KEY POINTS:
Each day this week, local Chinese television has screened continuous images of the most incredible sight.
They are pictures of people in a frenzied state of rapture, cheering and flourishing their red flags as the Olympic flame passes them. The scene is always the same: The torch bearer receives the flame in one hand, high-fives the previous runner with the other and sets off to run his or her 100m smiling and waving as if they've just won the Olympic marathon. A squad of five men in blue shorts jog joyously aside. Along the route, the crowds are 10 or more deep.
It is monotonous viewing but it is difficult to look away.
What is most captivating is the contrast between these pictures and those we saw several months ago when the torch relay's international legs turned into a circus. Protesters disrupted the event to draw attention to China's myriad human rights issues, prompting Beijing organisers to protect the flame with a platoon of heavies. The little men in blue shorts who jogged alongside the flame as it passed through the city of Chengdu this week would have been mown down in a second flat in London, unlike the crack troops in blue tracksuits who accompanied the flame on its international route, thwarting the protesters and guarding the flame as if it was the source of life itself.
The different scenes highlight the division between the way that China sees the Olympics and the way that many in the West do. To human rights groups, the Olympics are an opportunity to make a stand about China's problems. To China, such ideas are at best the height of rudeness, at worst a mortal insult.
International media have described the Beijing Olympics as some sort of "coming out party", evoking images of a submissive China stepping out into the world, seeking acceptance and the West's embrace. In China, that's a foreign concept.
If there is any kowtowing to be done, it will not come from the Chinese. To them, the Olympics are the chance for the West to leave hostilities at the door, to accept the generous hospitality, and behave like respectful guests.
In the government-run China Daily newspaper columnist Raymond Zhou made the point clear. "In the West, a big crowd is fertile land for attention-grabbing," he wrote.
"You can crash parties and make mischief. In China ... etiquette demands that guests refrain from outrageous behaviour that may upset the host. The Beijing Olympics is like a wedding. Neighbours do not show up to conduct business, but to celebrate."
Zhou's point was blindingly obvious. The juxtaposition between his column and an editorial on human rights too was impossible to ignore.
On the same page, the editorial congratulated officials of Guangdon province for introducing rules that ban city management officers (responsible for making sure streets are clean) from being physically violent. It followed the beating to death of a street vendor by a group of city managers. Sorry, you need rules to make it clear city managers shouldn't kill street vendors? Such nuances may be lost in translation.
What is abundantly clear in whatever language you speak is the enthusiasm of what seems to be the vast majority of the 1.3 billion-strong population. When the call for 50,000 volunteers went out, more than one million people responded.
Today, the army of volunteers stand ready to cater for every whim, to do whatever it takes to make sure your stay is as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. Any problems are swiftly resolved, usually attended to by four or five people. It is said that volunteers have been instructed to kill foreigners with kindness: they're certainly giving it a damn good go. China's pride is at stake.
