Liebats' Olympic Analysis - what won the Gold?!

Alas the Olympics have ended. In honor of the history we've just witnessed, we'd like to take a moment to give our own medals of Olympic memories. Here are our parting thoughts from this side of the ocean...

GOLD: We witnessed Chinese cultural shift
The first weekend we saw first-hand the local crowd's limp response and the relatively empty stadiums. In contrast we saw foreigners with painted faces and crazy cheers willing to pay triple face value for scalped tickets (including ourselves!). We wondered over the next 3 weeks how the Chinese population would react to witnessing the foreign craziness.
During one local TV program, we heard an official recap how they had received complaints in the 1st week that seats weren't full and crowds were ambivalent. The government's response? "So we filled the seats and told the crowds to be more excited." And hence a culture has forever shifted.

SILVER: We didn't realize there were SO many games in the Olympics
Watching CCTV9 (affectionately referred to as "propaganda TV"), vs. American NBC, meant we got to skip the heartfelt stories of American Olympians overcoming ingrown toenails. The news focused more on the sports and the highlights - showing ALL countries participating. We created our own sport of guessing "what country flag is that?" and "what is this sport anyway?"

BRONZE: The 5% Off
While the Olympics were amazing, there was the 5% off. For example, it was illegal to scalp tickets but ok to buy (hence scalpers with "tickets wanted" signs). The boat loads of volunteers were so extremely helpful...but just a bit overly anxious. Olympic stores were everywhere, but we couldn't find "official game guides" or anything other than 1 of the 5 stuffed mascots. Beijing cleared the roads with special traffic laws (cars - based on even or odd plates - alternated days on the road), but the sky was still grey. The stadiums were amazing architectural feats, but unless you had a ticket you had to admire them thru the chain link fence.

Overall - absolutely fabulous. We're excited we went, and thrilled to have witnessed a small part of history.