As Olympic visitors started to worry on Sunday about airport return traffic, cars in Beijing were being parked on sidewalks again.

Night clubs were open after an anti-prostitution blitz a few weeks ago. Once banished vendors scrummed on sidewalks to sell Olympic pins, the collection of which had grown to a competitive roar among locals close to the Games.

In shopping districts, you’d win gold for walking 100 metres in under an hour, a silver to stay standing amid shoves and a bronze to hear yourself talk on the phone.

China’s athletic dominance at a terrorism-free Olympics motivated celebratory locals to re-emerge into the streets over the final days of the Games, clogging venues with bodies and cars, basically returning to life as usual.

The coming-out followed a chill over Beijing orchestrated earlier this summer to reduce the risk of upsets during the country’s signature event.

“There’s a happy atmosphere now in Beijing,” said Sky Zhou, 23, a government employee, on Sunday as he joined crowds of police, military and athletes in lining up for the closing ceremonies. “Two weeks ago there was an atmosphere of anticipation.”

Before the Olympics, Beijing sent migrant workers home, removing the ubiquitous din of hammers and the smell of poured cement at construction sites. Beijing car owners can drive only on alternate days, hollowing out once gridlocked intersections the size of small sports fields.

Planes all but exceeded passengers at the normally packed Beijing airport. Chinese outside Beijing stayed home to avoid newly mandated interrogations at highway or railway checkpoints about their reasons for visiting the capital. For a while it was oddly reminiscent of the outbreak of SARS in 2003, when 2,500 people got sick in Beijing, at least 190 died and there was a ghostly feel about the city.

“The Olympic atmosphere is better than the normal one,” said university student and Games spectator Long Su, who has lived in Beijing for four years. “The construction sites have faded out, and my feeling is that Beijing has gotten cleaner.”

China had just lost to the U.S. but even though their team was out the crowd’s cheering, jeering, floor stomping and plastic stick drumming was just warming up on a 14-hour day of men’s volleyball play.

One match later, the Chinese fans were wildly rooting for Egypt over Russia.

“Is it politics? I don’t think so,” said one baffled Egyptian player. But he had no better ideas. 

Later the crowd roared for Germany over Serbia and every time Japan tossed a ball in the air to serve against Venezuela that evening, the still largely Chinese crowd of 7,500 booed and stomped until the stadium vibrated.

It’s not just about volleyball, or about that day, Aug. 16. Chinese spectators loudly cheered both Germany and Italy as they faced Japan in fencing finals earlier in the Olympics. In men’s badminton, masses of local fans booed a small group of Americans who chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!”.

Is it pure adolescent fun? Or do Chinese “add oil”, in the words of the official chant, to underdogs like Egypt just because they want to watch a good fight?

Fans say they choose more carefully. Western Europe often comes out ahead.

“At the Germany-Serbia volleyball match, you’d find that there are people who have studied German or attended school in Germany and come back,” said 36-year-old volleyball spectator Li Jing.

PHOTO: China fans cheer for their team during their Group B men’s basketball game against the U.S. at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 10, 2008. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Beijing promised to turn itself into a model city after winning its bid for the 2008 Olympics almost seven years ago. I lived in the city then and thought, yay, go team. Beijing, afterall, could use some work.

Infamous traffic gridlocks would be sorted out, the waiting world was promised. Working-class taxi drivers who love to chatter in Chinese would speak English. City-dwellers would quit spitting on the sidewalks. The polluted grey skies that aggravated my head colds would turn blue. Order would be enforced at the capital’s chaotic international airport.

Twenty-four-hour construction that dominates kilometre after kilometre of sprawl would be polished off, making the wee hours darker and quieter. Foreigners would be welcomed, not blamed by association with their governments for upsetting China at some point in history. No more pirated DVDs, meaning less harassment on street corners and less friction between China and Western governments.

A dream team of state agencies, media and street-level public opinion advocated all these and a list of other changes before the Games.

After being away for nearly two years, I was back in April. And certainly some things have changed….

Beijing commuters now line up on subway platforms. I was stunned when they left a single-file corridor for exiting passengers at a particularly packed station.

Guards at the airport hand out brochures listing expected taxi fares to major hotels to prevent visitors being ripped off. My cab driver was even fair to the point he stopped the metre when he took a wrong turn.

Dust has settled on some major construction sites over the past two years, turning hazardous public wastelands into towering shopping complexes with lounge bars and spacious coffee houses.

“You can find quiet space amid the chaos here,” said one Beijing native who seldom compliments his city when we got together.

But now with around 2-1/2 months to go till the start of the Games, some of my international phone calls still get bounced and Chinese friends say their Web-based e-mail can’t always be opened, probably due to the same technical glitches that were around five years ago.

Scrappy, stinky poured cement construction sites the size of small towns still hulk on segments of the horizon, blasting hammer blows and flood lights through residential neighbourhoods long into the night with no hint of nearing completion.

A car trip from the financial district of west Beijing to a bar district in the east can take more than an hour as columns of cars wait turn after turn at red lights, basically no change from a few years ago. “You can’t just hop across town for dinner in Beijing,” an expatriate remarked to me.

Also winning no medals, English directed at tourists rarely exceeds snarky shouts of “hello!?” followed by grammatically mangled commands to buy something, all in the fourth tone. Tourists from parts of China not used to foreigners still stare at non-Asian faces.

A city isn’t a DVD. Beijing can’t fake itself just for Olympic visitors, not after hundreds of years of doing particular things in particular ways.

The fact is, if you live in Beijing, you spit in public, smoke wherever and yell in quiet places (such as hallways in the multi-star hotel where I stayed).

None of these Chinese characteristics need stop Beijing from holding an international sporting event, my friends and sources accurately remind me. As a former student of anthropology, I also believe Olympic visitors should see true Beijing instead of a facelift version. I give uncut, unpolished real Beijing a medal for being itself.

Don’t try to discuss China in Taiwan. 

The topic spoils parties. Conversation stops. Laughter turns to grimaces. Best to drop the subject.

China fired on Taiwan for years to stop it from breaking away after civil war in the 1940s, and the Communist government still threatens to use force, Taiwanese will say if a China discussion gets going.

Many locals who don’t travel to China believe the masses all spit in the streets, shout in restaurants and cheat people out of their life savings. 

Don’t most Chinese still live in drafty brick huts clustered around public outhouses, they ask, and how fair is it to Taiwan that the Chinese economy is booming?

The term “Commie bandit” rolls off the tongue in Taiwan as smoothly as chaws of betel nut.

The 2008 Olympics should change Taiwan’s intolerance, says Sisy Chen, 50, director of the news programme Sisy’s World News. She says the hyper-televised two-week event will leave Taiwanese with an indelible impression of Beijing’s “rise.”

Then the discussion can start.

“To me, I want to know what will be the impact on Taiwan identity,” Chen says, hinting that sovereignty-obsessed Taiwanese may be more open to Beijing’s line that they, too, are Chinese people.

Expect debate on what to do next, Chen adds.

Politicians will talk more about letting in China’s tourists, most of whom are barred entry today for political reasons or for fear they’ll overstay visas to escape poverty at home.

“They can bring more money to Taiwan,” Chen says. “Of course we’ll get more money.”