Beijing’s Second Annual Olympic Culture Festival opened Wednesday with lively song and dance performances of various ethnic minorities.

The festival is being held to celebrate the third anniversary of the capital’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. It will culminate on July 13, three years to the day after the IOC announced that Beijing had won its bid, with the official release of the Paralympics logo.

This year’s theme is, “From Olympia to the Great Wall.”

This Thursday and Friday, an international forum regarding the blending of Eastern culture with the Olympic spirit is being held at Renmin University.

“We would like more people to take part in the festival, enjoy it and learn more about the Olympics,” said Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).

The organizers will stage a month-long Olympic quiz game to interest people in learning more about the Games. On July 11, about 10,000 people are expected to run from Tian’anmen Square to the China Centenary Altar.

Each of the city’s 18 districts will hold separate themes parties during the festival.

BOCOG has said that the culture festival will be held every year until 2008, when Beijing stages its first ever Olympics.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2004)