for all that you learned in the heat last night, Mr Krich. But then I'm coming to expect facile comparisons and well-worn cliches in place of actual journalism from you.

Says the reviewer: "The chronology conveniently skipped from the late Tang dynasty to an astronaut (presumed Chinese, since he never removed his helmet), leaving out centuries of decadence, famine, civil war, peasant revolts, Japanese annihilation, communism. No echo of the Cultural Revolution's big rallies here."

What a cranky review of a spectacular event. As if the opening ceremonies at the Atlanta Olympics should have featured slaves picking cotton, depictions of lynchings, the imprisonment of Japanese American citizens after Pearl Harbor, the assasination of JFK, etc. Can I have you VIP pass so you can go home?

"There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist."

- Ayn Rand

I think that is a good description of this article and the writer

Maybe John Krich should've done some actual reporting and stood outside with the peasants and workers. Maybe then he'd actually see why people in China are excited about the games and wouldn't have been so hasty to compare the opening ceremony to Fascism.

Seriously, Fascism? Did you just throw offensive words into a hat and drew one at random?

Oh I forgot. This is Salon, where writers are allowed to get away with crap like this.

Joan -- this is why your site has gone downhill over the years and why Slate has surpassed Salon in being the go-to online magazine. Your reporters just spew their opinions onto a page and you don't hold them to any accountability or any facts. That might generate traffic once in a while, and obviously you have me writing in anguish over a lame article, but that doesn't generate return visits.

I had half an inkling when I came to Salon this morning for Olympics coverage that it was probably going to be whiny BS with no substance. And you know what, I was right. Next time I want to come to Salon for anything, I'll remember that and go to Slate instead.

oh come on, y'all, "raise the RED lantern" (or torch?)...the commentators i.e.; the inane comments homme/femme de lettres is typically ameriPOV classique...they miss the point as do most uninformed citizens o' u.s. of a....def not personne cultivee...these people git all caught up with the in-your-face corporate marketing & fireworks (sino-invention, i might add) display...throw money @ 'em and they will impress/cum...HOWEVER krich, perhaps u miss the point also...its about viewer/spectatorship (& sponsorship, who's gonna pay?) ...the spectacle is shaped not only by demands internal to the project itself but by the demands of the viewer/spectator (& der staat) as well...artistic autonomy is nonsensical & cannot exist w/o viewers...the role of art & gesture is rhetorically shaped by artistic practice from the gaze...remember that zhang is a performance artist & he IS illuminating, literally...so are the architects (see 'nest' & 4bidden palace &cetera)...society be damned...the ancient greeks did this: they didnt cease city-state wars or slavery or patriarchy -- the games went on...if we are to be puritanically pure about this so-called olympic ideal, we would have to go back to only one event (oiled naked freemen exclusively allowed to compete, sorry) like in the olympiads c.776-724 bme: the single stadion race was about 200 meters in length, but then we would, also, have to sacrifice oxen (not nice now)...& the winner was crowned in kotinos (olive branch) & went home afterward to large sums of money..."citius-altius-fortius" as baron de coubertin proclaimed and americascheer.com.

I never saw a coke bottle.

The opening was sensational. Great artistic/technical presentation. The U.S.A.has never been able to pull anything like that off.

The worst part was the lack of Chinese historical knowledge of the NBC anchors, and the contact politicizing with Bushisms. I am sick of news anchors still selling the Bush/Cheney neo-con version of the world which is totally warped.

How about that goose stepping with the flag. They have left Communism behind for Nationalism.

The architecture of the stadium was great.

If we could just have the events without the drama presentations on each contender it would be much better.

Zhang chose to emphasize such historical markers as the Tang Dynasty in the opening ceremonies because these were periods of relative Chinese openness to and interest in the outside world - analogous to these games and China's reemergence on the world scene.

John, do you really believe that the opening ceremonies of China's first-ever olympics - a source of immense national and cultural pride for so many Chinese - would be an appropriate venue to explore "centuries of decadence, famine, civil war, peasant revolts, Japanese annihilation, communism"? I'd say not.

Would cover nothing but the extermination of the Indians, Slavery, and Hiroshima.

You hold China to some odd standards in this piece given your familiarity with it. In criticizing the Chinese journalists you act surprised that they aren't presenting tough questions about controversial issues. I can't think of many country's that have a press that would do that. I know America certainly hasn't as they are all terrified they might lose their contracts if they upset their subjects.

You're surprised by goose stepping flag bearers and that suggests you have never seen an American military flag raising at any public event which to myself is nothing special anymore.

You're two supposed stark descriptions of Sanlitun seem exactly the same based on my experience in that part of town. Perhaps a planned onslaught of foreigners to the area might have the effect of amplifying the area's commercialism. Your choice of using Sanlitun to describe larger patterns of Chinese deficiency seems odd given the larger reason that that neighborhood is the way it is has much to do with the large foreign presence there.

And as an earlier poster said, why should a country include highlights of it's worst moments in history? No country in staging a massive visual performance is going play to it's weaknesses. Where does slavery come in to the 1996 Atlanta Games? Seeing as the games were held in the South by your standards that seems like the opening ceremonies must artistically present that history else we have evidence of government censorship.

You fail to even mention that large amount of negative reception of the games on many of China's largest forums. You reduce the Chinese response to the games as evoking tears and generating oohs and then contrast that with Western discomfort when it looks like many Chinese internet users are more disappointed with the mass nature of the performances than their western counterparts.

I feel like this article was written a day after getting off a plane by a person who hasn't really spent much time in the country overall. Perhaps Salon should save money and let stories like these be done by overseas correspondents who actually live in the country.