News Type: Event — Sun Aug 10, 2008 3:01 AM EDT The Parade of Nations is one of the longest-standing traditions of the Olympic Games, and one of the most defining icons of the Games. Procession with a Twist This time, the Parade is a bit different. No longer alphabetical, the countries come in order of increasing script complexity of their names, written in simplified Chinese. As a result, countries whose names begin with "Ma-" found themselves near the front of the procession, the Chinese character for the sound requiring only three strokes, while the first character in the Chinese name for the United States, Mei Guo ("Beautiful Nation"), requires nine strokes, placing it far later in the procession. As covered extensively in news outlets, Iraq's Olympic team met with dire qualification problems as the Iraqi government...
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