Wohoo crazy olympics Intro!

[waballou]

That was pretty cool! Almost seemed intimidating.  It made my heart pound

[Pseudonym]

Agreed. It made our (the Australian) opening ceremony look amateurish.

[waballou]

It made every past opening ceremony look amatuerish!  That was fantastic!  Haha I loved the boxes with people in them

[Dezza]

Well considering they have a couple more years of history on Australia its not suprising!  But yeah for all their problems they put on one hell of a show!

[waballou]

I heard they wiped out 6000 homes to put that stadium there lol.

Ugg now just waiting for my character to get approved, I wanna start playing!

[jrizz]

boycotting it. And this sucks since I love the Olympics.

Not only wiped out a lot of generational homes but told the people living there to just get out.

[mumbles]

ha ha what make sme laugh is the olympics mascot , is made in sweat shop with the people who make in china are earing like 30p a day  then its getting sold for

[mumbles]

[mumbles]

bah stupid Thing eatting my post LOL , so many thing are wromng with the olympics being held in china , im with jrizz and boycotting it

[Weeblie]

Not only wiped out a lot of generational homes but told the people living there to just get out.

Classical "western" mindset, heh.

The people originally living there are offered better houses (or rather apartments; it's very rare to own an own house in China) than the one being razed. Momentary compensation is sometimes given too.

The only quirk in there is that you cannot really say no to the offer. Though, unless to just say no for the sake of saying no, the compensation tend to far outweight the original value of the house/apartment, so no one in their right mind would say no anyway.

[Alatriel]

I thought it was great!  I don't know which part I thought was the coolest, but I really liked the led drums and the fact that they got 2008 tai chi masters to perform together.... wow!  I'm just in awe.

~E

[darkstorme]

The firework display, too... the footprints, or the fantastic display that preceded the March of the Athletes;  I mean, they invented the things, so you expect a certain degree of "Wow", but...

Wow.

[jrizz]

@weebs I wish it was just in my mind but I stood in tiananmen square across from the historic area that was torn down to build the Olympic village with two CHINESE historians and they told me about what was really happening to the displaced people and the slums and tiny "apartments" they were being forced into. They took me to one of the structures that was to be torn down, it was where ghengis khan had once occupied.

[waballou]

Stupid. O well I guess there is still plenty of more history there.  I would say my favorite was either the Thai Chi masters or the extravagant dresses worn by those dancers.  Those big white ones with the gold trim

[Weeblie]

@weebs I wish it was just in my mind but I stood in tiananmen square across from the historic area that was torn down to build the Olympic village with two CHINESE historians and they told me about what was really happening to the displaced people and the slums and tiny "apartments" they were being forced into. They took me to one of the structures that was to be torn down, it was where ghengis khan had once occupied.

I'm not aware of the exact situation around the Olympic Village itself. My own accounts are based on what those who are considered very close friends to my family have been through. Due to the cities expanding in a rapid rate, it's quite the norm for one to face a "relocation" and/or "we need to raze your house and build a new one". In all the cases, they have been rather happy and profited from it too.

While it is possible that these being moved away in this situation could have faced a much worse fate, it's also probable that one has stumbled upon a few "disgrunted people" or misunderstood what they meant.

Heh, it's rather simple. Either their original apartment was a large one, or it was really tiny too (remember that probably 99% of the apartments in China are considered to be "increadible super tiny" according to the standards we have here). If it was tiny... then the compensation are most likely fit anyway (you get a newer house which is valued to be higher).

If it was an unlikely large apartment... then that person would have to be rather rich to start with (or if OV lays very far on the outskirts of any of the large cities). And if that was the case, then the relocation to a tiny apartment would almost definitely be false. The rich person would likely have a strong enough contact net so the government would very unlikely want to make a big issue of it with him.

After all, the government could as easily make the people happy as to make them unhappy. It becomes pointless not to relocate the people into some random nice house (which are trivial to find, considering how many new houses are being built and as generally, not all apartments are sold directly).

Side note: Hehe... No matter how good an intro is, I tend not to watch them. I find them... extraordinary boring. :p