Drums herald China's Great Triple Eight

By Paul Majendie

BEIJING (Reuters) - A legion of 2,008 drummers pounded out a hypnotic beat that rumbled like thunder, their red drumsticks glowing in a darkened Bird's Nest stadium.

It was the perfect countdown to a spectacular Olympic opening ceremony on Friday that showcased one of the world's oldest civilizations.

In the land that invented gunpowder, fireworks exploded around the arena and then erupted across the heart of Beijing.

Twenty-nine colossal "footprints of fire" shot into the sky and "marched" through the city to Tiananmen Square in a dazzling, rolling display of pyrotechnics. It was like a giant army of lights stamping across the heavens.

The vast cast -- wave upon wave of humanity -- chanted a famous Confucian greeting: "Friends have come from afar, how happy we are."

Flying acrobats soared like fairies through the air and illuminated Olympic rings rose above the arena.

Traditional landscape paintings were projected on to a huge scroll and actors spelt out Chinese characters with their twisting bodies commemorating papermaking, one of China's great inventions.

Giant grey boxes representing printing blocks from Ancient China surged out of the ground, rippled across the arena and morphed into The Great Wall, one of the world's most instantly recognizable monuments.

Terracotta soldiers were portrayed returning in triumph in a traditional scene from Chinese opera. The "Silk Road" that linked China to the west was marked by an exotic tableau of blue-robed oarsmen with giant paddles. Its sheer scale was breath-taking.

One thousand dancers covered in sparkling lights weaved intricate patterns across the arena and transformed themselves into a fluorescent Bird's Nest as a little girl flew with her kite high above.

A 16-tonne crystal-blue globe came out of nowhere and rose from the floor to gasps of astonishment from the 91,000 spectators on a hot and humid night.

Actors who trained for 10 months were suspended high above the arena and ran rings round a gyrating globe, some of them suspended upside-down.

Britain's Sarah Brightman joined Chinese singer Liu Huan atop the globe to sing a specially composed Olympic anthem as pictures of children from all around the world were unfurled on parasols.

More fireworks erupted to hail the parade of athletes from 204 countries.

The show was delivered with cinematic panache and a cast of 14,000 by "House of Flying Daggers" director Zhang Yimou, whose work was once banned in China.