there's something about ..... ioc session's opening ceremony

No matter what all other delegates like Tony Blair or Hillary Clinton said about the show.... in fact Hillary Clinton said the show "is exciting", I have only 1 word to describe the opening ceremony..... OMFG.

The opening ceremony was not shown in the entirety but might as well. The last thing they wanted is to show the audience falling asleep.. or laughing.

But why such exclaimation?

After the 3 tenors sang the athem for Olympics which I thought was very nice, I was expecting them to continue our national athem Majulah Singapura.

After a pause, I thought they were preparing their throat. BUT.... BUT.... BUT.....

Out came Jacintha. She sang a Jazzy and unplugged version of our athem. But her version would also have be appropriate for a funeral of a National figure. Closing her eyes, machiam singing a sentimental song. And you can also pass this off as a free style version. It's so different that I felt more shock than anything.

Following that are 3 boring speeches.

After our PM declared the ceremony opened, they must have a gesture to "open" it. Like other ceremonies, be it fireworks, or pressing a big button to start something. I was anticipating something of that sort.

But... surprise surprise. We decided to go classy. They have decided to create a new Orchid after the event. So the way to "open" the ceremony is for PM Lee and the President of IOC flanked by ministers to witness the rise of this Orchid.

And while they stand on the stage watching while everybody else sits comfortably at their seat, we were all wondering how this orchid will appear.

Ni na beh, very low profilely, no fan fare, no lion dance, no drum roll, the orchid rises up in the middle of a stage like machiam Jacky Cheung in his Concert.

And then the president of IOC put up the name of the orchid in front of the display platform. The name "VANDA IOC"

Of course the telecast show us as far as that. The rest of the shows are summarises in News program.

As usual, we have the 3-major-cultures-in-singapore performances. The indian performance machiam transvetite performing.

The last performance have people doing breakdances and hip hop dancing and supposedly a famous local singer singing.

Call me ignorant. But that singer looks like the transvetite in the indian performance and he is not Kumar. I dunno who he is.

Anyway, the show is not perform for people like us. So I'm not the best person to judge such shows. Perhaps if I one day do become a high level delegate, I may think such show "is exciting".

I think one reason why such show is not shown in the whole entirety is because they may sell the show as DVD. That is exactly what happen to the Ministerial Meeting held in Singapore few years ago. That time it was the closing ceremony that was the big hooha. And soon after that, the show was sold as VCDs in bookstores.

Commercialism at its best.