Seniors gain fame with Olympic-themed video

By Yang Lifei  |   2008-8-8  |     ONLINE EDITION

A MUSIC video called ``You Are Welcome to Beijing'' has become popular around China after 30 seniors in Shandong Province uploaded it onto the Internet
The elderly students from Shandong Hezhe University for the Aged spent about 500 yuan (US$71.4) on the video. It features pictures of Chinese culture and people's daily life and one Internet user described it as the ``least expensive but the most energetic and most powerful music video ever.''

The video has received 1.2 million hits since it was released online on July 8. Twenty days later News Broadcast, a news program by China Central Television, reported the story.

Liu Yuanyuan, the producer of the video and a music teacher at the university, told Chengdu Daily, a Sichuan Province newspaper, that she included the song into her teaching schedule in early May after she heard it on the Internet.

``As the Games are drawing near, many students in my class proposed learning to sing Olympics related songs. Thus I decided on 'You Are Welcome to Beijing,''' she told the newspaper. ``My husband suggested making a video with old people singing it.''

The idea soon garnered great interest among Liu's elderly students. ``About 100 old people started to learn the song and a month later 30 of our best singers were picked to sing in the video,'' Liu said, adding that the singers were aged between 50 and 80.

In the video, many Chinese elements are adopted such as paper cutting, embroidery, Taiji and calligraphy. Olympic flags and banners are also filmed.

``My husband worked as the cameraman. We do not have standard recording and shooting equipment, but we have MP3, ladders and a moped,'' Liu told the newspaper. ``We made it up by ourselves, and collected costumes and stage properties on our own.''