BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese people across the country celebrated the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympic Games on Wednesday.

    Tian'anmen Square was crowded by more than 10,000 people who marked the occasion with songs, dances and fireworks display.

    Across the country, Chinese people are celebrating the occasion in various ways. In the city square of Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, residents performed roller-skating, martial arts and Taiji under red banners reading "Fitness campaign to welcome the 2008 Olympics".

    More than two thousand Tibetan natives and tourists gathered on Wednesday morning in Lhasa to mark the countdown.

    The celebration starts with a domino display by 2,008 middle school students from Lhasa as they dropped to the ground one after another on the plaza before the Potala Palace, forming the pattern of the Olympic rings and the number "2008".

    In Yangzhou of east China's Jiangsu province, thousands of residents played Guzheng, a traditional Chinese string instruments to mark the occasion.

    Residents in Beijing found various ways to express their joy. A resident named Zhao Yue'e in Huanghuamen community around Jingshanin downtown Beijing gathered with friends at the countdown clock in her community. "We are not just waiting for the Games, we are welcoming and expecting it to come," she said.

    "My 15-year-old daughter is learning English, and she can speak a few words with foreigners now," she added.

    A netizen wrote online that "in the beginning of the 20th century, China was still worried when it can send an athlete to the Games. But less than a century later, the country will be the host of the event."

    "I can hear the steps of the Olympics," Wang Xiaochun, another resident in Beijing said, after taking photos with his family in front of a countdown clock set up at Sanyuanqiao on the northern third ring road in Beijing.