On the evening of Feb. 4 the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, filling with a sense of Chinese romance in both modern and traditional ways, was held successfully. Behind the literary creativity in the spectacular ceremony, it was the team led by CUC alumna Yu Lei that spent three years working tirelessly to perfect it.

Over 600 hundred files stored in Yu’s computer are all witnesses of their three-year hard work. Yu Lei said that after an enduring process of practice and perfect, many creative ideas, which had been determined two or three years before, have gradually become sophisticated enough to be presented to the public. It was indeed a valuable process.

Yu Lei shares the backstory of the opening ceremony

At the opening ceremony, the 24-solar-terms countdown reaped numerous praises for a new way of expression. Yu Lei said: “At the very begining, they prepared three versions of the text line alone. ”

The team made many modifications before finalizing the plan. The director of the ceremony asked if they could match a sentence to each solar term with the aim of making people around the world understand Chinese culture. They provided the director with many choices, from the direction of physical folklore to the one of ancient poetry or a modern way. In the end, the team decided to use ancient poems to show the moral behind the solar terms.

the 24-solar-term countdown

Yu Lei said: “In the first version of the 24-solar-term countdown every solar term has its match line. But in order to maintain the lively atmosphere, the director decided that the last 10 solar terms would not be accompanied by verses."

When it comes to the essence of the literary creativity, Yu Lei mentioned that they incorporated rich expressions in it, including Chinese emotions, Chinese philosophy and history, as well as attitude toward nature and the world. She felt lucky because China Media Group laid a solid foundation for her. According to Yu, it’s a great honor to follow the times and and shine together with the motherland.

After the opening ceremony, Yu Lei also did not stop working. She is now dedicating herself to the countdown preparation work for the closing ceremony  with her team.

As one of the creators and the chief writer of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, Yu Lei, an alumna of CUC, majoring in journalism, is the producer and chief director of TV show National Treasure and has served as the chief writer of CCTV Spring Festival Gala Evening for four times, as well as the deputy director of CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2022.  

Editor &Advisor:Zhang Xu