The tourists are gone and the rickshaws idle.
“We knew from very young that China is that ancient country with great culture but somehow never got it confirmed by the outside world. Then we saw those protests when our torch toured the world and got even more suspicious. But now it is plain clear – the world respects us and we can feel more confident about it,” Grace Huang, who works in a foreign bank in Beijing, tells me.
Claire Chen — a second generation Chinese American now working in Beijing — had another revealing experience. “My son, who goes to the International School here and has to study Chinese as a second language with the other foreign children, has been bowled over by the Olympics and Chinese athletes. He all of a sudden told me the other day: ‘Isn’t it great that I’m Chinese too?’”
The Olympics was always supposed to be about creating bonds and narrowing gaps in perceptions. Perhaps with the Beijing games the biggest gap bridged has been the one between the way Chinese people felt about themselves and the way the outside world perceived them.
“We are always torn between out feeling of superiority as an ancient nation and our most recent experiences of inferiority,” says Cheng Wenxi, a media worker. “One can’t say that this fight of opposites has been put to rest with the Olympics but at least we feel more confident now to face our weaknesses.”
