Is Beijing Ready for the Olympics?

2006 saw me standing in Tian'anmen Square watching the Olympic countdown clock. It was early January, freezing cold and I had been in the city for 2 days without seeing a Westerner. I found myself to be a bit of a tourist attraction to the Chinese.

In the square, Chinese came up to me wanting to touch my hair and to have their photograph taken with me. They were very non threatening, but really quite insistent. Whenever I agreed which I invariably did there was much shy laughter and rapid chatter.

I always ate in local restaurants and, being Winter, the doorways were covered by a thick curtain and a split plastic sheet the type you would get in a chilled food factory to keep the cold in in this case of course it was to keep the cold out! The restaurant would go quiet for a couple of seconds people were absolutely speechless then a massive babble.

I speak no Chinese and the menus had no English so I would wander around the tables followed by a waitress pointing at what I wanted to eat.
At less than 7pence ( about 14 cents ) a dish it wasn't the end of the world if I made a mistake.

Is Beijing ready for the onslaught of the Olympics? I'm sure in the top Western hotels the cash registers are already ringing, but on the street, for the average person, I think they are in for a bit of a shock when the World descends upon them and it's my belief that there is an awful lot of natural Chinese charm that will be lost forever.

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