Monday, December 01, 2008

By Marijke Rowland
mrowland@modbee.com

last updated: August 14, 2008 02:30:25 PM

The Beijing Olympics have been a full-on assault on the senses.

For the international participants and audiences, the tastes, touches and smells of a culture at once alike and yet so foreign to ours must be extraordinary.

But for us watching from the comfort of our homes some 6,000 miles away, it has been all about the sights and sounds.

Nothing exemplified this better than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony a week ago. The normal pageantry, artistry and spectacle one has come to expect were on display. But the ceremony also had something unlike almost any other I've seen in my nearly lifelong obsession with the Olympics.

It had unimaginable, unfathomable, unbelievable control of the masses.

China is the world's most populous country. Its 1.3 billion people make up about a fifth of all humanity.

The sheer number of performers alone, 15,000 in all, was a clear signal to the world. There are a lot of us. Like, seriously, a lot.

But size really wasn't everything in this case. It's control that matters most.

The military precision of the performers was both beautiful and eerie. Thousands of people, individuals, moving in a unison so complete they seemed like one organism.

Really, it blew the mind. When those men popped out of the top of those boxes after an awesome, seemingly hydraulic display of choreographed movements creating shapes and waves and symbols — well, I think my jaw actually detached and hit the floor. I'm still picking up the pieces.

Of course, all this perfection also comes at a price.

Your heart can't help but break for little 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. She was the Chinese girl with the golden voice but the crooked teeth deemed by officials as not having the "good looks" to represent the "national interest."

Instead, Chinese officials pulled a Milli Vanilli, with Peiyi singing unseen as drawn-by-Disney-adorable 9-year-old Lin Miaoke lip-synced for a global audience.

The Olympic Games always have been an amalgamation of national accomplishment and individual excellence.

It takes extraordinary people to win. And from that one person, an entire country can derive untold national pride.

It's that intersection of the one and the many that have made the games in Beijing so interesting to watch. For a government built on the belief of the state over the individual, the games have been a public-relations triumph.

But you have to wonder if it feels that way to a 7-year-old girl with crooked teeth.

Elsewhere around the Scene:

Former Modesto and Sonora resident Derrick Barry made it into the top 40 of the NBC reality series "America's Got Talent."

The 2001 Beyer High School graduate floored, and fooled, the judges with his Britney Spears dance routine.

The 24-year-old performs his Spears female impersonation in the Las Vegas show "An Evening at La Cage" at the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

"Got Talent" is on hiatus during the Olympic Games. It will return with live rounds Aug. 26 on NBC. Visit www.nbc.com/Americas_Got_Talent. …

Check out the international sensation "Singh Is Kinng." The Hindi film stars Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif and opened to huge box office overseas, breaking into the United Kingdom top 10. The Bollywood smash also features a song by rapper Snoop Dogg.

Catch the film at 10 p.m. Saturday at the State Theatre. Tickets are $10. Additional screenings will be announced later. Call 527-4697. …

And finally, catch Modesto-area band Anthem in the Fire Support from the Capitol Benefit in Sacramento on Saturday.

The group will play at 3 p.m. on the Capitol steps as part of the benefit for the Sacramento Fire Department and its recent work fighting the state's wildfires. More at www.myspace.com/anthem.

Bee entertainment writer Marijke Rowland can be reached at mrowland@modbee.com or 578-2284. Read her blog SceneIt at thehive.modbee.com/sceneit.

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