Impressions of the Olympic Opening Ceremony By Mahuairong

[mahuairong]

Since the choice is unique.
Unique is the regret.
If it were directed by a robot,
I should say it was most excellent.

Despondency is as much as expectation.
Spirits and specters mixed with modern technology.
Hello, the noblest of the Chinese artists.
Why do you always lead me into dejection?

It is obvious you are copying your honors.
The Warriors, the Heroes and the like
have filled up your brains and inspirations.
You have passed the midday of your art,
living on skills and plots out of date.

If it were performed by the robots,
I should deem it to be tremendous.
What’s the fou, the musical instrument?
In grandpa’s folktales it never appeared.
In grandma’s ballad it was never mentioned.

Once Si maqian recorded it
in the history books of the imperial diplomacy
though it was not made of metal but of clay.
It was a leisure for the feudal emperors,
and a pleasure of the autocratic monarchs.

The foreigners are kidnapped.
The audiences are fooled.
The history is distorted.
The boys and girls are made weak in wisdom.

Why light is voiced once and again by darkness?
Light itself is light.
No decoration here is needed.
Contrasted with the dark can not but dazzle
and do harm to the aesthetic senses.

It doesn’t matter
if it is used only for expediency.
Oh, I see.
There is a shortage of electricity.
But what should have happened
if the power had gone off at the very moment?

Resorting to waves and acoustics
Surely you have become a beggar in creativity.
Poor in passions and imaginations,
deftly you have cooked a Chinese hotchpotch.

Confucius was being resold at high profits.
Special skills of the director are at their best.
Actually a problem it proves to be
how to stage the spirits of an ancient civilization.

Supposing Confucius is giving an open class
under an apricot tree with his disciples
instead of the murmurs of the monologue?
Goddesses of the moon are dancing with the astronauts.
Isn’t it evident we have created another universe?

Once Shakespeare wrote,
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth,
From earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,
The poet’s pen turns them to shapes,
And gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Whence the Peking Opera became a puppet show?
For the Chinese writers, playwrights and directors
are at the end of their sources.
The Spring Festival parties give only one instance.

Once Schlegel told me,
Nothing is wanted to call forth the poetry
which has its dwelling in nature and the human mind
but to throw off all artificial constraint,
and restore both to their native liberty.

Why don’t you gaze deep into the sky
where exists the revelation of God?
Why don’t you set your feet on solid ground
where sits the imagination of Nature?

By the way,
The theme song was not sung by robots.
Yet there was not much touch or resonance
as if not gushing from the arteries,
but oozing away with their courage.
Fortunately it was no more than an opening
and should be forgotten as it passed away.

Again,
by the way,
The sacred flame seemed to get lighted
by none other than a Monkey King
or a hired glorious whitewasher
from a certain Saturday construction site.

That’s all.
Let’s get down to business.
Behold,
How brilliant are the smiles of the athletes
especially those from the most exotic lands!
It is they who are the leading roles of the pageant.
Be patient till the next day.
The marvelous performances are to begin.
_________________
You see me, you lose me