It has only been 4 months since the Beijing Olympics 2008, but for some reason it seems to have happened so very long ago. Perhaps it’s because of the credit crunch and lots of real life things happening, but my online activity has really dwindled. This includes the continuation of the series on the Closing Ceremony, where this post has been in ‘draft’ for far too long without actually having ever been written up.

Above is a photo of the 7 sopranos who serenaded us all with their rendition of the Chinese folk song 今夜月明 or The Moon is Bright Tonight. Out of all the performances that night, I have to say this sweet love song was my absolute favourite performance of the evening (more photos of some of the other performances can be found at the end of this post) Their voices (and their outfits) were absolutely gorgeous!

This is the list of the soprano performers:

張也, 湯燦, 張燕, 陳思思, 雷佳, 王麗達,哈輝

The original plan was to introduce all of the singers individually, but I think it’s safe to say that they are all very accomplished sopranos and perhaps it will be fine to leave it at that, since on a personal level, the actual song and their rendition of this particular arrangement was the most wonderful part.

I have actually recorded the song from the BBC broadcast of the Closing Ceremony, and find it so very uplifting to listen to. The song is sung by a girl to a boy in the mountains, and she sings about the magnificently bright moon that has risen, which reminds her of the one she is missing. And as the wind sweeps up to the hills, she asks if he can hear her calling to him.

At least, that’s my interpretation of the original lyrics, although CRI Online has helpfully provided the names of the people who brought us this arrangement (卞留念、趙兆、孟可 and 尹宜公) I have decided to edit the original lyrics and post what the sopranos actually sang here:

(恩噠恩噠 哩羅來哩羅來)
(恩噠恩噠 哩羅來哩羅來)
月亮出來亮旺旺亮旺旺 （哪呀咿哪呀咿也 哪呀咿哪呀咿也)
想起我的阿哥
在深山 (噠 噠 哩羅來哩羅來）
(哪呀咿 哪呀咿也 哪呀咿呦呀咿也)
哥想月亮天上走天上走 哥 (哪呀咿哪呀咿也)
哥哥啊 (來啦哩 來啦哩 來啦哩 來啦哩羅來哩羅來）
山下小河淌水
清悠悠 (哪呀咿哪呀咿也 啊呦呀呦 咿也)

月亮出來亮旺旺 亮旺旺 月亮出來亮旺旺 亮旺旺
亮旺 亮旺 亮旺 亮旺……
月亮出來亮旺旺

一陣清風 吹上坡 吹上坡 哥啊 哥啊 哥啊
你可聽見阿妹叫阿哥……
阿哥 月亮出來 月亮 月亮

It is a little shorter than the original, and the words that you can see within brackets interweaves between the actual lyrics, and are nonsense if taken literally, but musically they are a perfect accompaniment for the song.

If you would like to be reminded why this song is so good, feel free to listen to the mp3 recording that I mentioned earlier from the BBC broadcast below. Alternatively, you can also download The Moon is Bright Tonight for your own enjoyment as well. It is really something worth listening , especially in the winter months, in my humble opinion, and it would be great to find out if you thought the same too!

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Download the mp3 recording of The Moon is Bright Tonight from the BBC‘s broadcast of the Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony or click on the ‘play’ button above to listen to the mp3 on the site!

Unless I get round to writing about the Handover to London, this may be the last post on the Olympics 2008 for the time being. But I think, as the BBC’s Matt Slater summed up so eloquently in his blog post:

The closing ceremony was absolutely in keeping with everything I have seen in Beijing over the last three and a bit weeks: staggering in scale, perfectly choreographed, visually stunning and absolutely on time.

p/s: Some of the other photos we promised at the start of this post from the Beijing Olympics 2008 Closing Ceremony including Jackie Chan, Karen Mok, Andy Lau, Joey Yung and other really big name (old-skool) celebrities singing 遠方的客人請你留下來 or Please stay, Guests from Afar.

Photo courtesy of 赤子之心

And some of the 75 acrobats mimicking flames as they performed on the 25-metre tall Memory Tower.

Photo courtesy of azzurri_nr1

Last but not least, Placido Domingo and 宋祖英 (Song Zuying) singing the duet of 愛的火焰 or Flames of Love together.

Photo courtesy of 赤子之心

Christine Ohuruogu won Olympic 400m gold for Britain with a stunning surge down the home straight in Beijing!

The line, taken from “ Ohuruogu grabs gold for Britain“, really summarises the amazing performance by the athlete. I watched the event on the video player (hopefully international readers can also watch the video) that showed the entire finals from the starting blocks to the parade after the sprint, and strangely, although I already knew the result, it didn’t stop the onset of nervousness that always seem to accompany ‘live’ viewing of competitive events that involve team GB.

This is probably because for about the first 300 metres, Christine Ohuruogu really didn’t look as though she was in contention for gold at all. I’m going to put this down as me being an unseasoned 400m viewer, but after watching America’s (title favourite) Sanya Richards leave her fellow runners behind in the first half of the race, I could barely watch the last stretch. But oh my god, didn’t Christine Ohuruogu impress at the end?

In that very last stretch, her speed suddenly increased and she emerged from the ‘pack’ (I mean this) of 400m sprinters to power ahead into gold! It was actually a very surreal experience watching it, dare I say a bit like watching Usain Bolt‘s captivating Men’s 100m Final performance, except she didn’t slow down.

