KEY POINTS:
It hit me as soon as I stepped into the bathroom of our apartment in the Media Village at the Beijing Olympics. It was a toothbrush sitting in a glass. And it was exactly the same as the toothbrush I had brought in my little toilet bag.
The
paranoia in me leapt straight to the surface. How did the Chinese know? Had we been penetrated by bathroom spies at home, checking out my toothbrush and fondness for patterned loo paper?
You see, it's possible to become overwrought when it comes to contemplating dark Chinese motives and their predilection for control; for managing things, including inconvenient Western journalists.
There's no doubt China deserves the breathless reporting and writing about its dubious human rights record and authoritarian management of people - including foreign journalists and the emotional issues of censorship and the monitoring of communications.
The Chinese stopped access to "subversive" websites such as Amnesty International and anywhere supporting Tibet - then relented on some websites (though not all) after an extraordinary meeting between foreign journalists and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Much has been made - and rightly so - of China's political issues in Tibet, Sudan and with the dissident Falun Gong sect.
Olympically, the Chinese have spent more than $20 billion on beautifying Beijing and the social and urban engineering required to attempt to rid the city of pollution. People, places and perceived threats have all been dealt with.
But the overwhelming sense in Beijing is simply that of a city and a people who want to please; who want to be admitted to the Big League Of Nations.
The Chinese people believe this is their time; that they will dominate the 21st century just as the United States dominated the 20th century and the British the 19th.
The Chinese have never welcomed foreigners. At best, there was a kind of cool tolerance. Business to be done? Yes please, but there have been countless episodes of the Chinese squeezing profits and proprietary information out of prospective partners swooning at the prospect of making $1 of profit for each person in China's 1.3 billion population.
China has always been adept at swallowing invaders - even the kind wearing a business suit. They have digested even military conquerors, by simply surrounding them with the vast amoeba of China's size and culture and ingesting them.
For the Olympics, the Chinese are trying to be friendly and outgoing, even if it is done with the imprint of the Government's hand in the small of their backs through campaigns on everything from being nice to foreigners to stopping spitting on streets.
Then there's the greeters. There are Olympic helpers on every door of the media village and they leap to open it for you and say "Morning" or "Hello" or "Welcome".
It's charming and it does make you like your hosts and hope they succeed in their earnest endeavours to have a successful Olympics and showcase China's entry to the big time.
There's a bigger picture here. The greater China's confidence, the more it will open up and liberalise; when it will realise that the clumsy attempts to control the internet were more damaging than simply leaving matters be.
Humiliation from a flood of criticism may just push the Chinese further into the arms of their Communist masters.
So these Olympics are more than just a medals race, who wins the 100m title, or an examination of Chinese faults.
We all know that when the Olympics are done, the Chinese will revert to their ways and the pollution will return, for example. But the benefits of these Olympics could accrue later. Or the opposite may occur. Whatever happens, it will make for fascinating watching.
