The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic GamesAugust 8-24 2008
Related story: Beijing Games cultural activities
Date/Time: 11:00 a.m., Monday, July 28
Venue: Main Press Center (MPC)
Zhang Jinlin
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to today's press conference in MPC. Today our main topic is the cultural activities during the Beijng Olympic Games.
We have invited Mr. Zhao Dongming, director of BOCOG Culture and Ceremonies Department. First, Mr. Zhao will give us some general information about the cultural activities during the Beijing Olympic Games.
Zhao Dongming
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am very glad to meet you this morning to let you know the information we prepared for you, a very long speech, we have to be concise, so you have enough time for Q & A.
First of all, I would like to introduce our department.
We are in charge of cultural activities and other activities including the preparation of cultural activities during the Olympic Games, image & look, sports show, awarding ceremonies and youth camp. Our main job is to have a very high level Olympics with our own features. We take this job as a fortune because this is not only a sports event but also a cultural exchange theme for the world. This is a showcase to the world to show our long history, splendid culture and the active promotion of cultural exchange to China and the world. We will show the world that we have a very vivid, peaceful, joyful holiday atmosphere, which convey the spirit of the Olympiad and realize harmony and integration of our dream.
First of all, I would like to introduce our work. As you landed Beijing Capital International Airport, on your way from the airport to the city, you would have noticed that people are really striving to make your environment better and more pleasant. We've been working hard. I can say that the design work has been completed. For the city's landscape, we can also say that our job has been completed. At the beginning of August or by the end of July, we will finish the landscape job entirely. We can all see that this is a very beautiful city.
And then let's talk about sports show. In every event and venue, we can have large screen visualization so people can see the Games in large screen. For the time being, we have 34 venues teams. They are professional. They are students or those from the radio broadcasting. And we have 74 international experts, so in total there are almost 1700 young professionals in various fields. Besides, we have another special team, we have project among all 38 disciplines of Olympics with cultural shows and performances. In the past, in the previous Olympic Games, for beach volleyball or basketball, we can see performances and shows. But this time, we will have other specialties. As I said, there are 38 disciplines of sports competitions with performances, such as acrobatics, martial arts and national dances. Of course, all these performances are not really shows. They are there to create a very joyful competition atmosphere of the Games.
So before the competition starts, all during the break, they can perform their show. I think this is a plus to the Olympic Games and can create something special for this Olympic Games. Besides, during each discipline, we can use the music, the large screen to display many images. We have a central music library, including music created for the Games. You have information sheet about this.
So these are the features of the current Olympics. As for the award ceremonies, I think you've been noticing that we have a large team of ceremonial personnel. At least 337 young ladies will be in charge of the award ceremonies. They will lead the winners. We have 194 flag raisers and 95 dressers, and they will appear at 302 and 472 award ceremonies in Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games respectively. They are all well prepared so that the award ceremonies will be very smooth and successful and they are preparing all the award supplies, including medals, flowering, certificate and award clothing.
We will have very well prepared award ceremonies. Besides I would like to stress that on the sports show, the image and look of the Games are all well prepared and ready. We are confident that they will be appreciated. Sports shows and award ceremonies have a large team, as I said. About 900 people from the venues were students from universities.
All the performers are professional dancers and actors. They are really amateurs from universities. They are students. As for the cultural activities, I would like to say that during the Beijing Olympics since the beginning, we stress a high importance to the Chinese long history in this feature. That is why we would like to exhibit this beautiful feature characteristic.
We will also like to take this opportunity to have this cultural exchange with the international artists, of course how to ensure this is not very easy. That is why every year since 2003, we organize the festival related to the Olympics, so this is the fifth year and in this year we are going to celebrate the 6th, it's called the Olympic Cultural Festival. And this has high participation of the public, the Beijing municipalities, and organizers. For the 6th Olympic Cultural Festival, we have many preparations work done. Before this one, we already have an international bid and have many good results of songs and music. We also had architectural sculpture in the international bid. Many artists from more than 80 countries participated in the competition. The awards will be in the exhibition during the Games. At the same time, we also have 3 cinema weeks. This was completed and we will not spend more time to speak about them.
