Perhaps the organizers should have included more of the cultural groups that are prominent in our history ... the French Canadians, Ukranians, Chinese etc, but our country has become so diverse it would have been difficult to include everyone. I think their approach to showcase more of the natural beautry of our country was a good one to take. It's unfortunate if some people misunderstood that as meaning that we have no cultural richness. I think the tapestry of ethnic traditions that can be found in Canada makes us very culturally unique.
Though I live in Seattle right now, I am Canadian and have lived in many parts of the country, from Vancouver to Southern Ontario, and even spent a summer working on an archaeological dig in the high north. I'd go so far as to say that, because Canada is so diverse, we derive a good portion of our meaning from our landscape. An outsider watching the opening ceremonies might have seen our orcas and cedar trees and totem poles and wheat fields and mountains and the lakes of northern Quebec, and just thought they were things and places. However, to many Canadians, they are
who we are.
My husband entirely didn't get the part with the wheat fields and the artist on the wire. However, for me, having grown up in a rural area north of Calgary, I felt that it entirely captured the magic of driving down a country road in Alberta or Saskatchewan in the late summer with fields of wheat sparkling in the sun and blowing in the wind, as far as the eye can see, and the sky so blue and big around you that it feels like you could drive forever. I don't identify with any of the "traditional culture" of the prairies, but yet the wheat fields and the boy flying through the air completely captured the feeling of the west, in a way that is meaningful for me, and likely for anyone who has ever so much as driven across that part of the country.
I can't speak for all Canadians, obviously, but I also derive a sense of meaning as a Canadian from our First Nation's past, even though I am not an aboriginal person and do not identify with their culture at all. I lived in London for a couple years after college and worked 5 minutes from the British Museum; I started visiting the museum on Thursday evenings (when the museum is open late) after work. During one of my first visits, I was stunned to discover a totem pole with the label, "Haida totem pole. Canada" standing in a stairwell - it was all by itself in that stairwell, and had clearly only been put there because it was too tall to be placed anywhere else. Though I am not Haida and, at that point, had never lived on the west coast, I was deeply saddened by this poor lonely totem pole, removed from all sense of meaning and its original location or purpose. I made a point to "visit" that totem pole every week, feeling like at least by standing there for a few minutes and recognizing who it is, I could restore some of its meaning as a significant spiritual object in Canada's history. Crazy? Possibly. But I feel like Canada's First Nations' history is important to who I am as a Canadian.
Anyway, I've gone on for much longer than I meant to, but my point is that the opening ceremonies represented who I feel I am as a Canadian. Most Canadians that I've spoken to (though they have complaints about the national anthem and Wayne Gretzky, and such) felt the same way. Maybe it didn't give as good a sense to the rest of the world, but as a Canadian, I was very happy.
It is too high pitched and whiney to me. I wish they did not lip sync either. It looks silly when you can tell.
Our uniqueness is in the tapestry of cultures we weave together, which doesn't seem like much until you think about how rare such harmonies are in the world.
). I'm not sure about the comment regarding tracking down smashed fiddlers from a remote part of the country (I'm guessing a reference to Ashley MacIssac) but there were 180 fantastic musicians that I saw in a tribute to the strong celtic heritage of the maritimes. And the "poet" from youtube was actually commissioned to write that poem by the government (for a different project than the Olympics) not just some guy they grabbed off the street.
