I saw pictures from the opening ceremony about 8 hours ago at work. The time-delay made it start at 20:08 EDT, or 8:08pm Eastern Daylight Savings time.
I’m watching the Parade of Nations, something I usually find far too boring to care about. My parents always turned it off growing up. And truthfully, I didn’t plan on even watching it at first. But then I was curious.
China is not known as a an open place. But this is so fascinating to watch, the 5000 year old culture opening up.
However, the most important thing (in my mind) is this: of the thousands of people who have walked by so far, probably 90% of them could be someone from around the corner. It is times like this that you realize that people around the world are not really all that different from you and I. For one brief moment, me sitting on my couch in Virginia, and everyone all over the world, are connected, watching the same thing at the same time (or close to the same time). We really are the same.
During one of the breaks, a campaign add for both McCain and Obama come on. It brings me back to reality for a minute. While other channels have re-runs on so as not to really compete and just let the ceremony be, politicians are still arguing.
I enjoy the contrast, in one minute, one of the great uniting events (quite possibly a huge turning point for China and how it relates to the world), the next, politicians dividing us again.
All combined, it just shows that we could probably all get along, if it wasn’t for politicians constantly convincing us that we can’t get along. Perhaps it will be our generation, that can spread information faster than ever, that finally breaks down some of those barriers. Or at the very least, leads the way towards making the world a bit smaller, and a lot better.
In a way, FFXI is an interesting uniter as well. We play with people from all over the nation, and the world. We talk with people from all sorts of ethnic, religious, national, financial, regional backgrounds who we would probably never otherwise know. I’ve met some of the most amazing people, a galka SMN from Japan who spoke broken English (and in who’s shell we all spoke a modified version of English with Japanese grammar structure to communicate), to a members of every branch of the US military, and a French-Canadian who barely spoke any English (although who’s English improved significantly over the years we all knew each other). There are players from all over the English speaking world, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Ireland, and elsewhere. And of course, from across the US. An art student in Texas, a state trooper in Michigan, stay at home moms from various states, a young married couple from Texas, people who work in the Vegas casinos, and people who just live near Vegas.
Perhaps the most fascinating person I ever met was a student from Bahrain. Someone I know for a fact, I would never have known if it wasn’t for FFXI. Some of my talks with her have been the most interesting. She was also the one who made the comment first “we really are not that different”.
So think about it. People around the world are not that different from each other. Placed together, we generally get along, even if we don’t agree with each other about everything, we can almost always be friends.
