Asian Games Opening Ceremonies

Jumana, Dave, Lisa, Karen and I in front of the Asian Games Torch tower.

The Asian Games is definitely the largest event that Doha has ever hosted. They've been preparing for about three years, and took place from December 1-15th. There were a decent amount of tourists in, and thousands of athletes and media from all over Asia. Since this is the first time that the Middle East has hosted, everyone wanted it to go well. Many expats fled the country, others planned to hide in our apartments, and some brave souls decided that they wanted to actually try to attend the games. Tickets were expensive for the opening ceremony, but we decided it would be worth it, so we had planned all along to do that. When we realized how cheap the tickets for most of the games were, we couldn't really resist seeing other sports, too.

The opening ceremonies were most impressive. Luckily our seats were under cover, because it poured all day long. The rain let up for the actual ceremony, and then started coming down in buckets again on my walk home.

The beginning of the ceremony featured hundreds (maybe thousands) of men in thobe with torches spelling out "Peace be upon you" in English ("Al-salaam alaykum" in Arabic).

The East Asia Silk Road sequence had hundreds of performers, dancers, and people moving these massive caravans.

The City of the Future segment focused on education, technology, and natural resources (and had some pretty sweet pyro). Interestingly, there was a pretty long section on science, and most people couldn't figure out the purpose of that. After some discussion, we wondered if maybe, since this is the first Asian Games from the Middle East, they wanted to do something to subtley refute the idea that everything is always focused on Allah. It could be much simpler, like they are trying to show another part of their history here, but anyway we thought it was interesting.

I thought one of the coolest parts was the parade of athletes from all different countries. Aside from Qatar, of course, the countries that got the loudest ovations were Iraq, Iran, Syria, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain (Middle East countries) and then India and the Philippines (lots of workers from those countries live in Qatar).

The lighting of the Asian Games torch was one of coolest, and definitely the most suspenseful, moment of the ceremonies. They had trained a few of the Emir's horses to be able to make the climb from the stadium floor to the highest part of the stadium, and I guess on the night of, they just picked the one that was least skittish, but the rain had made the ramp slippery and the horse barely made it. Also, the rider of the horse is one of the Emir's sons (but I didn't know which one!) and at some point later that week I said something about that particular son being cute. Then someone from Education City told me he was 19 and goes to Georgetown here - oops! But I felt better when one of the Georgetown staff told me that women all over Georgetown were talking about him too, and they are in their 40s and knew who he was at the time!

Dave and I with part of our audience participation kit, which was so cool. Except we got so mad at the people (Qataris) who weren't following the directions on when to use each part, 'cause there was a whole list of directions, but they just turned their lights on whenever they felt like it, and then as soon as one person did, the whole rest of the stadium joined in. Yeah this is definitely a relationship-based culture, not a process-driven one.

More to come with pics of the actual sporting events!