Paralympics close, ending China's Olympic party
Updated
The Birds Nest stadium was the venue for Beijing's farewell to the Olympics last night. The Paralympic closing ceremony was a spectacular affair with mass displays of light, colour and music. Now, with the nation's two-month Olympic party over, China's waking up to the morning after, with Beijingers wondering what to do next.
Presenter: China Correspondent Stephen McDonell
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MCDONELL: On the Western outskirts of Beijing there is a place called Fragrant Hills. Every autumn the locals go there in droves to be bathed in the red leaves which rain down from the trees there. In what he said was a way of paying Beijing's highest respect and love to the Paralympians, film director Zhang Yimou poured red leaves into the Bird's Nest stadium from its curved roof, to mark the imminent start of the Northern autumn and the coming of a new season. The closing of the Paralympics marks the end of an 8-year journey for China, after it finally secured the Games, but Beijing has wanted this moment for much longer than that.
The challenge for China will be to deal with the post Olympic hangover which is about to kick in. Yet many Chinese people believe, when it's said that this is only a beginning for their country, that this really is more than just a slogan. They say that China's economy, its arts and definitely its sporting performances are all still on the way up. So to them the central theme of this closing ceremony, to send "a letter to the future", makes complete sense.
BEIJING RESIDENT: "I think it's wonderful," one man told me."It's romantic and full of oriental charm.
MCDONELL: What does he think of China's future, I asked him.
BEIJING RESIDENT: China's future must be splendid. Everyone who comes here can feel it.
BEIJING RESIDENT: I am very proud of being Chinese, a woman told me. Our country is so prosperous, and can attract so many friends. I am deeply in love with our country which will become better and better.
MCDONELL: Speaking in Chinese, the President of the International Paralympic Committee thanked Beijing. When he thanked China, the applause was deafening. The 90,000 spectators who packed into this stadium were asked to write on special post cards to send messages of hope around the world. Mechanised doll-like postal workers collected the cards. When dozens of girls flowed into the stadium like a river they're said to have represented the life given to China by its two biggest sources of fresh water the Yangze and Yellow Rivers.
With the extinghuishing of the flame here comes a tinge of sadness that China's big coming out party is finally over. This country will have to find something else to look forward to.
