888

Today was carefully chosen by the Chinese as the opening of the Olympics because 8 is a lucky number for them, sounding very similar in Mandarin to the word for "wealth". The Taoist pantheon had 8 immortals, the most ancient of whom was Iron-Crutch Li., a crotchety, ugly old man with a dirty face, straggling beard, hair tied back in a golden band and carrying an iron crutch. He looks after the sick and poor. According to legend, before he became immortal he was extremely handsome and spent 40 years in Taoist meditation. Before one meditation, he told his apprentice that his soul would leave his body and go to heaven for seven days. However, on the sixth day, the apprentice's mother was very sick and he had to go home to look after her so he cremated Li's body. His mother then died.When Li's soul returned it was forced to enter the only available body around: the corpse of a homeless beggar who had just died of starvation. Lao Tzu (the founder of Taoism) gave him a gold band to keep his hair in order and replaced his beggar's bamboo cane with an iron crutch to help his lame leg, advising him not to worry about his appearance. Li's first miracle in his new body was to bring back to life the mother of his apprentice.