‘Bird’s Nest’ Designer Ai Weiwei Didn’t Even Like the Olympics’ Opening Ceremonies

After spending much of last week reporting on Ai Weiwei and his removing himself from any involvement with the Beijing Olympics, despite his work in designing the National Stadium, we thought to ourselves while watching the opening ceremonies on Friday, “Even Weiwei must be impressed by the sheer spectacle of this.” But we were dead wrong and the angry designer/architect is sticking to his guns, as seen on his blog (translated here by the Epoch Times):

He said the portrayal of traditional culture in the ceremony, which he didn’t attend, was “manipulated” and “fake.”

Addressing China’s communist regime, Ai wrote, “You can possess rights and control, and put on a grand ceremony…but it won’t win the smallest respect, it won’t win any reliable friendship.”

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