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Around 14, performers came and went across the floor of the Bird's Nest stadium, acting out pageants devised by a cadre of designers, choreographers and composers under the supervision of Zhang Yimou , the great film director whose works include Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern and The House of Flying Daggers. Now 56, Zhang Yimou embodies much of China's recent history. The son of a major in Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist army, he was forced to leave his studies during the Cultural Revolution of and sent to the country, where he was made to work on a farm and in a cotton mill.
Allowed into Beijing once the winds of change had died down, he studied cinematography and became a member of the celebrated Fifth Generation of film-makers. Called on to pull out all the stops, he certainly produced a show to match the scale of its surroundings.
Beijing's Olympic facilities are intended to show that China is a modern country built on ancient foundations, and Zhang's show mirrored that desire. As is the way in China today, Mao Zedong was evident neither in word nor image; the only time you see him is when you pull out a banknote.
Eighty heads of state sat alongside Hu Jintao, the president of the People's Republic, and Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee: Putin of Russia and Bush of the United States in adjacent seats; Fukuda of Japan and Sarkozy of France; and many, many more, the most notable absentees being Merkel of Germany and Brown of Britain, the latter's decision to stay away underscored by the presence of his predecessor, the man who saddled him with the job of following this in four years' time.
The scale of last night's endeavour was, of course, astonishing. The event then moved on to the parading of the national teams, ordered according to the number of strokes needed to write their names in Chinese characters. The Chinese contingent, cheered wildly amid fervent hopes the country could top the medals table for the first time, was led out by the nation's most celebrated sports star, the 7ft 6in basketball star Yao Ming.
The US team chose the Sudan-born 1,metre runner Lopez Lomong, who has voiced his opposition to China's support for the regime in Khartoum, which has been condemned internationally for its actions in Darfur. Once the teams had paraded, and with the ceremony running well over its scheduled three and a half hours, the Games were formally declared open by Hu and the Olympic flag hoisted on a giant pole adjoining the Chinese emblem.
Finally, the torch was brought into the stadium at the end of an epic — and protest-hit — progress around the world. A final relay of former Chinese Olympic gold medallists saw the flame passed to Li, who won three gold medals, two silver and one bronze at the LA Olympics. But away from the stadium, protests continued. A pro-Tibet group said three US demonstrators had been detained near the site after planning to hold up Tibetan flags during the ceremony.
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