There is a lot to be said against the Olympics. The IOC is corrupt. The process of countries or cities vying to host the games brings out the worst in politicians. The spending on them is wasteful. They don't bring the economic benefits the politicians say they do.
And yet the opening ceremonies are worth watching. The parade of nations is a nice thing and it is interesting to see countries you never heard of having their brief moment on the world stage.
And since the Tokyo Olympics are practically at the same time zone as I am currently, it is no mean expediture of time to watch some of the events like the opening ceremony.
It was nice to watch the opening ceremonies with my son. We cheered for the appearance of the Canadian, Chinese, Latvian and American teams. Here are some random obervations about the ceremonies:
Bermuda had the worst look of all the countries. Pink shorts with black dress shoes!
Tajikistan earn my admiration by not wearing masks. The mask wearing was stupid and effeminate, and very opposite to the Olympic motto of higher, faster, stronger.
Argentina doing a group stomp was wonderful to behold.
Latvian women looked cool in their silver skirts.
There were many cringeworthy moments like the performing of the John Lennon Imagine song, the speech by the IOC guy, and the trying to get every conceivable faction of Japanese society shown to have carried the Olympic torch – and of course it had to be a woman ultimately lighting the flame.
I hope the Catholic Church protests the performance of the Imagine song. One of the performers did mutter the "no religion" lyric.
Whatever I admired about Japanese culture didn't seem to be present in the opening ceremony performances.
Where was Godzilla?
There were a lot of countries in the parade of nations. After forty minutes, Tony & I played a game where we tried to name the countries that hadn't appeared yet.
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