And after reading a few more articles, it is almost for sure that the tactical performance of Christine Ohuruogu during this big moment and all of her hard work in training has paid dividends and won her this precious medal. The BBC’s Tom Fordyce called her win ‘A Tactical Masterpiece‘, where he mentions her coach, Lloyd Cowan, as one of the key players in this campaign; although according to TF, Katherine Merry (bronze medalist of the 400m in Sydney) believes that:

the victory had its roots in Ohuruogu’s decision to spend the first half of the year working on her one big weakness… …short sprints.

What is clear is that this win will go far in taking her away from the doldrums of the past two years, where she was banned for a year due to missing 3 random drug tests. I didn’t follow the story very closely, but it was genuinely sad that this could taint an otherwise impeccable record (she has won a medal at every major event that she has attended) from an obviously talented athlete and I am just very very glad that she has taken the top prize of the event. As the Telegraph’s Richard Edwards and Richard Spencer so succinctly put it (in their excellent article about Christine Ohuruogu):

From hero, to zero, to hero again.

So a huge congratulations to Christine Ohuruogu and also to all the other Olympic medalists today, such as Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy (both cycling), Paul Goodison (sailing) and Germaine Mason, who took silver on his Olympic debut for the high jump – a ‘wild card’-esque entry who wasn’t expected to win any medal. Their combined efforts, along with the rest of the GB team, have shot us to a mind-blowing third on the medals table! The gold medal tally of 16 is certainly the best that Great Britain have seen in a century!

However, in a change from the usual “iconic images from the past” theme, the BBC have taken a big bold step of commissioning a two-minute animated piece called “Journey to the East”, with characters from that classic Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West‘ such as Sun Wukong (the Monkey King ‘Monkey‘ who is also the mascot for the BBC’s Olympics broadcast), Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Wu Jing (Sandy ) and even Guan Yin, the kind goddess of good fortune who has WuKong’s best interests at heart.

Monkey and Friends

The difference is (as the BBC’s Ollie William’s put it so succinctly) that the animated story has twisted the original to become Journey to the East for the Olympics, where the three friends/companions battle their way to the Bird’s Nest Stadium through some of the Olympic events, such as diving, throwing the hammer and the javelin, hurdling, pole-vaulting, ‘passing the baton’ (yes, the relay) and taekwando just to name many.

The hammer’s life was never the same again…

The animation was the brainchild of the people behind the virtual band Gorillaz (namely Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett) and you can see plenty of pictures of the background scenery, the characters and behind-the-scenes just by clicking on the main information page about the mascot and the production on the BBC website. Watch the animation below!

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

So what do you think of the video? I’ve been reading comments posted in response to Ollie William‘s BBC blog post about this very video, and some comments are literally polar opposites, but there are plenty of others falling in-between, although I’m personally very happy to say that most are positive responses to what I feel is a highly dynamic, inventive, inspired and all-encompassing production.

Which of course means – I like it. The music did take me very much by surprise (it switches halfway from a slow and gentle tune with a solo vocal by Jia Ruhan and traditional Chinese instruments, such as the Erhu, to an upbeat electronic track-remix as the action starts) since I was expecting something a bit less ‘Chinese’ in style and more techno (as is usually the case for these videos) but this unique piece did actually complement the animation very well!

I think that what has made the video so unforgettable is this: the combination of a classic Chinese novel, traditional Chinese music and ‘typical’ Chinese background scenery (with a modern twist) as the backdrop to the story of friends working together towards the Olympics Bird’s Nest stadium; it so brilliantly sends out the crystal-clear message that this is all about the Beijing 2008 Olympics, even if the song lyrics might have lost its meaning through (lack of) translation.

The “Journey to the East” storyboard

For those who are wondering about the lyrics, with credit to marcher233 and dirtyfooty for the translation, this is what Guan Yin is singing:

Congratulations Wu Kong, on your pilgrimage
For hope and glory
Kindle the dream, share life and death
Travel the world without pause
Push forth despite difficulties and hardships
Break through the fear, quest for hope and glory
A bright and colorful dream, combining body and soul

For hope… (x4)

On a side note, if you would like to find out more information about the classic Legend of the Monkey King tale, please take a look at this excellent website by Yuen called Journey to the West – The Legend of the Monkey King. There is plenty of in-depth commentary on the actual story, the author, the characters, as well as links to related multimedia such as TV series and films.

Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy

Quite a few readers will have watched one Japanese adaptation called “Monkey” or (Monkey Magic) (esp. the UK readers) that was broadcast on the BBC back in the late-70s. One of the more recent TV adaptations by Hong Kong’s TVB station, in which Dicky Cheung starred as the main character, is also known as “Journey to the West ’96” and (a slightly shameless plug here, as I am participating in the project as a translator/editor!) the series is currently being subbed into English and Spanish by a fansub group called SWK Fansubs.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

UPDATE (23/12/08): As the BBC is no longer providing the file for download, I have decided to provide it here since it is a great theme song. Please click to download the BBC Olympics Monkey Theme Song mp3 in a zip file.

UPDATE (22/08/08): Download the BBC’s Olympics ‘Monkey’ theme song as an mp3 for free directly from the BBC (UK listeners only) for only one week starting today by visiting this site: BBC – Download our Olympics ‘Monkey’ theme. Alternatively, click on the ‘play’ button above to listen to the mp3!