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Since 1920, it has been an official part of the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony to present the Olympic Truce. The Olympic Truce Logo is ‘symbolised by the dove of peace with the traditional Olympic flame in the background.’ (Olympic.org, 2012) In the Opening Ceremony, the Olympic flame should be lit at the back followed by the release of the doves. The release of the dove represents ‘the IOC’s ideal to build a peaceful and better world through sport’ and the Olympic flame brings ‘warm friendship to all the people of the world through sharing and global togetherness.’ (Olympic. Org, 2012) However, this does not apply to the Winter Olympics because it was thought that the weather would be too cold for the birds to fly. In many cultures, birds symbolise ‘the freedom and transcendence of the human spirit as it was released from the body in ecstasy of death.’ (Dreyer, 2007:30) And the dove was chosen because it was sacred to ‘the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.’ (Dreyer, 2007:30) With the Beijing ceremony, the order in presenting the Olympic Truce was rearranged – while the dove was presented here, the Olympic flame was presented as an ending to the ceremony. The two were separated perhaps because of the accident which happened in the Seoul Olympics 1988. When the doves were released, many of them flown into the flame leading to an unexpected end of the ceremony.

To finish, the performers formed the lattice structure of the Beijing National Stadium while a girl flew over the stadium with a kite. The kite is an ancient Chinese invention, and was first used by the army to signal warnings. The kite in the stadium did not only remind people it is the earliest flying invention, but a symbol of the dream - the Beijing National Stadium represented the Beijing Olympics, and the girl happily played with the kite above the stadium indicated that the Chinese people’s dream had come true.

The attention moved to a woman playing Taiji. The music in the stadium got louder and louder, and in a sudden, soft music was played with a group of school children drawing on the LED scroll - this group of children is the same group of children who represented the 56 ethnic groups of China in the previous performance. While the children were drawing, 2008 performers came out and played Taiji. Taiji is an essential concept of Taoism, similar to God in Christianity. As mentioned earlier, most Chinese cultural values come from Taoism, a religious tradition that promotes living in harmony with nature. Taoism sends out many important teachings ‘that can apply to any situation or culture, whether human or inanimate.’ (Horwood, 2008:4) For example, ‘those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know’ meaning those who know do not speak because they are thinking and those who speak without thinking often does not know. Taiji has a huge impact on Chinese sports culture as it connects the Chinese sports spirit from ancient to modern time. In ancient China, Taiji was seen as an internal art focus on the internal human body such as circulation. Then, it changes to the strength to fight, and today, Taiji has本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。