I love flickr. Here’s a link to the flickr slideshow of the Lantern Forest, a display of over 2000 lanterns along Granville Street, created by children from Canada and Taiwan to celebrate Chinese New Year and the Olympics.
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This is just a quick little post – the Ricepaper staff and volunteers are all a little busy during the Winter Olympics. Editor Eury Chang and Director of Photography Melissa Dex Guzman are in high demand (from Ricepaper and other publications), busily covering the Cultural Olympiad. Eury will be posting up some timely content on the Ricepaper website as soon as he is able.
Meanwhile, I haven’t been able to set aside the 6-12 hours necessary to fight through the downtown crowds and/or stand in the Olympics free event lines. I personally had some mixed feelings about the Olympics. But on Saturday, when I was standing among the Lantern Forest, watching the giant TV screens through glass panes with a bunch of cheery, red-and-white clad strangers, watching Alexandre Bilodeau become the first Canadian athlete to win Olympic gold at home, I felt an odd thrill, an unfamiliar feeling of…could it be patriotism? I forgot the controversial “muzzle clause” in the contracts of Cultural Olympiad performers, the estimated billions of dollars spent from taxpayers’ money to fund the Olympics festivities; in that moment, I just basked in the the warm fuzzyness, the national pride, that sense of awe at extraordinary feats of athleticism and perseverance.