We are very happy to see that on the inauguration of the Festival, our President Hu Jintao took part in the inauguration and celebrated this event with international artists and Chinese artists too. He spent his joyful time with all the people in the artistic field. This Olympic Cultural Festival lasted nearly three months throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2008. It will be a marvelous Olympic cultural event with the longest time, the most abundant contents, the largest numbers of performers and participating teams, and the most complete artistic variety.
During the Cultural Festival, it will try to embody the combination of Olympic spirit and Chinese culture, the combination of culture and arts and sports and Physical exercise, the combination of performances in the city and the activities in the square as well as the combination of Chinese characteristics and international practice. We are going to not only show the Chinese culture and international cultural artistic features, but the exchange and convergence of internationalization and multiculturalism through broad international participation.
During the Olympic Cultural Festival will be a series of important cultural activities taking "Meet In Beijing 2008" as its theme, arrange the "Asia Night, Africa Night, Latin America Night, Arab Night, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Night" and other song and dance shows, among which are the China's national and world-class artistic performances and nearly 20,000 Chinese and foreign artists from more than 80 countries will participate in the performances with nearly 200 performances in 88 events as well as 600 performance in 254 events in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Chinese Taipei. So in the stage performances, we will have activities in Beijing and in the municipalities. Simultaneously there will be nearly 40 international exhibitions and more than 150 domestic exhibitions for various arts, artifacts, painting, photography, sculpture, murals and non-material heritage.
In addition, there will be various culture and sports activities, special theme activities for the youth and persons with a disability, film screening exchange activities and a number of forums. During the Olympic Games, more than 20 Olympic Squares will be set up in Beijing. The cooperative cities outside Beijing will also hold the square cultural activities.
For each square in Beijing and other cities, we have large scale of sreens. People can watch TV and we have platforms for artistic shows and performances. The sponsors can have business activities. These are open and special features and provide a very good platform for local citizens to watch Games on the square and participate in the activities. During Games-time, the square cultural activities are very important for the locals to participate in the Games. It is a very important way to be convenient to the local citizens. They don't have to enter the venues. For instance, they can see the grand open Olympic ceremony of the Olympic Games at the cultural squares.
I think it's a very important activity for all the locals. Of course, we have a lot of activities in squares. For example we have Lucky Clouds Theatre, where there will be performances every night since August 9. Also we have Fuwa Mobile Show, the mascot mobile show. Besides, there is a very important cultural activity called the 'Chinese Story' culture exhibition activities. It shows the cultural heritage of China and is organized by different provinces including Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei and Macao. They show the rich culture of China. So we welcome all of you to participate in these activities and performances, including the Olympic village, where we also have these activities.
In addition to the above mentioned activities. In August 8, the Olympic Expo jointly sponsored by International Olympic Committee, Chinese Olympic Committee, BOCOG and State Post Bureau will be grandly opened in the Beijing Exhibition Center. It is the first Olympic expo. It is developed on the basis of all exhibitions even the previous Olympic Games. We have many activities, and among others, an important one I would like to share with you is the youth camp. It is a great reunion for all the youth and all the young people around the world. Representatives from 204 countries and regions from the Olympic family will participate in the Youth Camp. It is a very big reunion for people in 204 countries and regions.
The Youth Camp was built at Beijing 101 Middle School, which is very close to Yuanmingyuan. We also, for the first time, invited young with disabilities to join the Youth Camp. This Youth Camp takes "Youth creates the future" as its theme and slogan, and offers activities around the themes of experiencing the Olympics, sharing the rich history and learning about China. Some will be invited to the opening ceremony and other important events. They will be invited to have a tour in the Olympic Village and other sightseeing sites. We also organized a lot of parties for these young people and offer them opportunities to show their talents. We have created a good environmental protection activities and high-tech activities for the young people. We created a very good platform for people to show themselves and exchange joy.
I would like to offer another piece of information. In order to bring convenience to our media friends, we have prepared guidelines for cultural and artistic activities during the Games. This brochure is free and you can find out a lot of information here, all the theaters, sightseeing sites and important cultural activities are all listed in this brochure. We have other channels to share info. We will help our friends from media to participate in the activities. Thank you very much. Welcome to all the above mentioned cultural activities during the Games. If you need help, feel free to contact us. Thank you.
Zhang Jinlin
Thank you Mr. Zhao. Now the floor is open for media. Would you please identify yourself before you raise your question?
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