What are some of the highlights of the closing ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics? Which link left the deepest impression on you?
For example, in ancient China, senders would often fold a willow branch to give to relatives and friends who traveled far. Folding willow has also become a way to send off with a unique oriental cultural charm. I look forward to all the friends who come to Beijing to bring this willow branch and take away the friendship of the Chinese people.
A wonderful design like this has made many netizens call out: Zhang Yimou really understands it!
In response to everyone's hot discussion about the closing ceremony, on February 20, Zhang Yimou, the general director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, personally answered zhihu, and the full text is as follows:
Hello friends. The moment the Main Torch was extinguished, my heart was filled with mixed feelings. We recreate the scene of 2008: the stars converge on the ground to become the five rings of starlight, slowly rising with the theme song of "Me and You". Then the snowflake torch slowly descended again, and the two intertwined in the air, very romantic, as if going back in time, I myself think this should be a classic moment. At the moment when I see the two meet, I will still sigh that it is here, right in the bird's nest, and the moments of history overlap each other. It seems like just a few seconds, but in a flash more than ten years have passed. This moment represents the path we have traveled from 2008 to today.
As a witness, in the past ten years, many changes have taken place in myself and my country. We can present the opening and closing ceremonies in a minimalist way, so that the whole world can be with us. So I think the biggest difference between the opening and closing ceremonies of this Winter Olympics and 2008 is cultural self-confidence, we let go of our baggage, completely relax ourselves to be romantic. I met a staff member who was a volunteer in 2008 and is now the leader of the volunteer team. He said he came again, and I said you grew. Everyone will have this feeling, for more than a decade, in the overlap of time, the country is different from us. I believe that many people will feel the same way after seeing this moment, which is a deep feeling for Chinese the development of the country and the improvement of the country. In the two Olympic Games, we not only say the concept of "double Olympics", nor are we satisfied with our only double Olympic city and the only double Olympic venue. It is the road we have traveled, and it is the development and change of China for so many years. Chinese's sense of home and country is particularly strong, and so am I. Without the strength of the country and the improvement of China's international status, we would not have been able to bid for the Olympic Games twice in such a short period of time, nor would we have had what I call a "double Olympic director.", which is my luck. From the moment I received the Winter Olympics assignment, I knew that I must do my best and not slacken off. I always feel that the matter of home and country, the country is still a little bigger. My character is the character of Shaanxi people, treating big and small things, as long as I take it, I must be seriously responsible for doing it well, and I must be worthy of everyone's trust. Many of my contemporaries have retired, and I can still fight on the front line, which is the opportunity given to me by the times, and if I don't work hard, I will waste time, so I regard big and small things as more important than life. I like to often line things up, big things and small things overlapping together.
Maintaining such a creative mentality, in fact, I actually feel that it is good for my body. I am not very sociable, nor very good at sociability, mahjong will not play, if you don't do anything, people may be lazy, they are dull. I have people of all ages on my team, but in creative meetings, I'm afraid no one is my opponent, and I'm often the first to think of ideas. In fact, we have held many times and made a lot of efforts in the creative meeting of the "memorial session" of the closing ceremony. This link is a prescribed action that begins with the Rio Olympics, in memory of the deceased. South Korea chose to display it in a funeral-like format, while the Tokyo Olympics demonstrated Japan's "culture of mourning." So how does Chinese express death? How to extract the Chinese concept of life and death in Chinese culture? I think what is different from other countries in China is that we have the optimism and upward mobility of Chinese for those who have passed away and for their lives. Chinese a phrase often said to the deceased is called "all the way to good", our concept of life is like this, while commemorating the deceased and remembering the deceased, we often dry our tears, and the living people still have to live well. So we chose the image of "folding willows to send affection". Holding a glowing "wicker", everyone slowly walked toward the middle in the music of "Farewell", and countless green lights rose like monuments. We specifically turn the light green, which means life, hope and growth, we don't have much sadness, more of a deep memorial. The hope of green is rising again, everything has to look forward, it is a completely different feeling.
Source: Zhihu @ Zhang Yimou