Greeting was welcomed

The synchronized thunder of 2,008 percussionists ushered in the beginning of the Olympic Games in Beijing. (Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images)

BEIJING - For centuries, the people who live in what they call the Middle Kingdom have been ambivalent about letting the world inside. China's experience with foreigners generally has been that when they come here in numbers, the country is the worse for it. And the foreigners who did come usually have been bewildered and frustrated by a language and culture they cannot fathom.

After five thousand years, though, the Chinese have come to accept that they cannot wall themselves off from the outside, and the rest of the planet has come to understand that it cannot ignore a fifth of its people. That is why Beijing bid for the Games and why the International Olympic Committee awarded them, despite anxieties on both sides.

But now that the flame has been ignited inside the spectacular Bird's Nest Stadium, there's no going back. China formally has taken its place at center stage, with all of the privileges and responsibilities that come with it.

"For a long time, China has dreamed of opening its doors and inviting the world's athletes to Beijing for the Olympic Games," IOC president Jacques Rogge observed during last night's lengthy and lavish opening ceremonies. "Tonight, that dream comes true."

At long last, this is China's coming-out party, and it began with a four-hour pageant that set an extraordinary standard for imagination, scale, and precision. "It was crazy," marveled Demetrius Andrade, the Providence welterweight boxer who is favored to win a gold medal. "I loved it. I was speechless at times. It was wonderful."

From the beginning, when exactly 2,008 drummers boomed a countdown on ancient "fou" percussion instruments, to the climax, when former gymnastics gold medalist Li Ning soared like Peter Pan to the roof of the stadium, torch in hand, and skywalked around the perimeter to light the cauldron, Beijing put on a history lesson that doubled as a sound-and-light show, with 14,000 performers and 30,000 fireworks.

The 91,000 spectators and an estimated 4 billion television viewers were reminded that it was China that invented gunpowder, papermaking, movable type, and the compass (not to mention noodles and fake Rolexes). And when the 204 competing countries entered in a two-hour parade, they marched according to their names in Mandarin characters, one of the world's oldest scripts. (Which is why Bermuda followed Spain and why Thailand preceded Egypt. The United States was 140th, right after Syria.)

The biggest reason why China wanted the Summer Olympics - and why it was devastated when Sydney was chosen over Beijing for 2000 - was for recognition and respect it felt was long overdue. Japan had hosted the Games. So had South Korea. How long could the IOC bypass a country of 1.3 billion people that was one of the top medal winners? "China will be opening Olympism to one fifth of mankind," Rogge observed. "That is a unique feature that only China can offer."

There was no more effective way to open the door to the Middle Kingdom than to award to its capital an event that would bring hundreds of thousands of foreigners to China not merely for 17 days, but for the seven years leading up to the Games. "The spotlight will help the world to understand China," Rogge said, "and for China to understand the world."

That spotlight often has been harsh, focusing on pollution and repression, on jailed dissidents and tainted toys. But it also has illuminated a country and a city that has made astounding economic progress over the past decade. After spending an estimated $40 billion on infrastructure and creating an Olympic complex filled with the most cleverly conjured venues in history, Beijing was ready for prime time, and its guest list was impressive.

More than 100 heads of state or sovereigns were present for the opening ceremonies, including President Bush (the first US chief executive to attend an overseas Games), Russia's Vladimir Putin, Japan's Yasuo Fukuda, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and the United Kingdom's Princess Anne. And despite springtime talk of boycotts, more than 200 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, turned up and marched.

What may have made the difference, Canada's Dick Pound said during this week's IOC session, was the May earthquake in Sichuan province that killed an estimated 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless. It was a tragedy that evoked enormous sympathy around the globe and that transcended differences in language, culture, and politics. When giant basketball player Yao Ming carried the Chinese flag into the stadium, he was accompanied by Lin Hao, a 9-year-old boy who'd survived the quake.

On a fantastic, if stifling and sticky, night filled with dragon pillars and Tai Chi masters, opera singers and cheerleaders in white go-go boots, terra-cotta soldiers and shadow boxers, that was the most human and most symbolic moment. Everyone around the world knows who Yao is and everyone has heard about the earthquake. There was a time, and not so long ago, when news of both would have been kept behind an impenetrable wall by a xenophobic government.

When Beijing bid for the Games of the XXIXth Olympiad and emptied an emperor's treasure room to pay for them, it was throwing itself open for better, for worse, and forever. The door to the Forbidden City at last has been swung wide, the outside world is pouring in, and the Chinese are saying welcome - in English.

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.