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Olympics in Beijing 2008 opens
The centre of the square was sealed off, a vast expanse of concrete decorated with massive floral displays. There seemed to be no giant TV screens to watch. It did not seem a place for a crowd. But the people were gathering nonetheless. Streaming onto the sidewalks around the square by the tens of thousands, they lined up behind steel barricades, watched by soldiers. Many wore "I love China," T-shirts, printed in English and Mandarin. Many had tiny China flags or red stars stuck to their cheeks...
"I can't wait for the fireworks to start," said Liu Zhou, who was getting out his bicycle to get to the square. "This will be a wonderful night. "
In noodle houses outside the Forbidden City, workers drank Yanjing beer and feasted on noodles, waiting for the Olympic cauldron to be lit. The official Olympic clock, set on Tiananmen Square's edge for years to steadily count down the moment, finally flashed zero. The 29th Olympic Games had begun. A crowd, measured in the tens of thousands was coralled onto sidewalks, behind steel barriers. They were expecting a major show of pyrotechnics. What they got was a few short rocket bursts.
It was the first in a chain reaction of rockets, meant to symbolize a dragon, set in a line across the city. They were fired one after the other, on a flight to the Great Wall of China. The more massive fireworks display was reserved for those in the Bird Nest, Beijing's Olympic stadium. "That's it, that's it," said a policeman riding by in a van, dispersing the crowd from Tiananmen. It was precisely what the regime had planned. No massive crowd and no protests.
Roads were closed off to prevent a gathering in the millions, always a possibility in Tiananmen. Police checked people's identification, wary of protesters. Soldiers stood ram rod straight, surveying the square for the possibility of worse. The centre of the square, where Chairman Mao's mausoleum stands, was also sealed off. It was a vast expanse of concrete decorated with intricate floral displays. There was no giant TV screen to watch. Within minutes, people were heading home to their TVs -- the regime's preferred venue for the people. 08/08/08 Altinkum Didim Today News Source Vsun.
  
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