"I recall the August 8, 2008 opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics in the National Stadium, otherwise known as the Bird’s Nest—directed by Zhang Yimou—which served as a watershed moment in China’s relationship with the wider world. The spectacle had a reported $300 million budget, featured 15,000 volunteer performers including 2,008 choreographed drummers, packed the stadium with global leaders such as US president George W. Bush and Russia's then-prime minister Vladimir Putin, and was watched by an estimated 2 billion people on television; one of the Games’ themes was “Beijing Welcomes You,” capturing the era’s sense of a rising, outward-looking China." - Mitch Moxley