Olympics

Watching the Olympics last night, I'm reminded a little of the books I once read by Eric Van Lustbader (see: The Ninja, The Miko, & Jian)... To be honest, I was in high school when I read them. I don't remember the exact stories, nor did I realize until just now that Eric wrote the Borne novels that the movies are based upon... but what I do remember one of his characters grew up in China before China became communist, that character had a powerful influence into that decision/direction & a vague understanding that Chinese communism is not the same as Russian communism. From his books, the reason why the Chinese choose communism over capitalism made sense (though I can't remember why now)...

But looking at the opening Olympic ceremonies... 90,000 people in the birdsnest, 2008 performers on the drums, 2008 tai chi performers, etc. The shear size of the performances, the fireworks... The melodrama, the symbolism, the costumes, the colors, the Chinese history, the LEDs, the wires... the shear size of the canvas in which they worked with... you're quickly blown away. And the synchronization of drummers was just fantastic.

Then you start to think... how do you get 2008 people on drums to do that, without a lot of too many mistakes? To make it all seem seamless... I've made my home in cities where the meto area have been between 1.7 to 2 million people... okay, as a contractor, I've lived in larger cities with 5.2 to 6.1 million people... but Beijing has 11 million people in their metro area... almost twice the size of the largest city I've lived in... Not as large as New York or LA, but passing Chicago.