I’d expected the worst when I got to Beijing three weeks ago. I remember what it was like in another Communist country — East Germany with its suppressed and scared people coupled with deplorable service and shoddy quality everywhere you turned.

That’s roughly what I had in mind for China, although I knew Beijing itself would certainly be a more prosperous and modern place than East Germany, and with a bit of window dressing for the Olympics.

But China has turned out to be a lot different than I imagined. Even if it is perhaps a facade for the multitudes of foreign journalists like me getting their first taste of China, the single-most overwhelming aspect for me has been the wholehearted friendliness of the people.

I’ve been looking everywhere for that proverbial half-empty glass and the fly in my soup ever since I got here but instead have found mostly kind, helpful and friendly Chinese people who have been doing perfect 10-score back-flips to keep me and the fraternity of curmudgeon-like journalist colleagues from Seattle to Saigon happy.

I’m sure they’ve been drilled on how to be friendly and helpful to Lao Wai (foreigners) like me. The volunteers in Athens were all pretty friendly too, until the last day of the Olympics when they started ignoring my questions and the smiles disappeared. Here they haven’t stopped smiling or being helpful yet.

It doesn’t mean there haven’t been angry, tense, frustrating moments. And no one here can forget the ostracised and punished dissidents in China (you wonder why free speech runs into limits in such a powerful and proud country with so much going for it).

I’ve also had a few minor run-ins with rather inflexible local officials. But there is still no escaping the kindness, smiles and friendliness of the Chinese people everywhere you turn. It’s contagious.

Just before an interview with an athlete the other day, the battery on my tape recorder died. I turned to a local Chinese volunteer to ask if she knew where I might be able to buy, find or borrow a new one. “Sorry, no.” No worries, I told her. I’ll manage.

A few minutes later she ran over with new batteries. It was unreal. She had made it her personal mission to search the venue for a battery for me. Could anything like that happen in London in 2012?

My favourite line of the Olympics has been this one from a 22-year-old student walking on Tiananmen Square just before the opening ceremony. It sums it all up best: “My heart is bursting with excitement about the Games. I want the people to see what is special about China.”

PHOTO: Volunteers stand near targets with arrows during the men’s archery individual ranking round at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 9, 2008. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

It’s 18 years since I was last in Beijing as a wet-behind-the-ears backpacker, and of course the city is barely recognisable.

But what has really surprised me is the way the atmosphere has changed. Not the smog, but the way the people of China have opened their arms and welcomed visitors from around the world.

When I first came here in 1990, Beijing was a pretty forbidding place, especially for someone who doesn’t speak Mandarin.

It was only a year since the crackdown on student protests in Tiananmen, and you didn’t get the impression many people were keen to be seen in public practising their English with foreigners.

The Chinese weren’t all unfriendly, but still the phrase I seemed to hear most was “mei you”, which means “I don’t have”. Then the shopkeeper, or ticket seller, or hotel receptionist would turn away and hope the annoying foreigner would just disappear.

Today, the atmosphere has changed beyond recognition. Hundreds of thousands of young, mostly English-speaker volunteers throng the streets of Beijing, eager to help with a smile. Now I hear “nee how”, or hello, everywhere I go.

Taxi drivers, even those who don’t speak a word of English, read my Olympics accreditation and give a warm “thumbs-up”.

Even the statuesque and forbidding soldiers, who stand without moving a muscle for hours on end in their olive-green uniforms, break into a smile when foreigners walk past.

Instructions have obviously gone out to welcome visitors to China’s moment of global glory, but this is more than following orders. There is a genuine, and touching, eagerness to please, to prove, in the words of one volunteer, that “we are not as nasty as some of you in the Western media say we are”. 

I can see their point. China has certainly faced an unprecedented barrage of negative publicity, and there has been a bit of hysteria.

Just take the security consultants who warned Western journalists they might face hostility on the streets because of the protests which surrounded the Olympic Torch. Or the members of the U.S. cycling team who arrived in black face masks at the spotless, vast, state-of-the-art and air-conditioned new airport terminal. Of course, they later apologised and said they had not meant to offend but it was faintly ridiculous to say the least.

As a political reporter, and one with a keen interest in human rights, I am very aware of all the criticism of Chinese policies in Tibet and Sudan, of the problems faced by those who dare to raise dissenting voices here.

But when you touch down in Beijing and feel the warmth of the reception, it is impossible not to hope that these Summer Olympic Games are a resounding success.

PHOTO: Beijing subway controllers stand inside a new station near the Olympic Stadium during a media tour in Beijing July 19, 2008. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

Early to rise, early to bed, and lots of exercise in between: athletes are supposed to be models of clean living, right? But some Olympians have a more healthy lifestyle than others.

For Italian weightlifter Giorgio de Luca, for example, doping is out of the question but coffee, cigarettes, and the occasional drink are all fine.

“We’re aiming for a clean sport,” the 24-year-old from Palermo said, puffing a cigarette outside the Olympic gym in Beijing, watched by his coach.

Several coaches and weightlifters huddled around the ashtrays in front of the gym on Tuesday — a picture that is unlikely to please their Olympic hosts. Beijing has promised to do its utmost to ensure clean air for the Games, and that means smog-free and smoke-free.

Smoking is banned at Olympic venues, and a 100,000-strong puff police is supposed to enforce the rule.

Not that anyone told the smokers at the gym to stub it out. The volunteers at the venue were happily handing out water, taking pictures and chatting with the smokers. Apparently, “smoking ban” is just as ambiguous a phrase as “clean living”.

PHOTO: A man smokes a cigarette as he walks past a billboard advertising the Olympics in central Beijing July 14, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray

Visitors arriving bleary-eyed and bad-tempered to China after gruelling long-distance flights are encountering a veritable people’s army of astonishingly polite and disciplined volunteers who attend to our every whim and need.

When I got off the plane after a jetlag-inducing flight from East Africa, I found myself shepherded, as in a dream, from post-to-post by an array of smiling students. ‘This way for your Olympic fast-track channel, sir … your accreditation … your bus … your room … your complimentary umbrella.’ Some were already fluent in English, others shyly practising newly-learned phrases, crushed if I didn’t understand first time.

On the bus into Beijing, I was the only passenger — but three volunteers in their blue-and-white uniforms rode with me to check if I was comfortable and enjoying the view of pristine rows of flags and flowers in place for the Olympics.

Into a media village on the Olympic green, where about a dozen volunteers took me through a baffling array of security checks and cordons, I was too tired to respond to every respectful bow of the head.

Then, the shock: just as I was enjoying a deep sleep (3am Nairobi time), five ‘housekeeping’ volunteers burst in, trolleys clattering across a gleaming floor, to dust and wipe already spotless surfaces with vigour and smiles.

China is the world’s most populous nation, and hundreds of thousands of patriotic young people offered to be Olympics volunteers.

A lucky 100,000 of them were chosen to attend Olympic sites — that’s three for every journalist, or ten for every athlete! Another 400,000 are dotted around Beijing to help an expected 2.5 million visitors.

I’ve had plenty of interesting conversations so far with the volunteers — about the weather, the sports and my impressions of the city. An attempt to stray into politics, however, was politely rebuffed. “All countries have their positives and negatives, sir. We are no different. It rains a lot in August, you know — did you receive your umbrella?”

PHOTO: Volunteers play with an Olympic “Fuwa” mascot in front of the National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, in Beijing, July 28, 2008. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen