Beijing's Preparations: Clifford Coonanfinds the people of Beijing uniformly positive about the city's hosting of the Olympics.
ZHAO PENGFEI, a 39-year-old stallholder wearing an open-necked shirt in the Beijing heat, is selling newspapers and magazines near a subway station downtown. He's a busy man at the best of times, but his reaction when asked about the Olympics is typical among residents of the Chinese capital.
"The Olympics? They're great, and it's really good they're in Beijing. It's my biggest hope that we hold a successful Olympic games," he enthuses.
He's particularly looking forward to the football and the basketball.
Behind him, posters in the subway station bear messages like "Where the world comes to share" and the dancing Beijing 2008 logo peeps out from numerous magazine covers on the stand. The Olympic Games are absolutely everywhere, to the point that it's hard to remember what Beijing was like before this frenzy gripped the city.
Zhao also sells mobile-phone numbers - a common practice in China, where people are highly superstitious about numbers. This is why the Olympics are being held on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the century - eight is a lucky number, because in Chinese it sounds like the word for "get rich".
Four, because it sounds in Chinese a bit like "death", is unlucky. The Chinese would have had a problem staging the Olympics in 2004. But 2008 is just fine, thank you.So, people buy lucky mobile-phone numbers from Zhao.
His enthusiasm about the Olympics is boundless.
"The Beijing government has done many things to make the city great. Since July 20th, all the cars have to obey the order of 'odd and even' number plates, and that's great for traffic. The environment will continue to improve and I really hope our country will be even more great in the near future," said Zhao, as people stream in and out. Ask any of them, and chances are you'll get the same response.
The reaction of Chinese people to winning the right to host the 2008 Olympics has been overwhelmingly, relentlessly positive since the heady evening of July 13th, 2001, when Beijing was awarded the honour.
Despite some grumbles about traffic, most Beijingers are full of praise for the government and for the changes in their city.
In a deeply patriotic society like China, such high expectations are not too surprising - after all, the People's Republic of China only won its first Olympic medal in the Los Angeles games in 1984, but by the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, it had improved enough to finish third in the medal tally behind the United States and Russia, and hopes are high for these games. But it's about a lot more than medals.
"Olympics" is the English word that everyone seems to know - old folk practising their tai-chi in the park will call out "Olympic, Olympic" and give you the thumbs-up sign as the foreigner passes by, while children will say the same, and then sing out, "Beijing welcomes you."
"Inspired by the Olympic spirit, the whole world gathers together and people see not confrontation and conflict but reconciliation and friendship," ran a recent editorial in the People's Daily.
For the government, the Olympics are supposed to promote internal stability and showcase China's new economic and growing diplomatic might, as well as put the country's remarkable opening-up process on display to a record four billion people.
The Olympic organisers still have to show that the city can stage a smog-free games, there are logistical issues left to be resolved, and it remains to be seen whether human rights, Darfur or Tibetan independence protesters will somehow interrupt the games with public displays of anger at the policies of the Chinese government.
But even dissidents I have interviewed are looking forward to the games, despite their belief the event has been hijacked by the Communist Party.
Citizens have have put up with the massive social changes wrought by reconstruction, which came at a cost - the ink was barely dry on the IOC contract when the wrecking balls got busy on the destruction of many of the ancient network of alleyways and courtyard houses of old Beijing.
In a rapidly changing environment whole communities have been forced out of their homes and into the massive suburbs newly built on the outskirts. "Chai" or "demolish" signs went up all over the city and millions of Beijing residents had to make way for the Olympics, often in brutal and arbitrary manner and with little compensation, according to the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE).
Despite the destruction of large swathes of the city, most of the people remain unapologetically enthusiastic about the games, which have entered the psyche of the populace. A total of 4,104 Chinese children have been named Aoyun (Chinese for Olympics) in homage to the Beijing Games, according to figures released by the Ministry of Public Security. 'Aoyun' is becoming more popular than traditional favourites such as 'Defend China' or 'Celebrate the Nation' or, this year, 'Earthquake'.
It's only 30 years since the country started opening up following years spent in splendid isolation under Chairman Mao Zedong. The transformation of Beijing has been astonishing - the whole city seems to have raised its game.
On the drive to the airport, the roads are lined with trees, flowers and 2008 banners. And what an airport it is when you get there - Norman Foster's golden-roofed Terminal Three at Beijing Capital International is the biggest airport terminal in the world at nearly one million square feet and the largest covered structure ever.
The taxi driver gives a smile and says, "Bye, bye," before tootling off - this is a world away from the Beijing of yore. Beijingers are delighted at the legacy the Games will leave their city. Of the 31 Beijing Olympic venues, 12 are new, 11 are older buildings which have been extensively remodelled and eight are temporary structures.
The National Stadium, which will seat 100,000 people, was the last of the major buildings to be finished, by a construction squad on Beijing's Olympic sites of 300,000 migrant workers.
A city of 17 million can use a stadium of this size, even after the 3.5 million visitors have gone home. Just as they can use the National Aquatic Centre or Water Cube, a blue piece of science fiction not far from the stadium, which will become a huge leisure centre after the Olympics.
There are billboards all around the city, exhorting the masses to "behave like citizens of the capital" and to "improve professional ethics and adopt good manners to create a sound social environment".
Woe betide those who try to cheat tourists at the games - you cannot but feel they'll be lynched.
In mid-July, Chinese media were told the official period of mourning following the Sichuan earthquake on May 12th was over and TV stations might now resume showing game shows and other light entertainment deemed too frivolous to screen during a period of national sorrow.
This was the official signal that it was time to get into the mood for the Olympics. The authorities have taken dog off the menu to avoid offending foreign sensibilities, have standardised road signs and menus to make sure foreigners can understand everything, and have introduced not one but five mascots to make sure everyone gets a cuddly toy.
The government will distribute 40,000 English- and Chinese-language Bibles, all for free and all with the Olympic rings on the cover, which must be the first time a Marxist-Leninist state has done something like this for the Games. The country is even temporarily banishing its greatest Communist icon, Chairman Mao, of course, replacing him on six million new 10-yuan (93-cent) notes with the Bird's Nest.
"I feel very proud that Beijing can hold this Olympics," said Zhou Zhao, 68, a retired maths teacher. "I'm past the age where I get excited, but my biggest hope for the Olympics is that Beijing will stage the Games successfully."
Challenges remain. Pollution is a big, dirty question mark hanging over the Games, and one that is going to prove a real headache to resolve. In the three weeks in the run-up to July 7th, the government's own air-quality index averaged 87.75, seriously short of the minimum safe level of 100. Even at 100, children and old people are told to stay indoors. There is a mountain to climb.
The government says by halving the number of cars on alternate days, depending on their licence-plate numbers, since July 20th - there are over three million in Beijing - they can achieve the required improvement. Keeping heavy trucks off the road should also help, while the most-polluting factories in four provinces, and the giant Capital steelworks, are silent until after the Games and the Paralympics.
China is ramping up steel exports to fill the shortfall in output this is causing, estimated at 12 per cent of the country's monthly steel production.
"Our government has introduced many measures for environment protection," said Huo Ranjun, 28, a development manager from Beijing. "For example, free plastic bags have been banned, and many cars with high emissions have been taken out of circulation. I think our environment will become much better during the Olympics.
"Some factories are closed, many companies will take a holiday and our government also encourages people to work at home if they can. Beijing will be much less crowded."
The reaction of Beijing's residents to the Games offers evidence of what He Zhenliang, then a member of the IOC's executive board, said when presenting the last statement of Beijing's 2008 bid in Moscow.
"Choosing Beijing as the host city for the Olympics, you will bring the first ever Games in Olympic history to a nation containing one-fifth of the world's population, and 1.3 billion Chinese people will dedicate their efforts to the Olympic Movement.
"If you award the chance of hosting the Olympics to Beijing, I can assure you that seven years later you will be proud of the decision you make today."
Beijingers genuinely love the Olympics. These hearts and minds were there to be won. Now we can wait and see what the rest of the world thinks.