BEIJING • The Opening Ceremony was just a small taste.

It was a small taste of the color and the music. A small taste of the dragons and nearly 2,000 drums. A small taste of the dancing, smiles and gaiety that China wants to show everybody.It was a small taste from a not-so-small venue. The National Stadium, or Bird’s Nest, is more massive than any stadium in the United States. It only seats 91,000, but Michigan’s Big House and Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium could fit inside it.The external architecture, complete with its 45,000 tons of steel, is extremely easy on the eyes. Television pictures don’t do it justice. Even the naked eye is deceived at first. It takes a couple of looks, followed by a couple of blinks and a few more looks to realize somebody actually conjured this design and actually had it constructed.Maybe more impressive is that nobody stopped them along the way and said, “Hey, it looks like a big bird’s nest.” And that’s a good thing, too.It’s big.It’s big and beautiful in every way.And that’s just the way China wanted it to be Friday.Through the next 2½ weeks, China will be on the world’s stage. And China certainly will show everybody her good side, her big and perhaps beautiful potential.But there’s more behind that smile and playful dance.Because of these XXIX Olympic Games, this country of about 1.3 billion will be dissected and analyzed as never before. It surely will put out its best. We’ll see all the beauty the country has to offer, and we’ll see it over and over.But China has its scars, too. Scars it doesn’t want us to see anymore. Scars it wants us to forget. Maybe not forget. But, at least for a little while, it wants us to remember differently.That’s what Friday night was all about.Ni hao, world. Here we are at our best.And the show was amazing, amazing even on a night when the Beijing humidity was so thick you didn’t walk through it, you waded. From the musical dance of drums and lights brightening and dimming to the drums to the laser light floor to the parade of nations to the pyrotechnics to the dramatic lighting of the torch, China did it big.The colorful pomp and circumstance dominated the Opening Ceremony, almost making it difficult to think about the country’s abundant human rights violations. It was almost difficult to remember that the government orchestrating these Games is the same that orchestrated the gunfire in Tiananmen Square June 4, 1989.We’ll be reminded of many of these events throughout the Games, as we should be. If folks of all nations are to accept China, it has to be scars and all.One thing to remember, China didn’t bestow the Olympics on Beijing. The International Olympic Committee did that. That committee knew what it was doing when it voted. It knew about the human rights and the lack of freedoms. It also knew about the potential for China’s full political integration to the rest of the world.For those of us who don’t want a helping of politics with our sports, we should’ve stopped watching a long time ago. From boycotts and bans to protests and salutes, politics have been a part of the Olympics for more than a century.There were 80 world leaders among the Bird’s Nest crowd, including President Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.It’s even difficult to get past the notion that politics are the primary reason Beijing was chosen.For the rest of the world, these Olympics might be about the potential buying power of 1.3 billion. But for more than a few of that 1.3 billion these Olympics are about changing a perception. Like anybody trying to win a vote, China wants to look good.And we got a taste of that Friday night.-Columnist Milo Bryant can be reached at 636-0252 or milo.bryant@gazettedev.gazette.com. Check out Milo’s blog, The Extra Milo, at milobryant.freedomblogging.com

Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

MARK REIS

Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

MARK REIS

Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

MARK REIS