‍The opening ceremony of the 18th Asian Games kicked off on Saturday evening at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in central Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Indonesia set up a big stage upon which stood a towering mountain, accompanied with volcanoes, waterfalls and various flowers and plants from the country.

Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia entered the stadium on a motorbike.

44 teams of athletes, led by their flag-bearers, paraded through the stadium and saluted to the audience in alphabetical order, besides for host nation Indonesia, starting with Afghanistan.

Athletes from China were the seventh to join the parade with Zhao Shuai, China’s first Olympic gold winner in men’s taekwondo as the flag-bearer. After decades of wearing red and yellow, China chose blue uniforms for their athletes and for the first time added “Team China” onto the outfit. China’s Hong Kong, Macau and Taipei were respectively the eighth, 20th and 35th in the parade.

The united Korean team was 15th, but appearing for the first time at the 18th Asian Games, and were led by Lim Yung-hui, a basketball player from the Republic of Korea (ROK). After doing so at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the two countries again joined hands at the opening ceremony of a major sports event. Both sides will also come together as one team in women’s basketball, dragon boat racing and rowing.

The Philippines were the 29th in the parade and sent Jordan Clarkson, a basketball player from the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, to carry the flag. The country put a lot of effort into getting Clarkson into their basketball team and finally got what they wanted when the NBA made a “one-time exception” and allowed Clarkson, as well as China’s Zhou Qi and Ding Yanyuhang, to play in the Asian Games.

Indonesia, as the host nation, concluded the parade.

This is the second time Indonesia has hosted the event since 1962.

The Games, which will last from August 18 to Sept. 2, will be held under the slogan of “Energy of Asia” and, for the first time ever, the Asian Games will be hosted in two cities: Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, and Palembang, capital of the South Sumatra Province.

Around 10,000 athletes from 45 countries and regions will compete in 40 sports and 67 disciplines, including new events like bridge, jet skiing, roller skating and the Indonesian martial art pencak silat.