BEIJING, February 4 (TMTPOST)— The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday was another splendid show, officially making Beijing the world’s first city which hosts both a Summer and a Winter games.

Watching the whole ceremony, took place at the National Stadium, one cannot help characterizing it by elements of Chinese culture. And one of the most distinctive ones is to use 24 solar terms of the Chinese Lunar Year in the countdown part. During the 24-second countdown, viewers saw 24 different images, each representing one of 24 solar terms by the season order from the winter to the spring, and ended at the Start of Spring, the first solar term of the year which traditionally carries the wish to bring about new life following the chilly winter and was chosen as the day that the ceremony started. 

Source: People's Daily

Moreover, the emerging process of five Olympic rings, forging and carving from a complete ice cube, defines the concept of ice-breaking in Chinese culture and expresses the intention to narrow the gap, address the conflict, move closer to one another and realize mutual understanding.

Source: People's Daily

Frontier technology is another highlight of the ceremony. “With the laser technology and digital lightning machines, we created the most incredible and innovative autostereoscopy 3D device in the world, which delivers real seamless immersive experience,” Wang Zhiou, the visual effect director of the opening ceremony told state media People’s Daily. The lighting ceremony was also original. Unlike the regular burning a fire in the cauldron, the Olympic flame was dancing lightly in the air at the heart of the cauldron. The innovation underscores China’s commitment to an eco-friendly and low carbon footprint, echoing the principle of hosting a "green, inclusive, open and clean" games put forward by President Xi Jin ping since China won the bid for the games in 2015.

As to how to lit the torch, an institution under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state-owned contractor for Chinese space program conducted tests with established technologies that applied for verification of spacecraft recovery and landing to ensure successful a lighting, according to Beijing Daily, the official newspaper of Beijing municipal government.

The following image was took when the cauldron was hit by final torchbearers--Dinigeer Yilamujiang and Zhao Jiawen who were born in the 2000s and placed the torch in the snowflake-shaped cauldron rising up to the top of the stadium. 

Source: Xinhua News Agency

One of the major differences between the opening ceremony of Winter Olympics and that of the 2008 Summer Olympics happened on Zhang Yimou, one of most internationally renowned Chinese film directors. As the chief director of both of these ceremonies, Zhang this year changed his creative approach to focus on young performers, instead of a large performer group of about 15,000 people seen in 2008. About 3,000 dancers showed at this ceremony, much less than the 15,000 performers in the 2008 festivities, were almost entirely made up teenager. "For the first time in Olympic history, teenagers are invited on such a large scale to perform at the opening ceremony," said Wang Jun, deputy director of the National Stadium operation team and director of the Performance and Ceremony Division of the organizing committee's Department of Opening and Closing Ceremonies.