On Friday evening, a gala night celebrating the Olympics and Arts was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. The event marked the closing of the Olympic Cultural Festival and the "Meet In Beijing Arts Festival".

A dozen athletes who were recent champions during the Olympic and Paralympic Games were invited onto the stage to interact with the audience. Many of those in the audience were a vital part of the successful

Beijing Games, including Olympic volunteers, taxi drivers and policemen.

The Olympic Cultural Festival has been held annually between August and September since Beijing won the bid to host this Olympics in 2001.

The gala evening also celebrated the diversity of arts around the world. Artists from Cameroon, Venezuela, Canada and Japan were among those who took to the stage to vividly display their national arts.

Over the past three months, the "Meet In Beijing" Arts Festival has attracted nearly ten-thousand artists from 80 countries and regions. They presented more than two hundred cultural activities. And as many as three million spectators were enthralled by the operas, dramas, concerts, exhibitions and other forms of entertainment.

(CCTV September 22, 2008)