By Alyssa Tsang, Contributing Writer
The Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony was held on Feb. 4th, 7:00 A.M. EST. Director Zhang Yimou brought a brand-new idea to the opening in the “Bird Net” this year.
Under COVID-19, the winter Olympic games this year are full of challenges. First is the boycotting by the United States and many European countries, who refuse to send official representatives to attend the opening. Second is the continuous rise of Omicron-confirmed cases among athletes and Olympic staff.
To avoid an outbreak after the ceremony, the Beijing Olympic design team decided to not use a huge crowd of performers as they did in the Summer Olympics of 2008. Instead, they combined technology with Chinese tradition and created a countdown by using the 24 Chinese seasons, an ancient calendar calculation method. Additionally, the 4th of February is also the “opening of spring” and the first of the 24 seasons.
Zhang, who is also a movie director, decided to use this way to promote Chinese culture in a creative way.
“It is a very good cultural expression, showing the world the beauty of Chinese traditional culture,” said Zhang on CCTV.
However, despite the precautions, an outbreak did happen in the athlete village. Since the beginning when athletes entered the country, there have been positive cases among athletes every day.
One of the United States Bobsled athletes, Elana Taylor, tested positive for COVID-19, along with 67 other United States athletes and sports officials after arriving in China on Jan. 29. Taylor, a three-time Olympics gold medalist, has surely faced frustration, as do other confirmed-positive athletes.
The question is how the Beijing government approaches and settles this problem? And how will the games progress under a serious pandemic? The outcome is yet unknown
