The opening ceremony- a dud

I think they chose the wrong guy to show the Mid-East Culture. But taking into account of going through the different cultures & picking a theme etc he did quite well.

The opening ceremony was well done & lighting of the flame would rank as the BEST EVER LIGHTING OF THE TORCH IN THE HISTORY OF the lighting of the torch of ANY GAMES

The girl on the moon was a romantic sight. (although it must have been a freezing time for her)

And the song "Come together as one" is on even-keel with the song of Whitney Housten "My Moment In Time".

Well i left for sydney a good two weeks before the show.

feel sorry for myself. couldnt fit the games into my schedule.

ha ha well said about promoting Qatar. Well, an investment to the tune of $3 bn needs to be encashed & they thought it was the right time. Yes I agree with you guys it was a bit nagging at times, but I think it is common in all Arab countries - they think they are the best in the world....ha ha!

Hey butterfly - I thought u had left Qatar long back! R u still around?

Haha, you're right about the promoting Qatar bit, sometimes it felt a bit like "Invest in Qatar" but other than that I thought it was good!

While I thoroughly enjoyed the Opening Ceremony, I cant help but think that Fertile Crescent Arab culture was completley left out of the ceremony!

Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine were all partaking countries, but yet, Dabke, Sword dances were not featured in the games, nor did we have our own "Culture Box" which was sad.

Secondly, I couldnt help but notice how good part of the opening ceremony was dedicated to promoting Qatar when this event was supposed to highlight regional/international sporting. I would imagine that the Korean Asian Games were more modest viz representing Korea than Qatar was in representing itself. It just became too much (though Qatar needs the publicity, I dont disagree- so, effectivley I am torn!)

Yups I mean it. If you all have noticed the show of Seekar, that was the theme. They want to get aligned with mainstream Asia & change the image of the Arab world. And, if it interests you to know the history of Asian Games, it was started by India in 1951 when many Asian countries had just gained independence & India took the initiative to host this sporting event.

There are other rich countries in this region & Qatar has shown it's boldness by hosting this event ahead of all inspite of so much of infrastructure challenges. There are drawbacks in any intitaive like the stadiums are lacking spectators and you do not find cabs on the streets, but the exposure Qatar is getting by letting itself known to the rest of world will pave the path of their future.

Why can't you watch it?

maybe is was trying to be a "sour sport". i cant really get over the fact that inspite of being brought up in qatar and having lived there for 95% of my life i am not going to be able to watch it. I hope the games do finish soon. I will get over it by then

Well said SIDDH!

Now me and hubby curious what actually happen during rehearsal re about pearl diver??? Shame we missed it in actual ceremony :(

The ceremony was indeed a reflection of the dedication of DAGOC blended with technology & sporting spirit of Qatar. I am from the country (India) which started this game way back in 1951 & have hosted it twice (bidding again for 2014). Qatar requires to be congratulated to have taken this bold step as an attempt to merge middle-east with mainstream Asia & also change the image of the Arab world.

And somone who commented that it was full of Chinese cultural shows, please think again. The cultural show was based on the theme of an Arab story, with a mix of SE Asia, Indian sub-continent & Japenese cultures.

In a nutshell: well done Qatar!

(the next challenge is to fill up the gallaries during the events)

xyned be a good sport. There is no free lunch in the capitalist world. Everybody make money one way or another. What the organisers have done is to bring the best in the world to show case this event. They put up a show worthy of its class. Asia will be fortunate if it finds such a benevelont host for the games in the future.

oh wasnt that beautiful? i had the priveledge of going to the rehearsal and seeing the "pearl divers" too, it was the highlight for me. shame it couldnt be done last night, for everyone to experience.

even though the weather was not optimal for such an event. Having been to both the dress rehearsal and the actual ceremonies, it was such a pity that Mother Nature did not cooperate; so that the audience could have seen, what I think would have been the highlight of the event, the emergence of free-floating sailboats (appearing from the large screen and sailing above the stadium), which was then followed by the many acrobats suspended from the sailboats. Given the logistics of having to work with torrential winds, personally, I think the show surpassed Sydney and will be benchmarked for years to come. Hey come on, with endless amounts of money, anything is possible.

MC xo

ha ha, I think you're husband is typical of a lot of westerners. it is difficult for us to tell asians apart in general, i've lived in Japan and travelled across alot of Asia so its easier to pick up on the subtleties.

But its probably hard for asians to tell the difference between poms and aussies and south africans too! point is, the asians can tell the difference between the asians therefore the opening ceremony was appropriate for its INTENDED audience. which doesnt include young aussie blokes like xyned.

lol Banana ... you are too right. I am a chinese Indonesian. But my husband always tell me he can't see the difference between chinese, japanese, korean, thai and others.

of course there had to be reflections of the rest of asia's culture. its not the Qatar games its the Asian games, and the opening ceremony depicted the culture of countries right across asia, as well as having a good proportion of Qatari heritage. if you think it was all to "chinese" maybe you dont understand the differences between the many cultures.