Feeling the Olympic Pride

One of the last things I did with my dad was to take him, my mom and Andrew out for dimsum on Labour Day at the Paradise Restaurant to celebrate his 86th birthday. One of the gifts I gave him was a DVD recording of the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony. We watched the entire ceremony after dim sum and my dad just commented the whole time about how impressed he was. His pride was evident.

For those who knew my dad, you knew just how much of a nationalist he was. Very proud of all things China and would not put up with a single negative comment about it or Chinese people. It was both an endearing and really annoying quality.

Standing at the heart of Beijing's Olympic Village - our third stop on Thursday, after Forbidden City and Tianamen Square (more on the latter in a later post) - and looking up at the impressive Bird's Nest stadium - I thought about how happy my dad would've been if he could've seen this in person. As silly as it sounds, I felt proud at that moment - and felt connected to a bigger whole (all of Beijing's 15 million people) - simply because I was Chinese. As bloody obvious as it sounds, it made sense why my former Italian neighbours had their Italian flag up during the World Cup.

Olympic Village is an impressive and bold assertion of modern Beijing. Next to the Bird's Nest and certainly not to be outdone is the Water Cube (aka National Aquatic Centre) - where Michael Phelps broke record and record this summer. Across the street is the Pangu Plaza, a tall dragon-shaped building/hotel - that housed VIPs like The Kissinger during the games - that literally leaps out from the skyline and stands strongly like a guardian facing the Village.

In a land that just oozes with symbolism - it was not surprising to learn the rationale behind the architecture. The Bird's Nest is round, because circle symbolizes the sky/heaven; whereas the Water Cube is square - because it represents land and the four corners represent balance.

Coming from an urban Toronto perspective, where we obsessively try to plug every square inch of space with condo development, it was refreshing to see such vast open spaces. The "heart" of the village had a vast square of sitting tents and little outdoor cafes where you could buy a package of instant noodles and cook it yourself with a canister of boiled water. Speaking of which, this was exactly how we ended our visit to the Village - a quick, warm and satisfying lunch - before rushing to our next destination.