The first time I visited China, in the summer of 2007, my deepest and most profound impression of the country came from an experience I had shortly after my plane landed. As the cabin depressurized, I was greeted by the unmistakable smell of car exhaust seeping into the cabin: air pollution. The feeling of being trapped in a place where I could not escape such a phenomena is not one that left me easily and is one that tinged my perceptions of the country for the duration of my trip. China, as it seemed, was an unfinished product in a way that Western countries were not. It was a country in which massive problems still existed: one which was in the process of overhauling itself from the ground up. This year, when I arrived with the rest of the IMUSE delegation, I was blown away to find that the skies that had previously been, nearly every day, filled with pea soup-thick grey mist were now full of nothing but sunshine. Although pollution reared its ugly head from time to time throughout the duration of the trip, I was nevertheless taken aback by how rapidly these changes had occurred. I later found out that the government was rumored to have used man-made means to control the weather and ensure clear skies for the Olympic Games. China had gone to great lengths to put its best face forward while it hosted the Olympics, that was for certain, and I would see the ramifications of this effort throughout the rest of my trip.

My most lasting impression of my IMUSE trip came from an entirely different vantage point than that of my previous one. While our delegation made its way through the crowd in the Olympic Pavilion on the way to the opening ceremonies of the games, there was one thing that grabbed my attention. It was not the looming stadium hovering on the skyline to our left nor was it the sea of people that engulfed our group on all sides. Instead, it was a line of faces that stood out gleaming through the hubbub: those of the Olympic volunteers. Here, I thought, was China’s Olympic effort embodied in human form. These students, culled from the mass of applicants not only for their resourcefulness, I surmised, but also for the appearance of their faces, all of them shining with an almost inhuman wholesomeness, were the best of the best. Their posture was upright, their chins pointed forwards, their eyes shining politely, the structures of their faces handpicked to fit the bill: not too much and not too little. They were there to welcome us, to welcome the world not only to the Olympics and to Beijing, but to China. The opening ceremonies themselves, much like the volunteers that helped them run smoothly, were emblematic of the Olympic effort: they went off “just right.” Prior to the festivities, the audience was presented with a series of traditional dances from across China: a face on every region. As seen in the presentation of the dances, China wanted the world to see it as a force that celebrated diversity and unity much in the same way as the international event it was hosting worked to. It was a theme that repeated itself more than once over the course of my visit. When the ceremonies began, we were presented with a stadium floor full of identically-dressed figures. As their forms mimed out a series of perfectly-coordinated motions, rhythmically, it was incredibly difficult not to be blown away by the precision of the event: how seamlessly it went off. Throughout the ceremonies, from the unfurling on the larger-than-life scroll, through the synchronized tablet sequence, to the final “running-through-air” sequence that culminated in the lighting of the Olympic flame, everything went off without a hitch. Following the performance, I remarked to one of our Chinese co-coordinators on how well I thought everything had gone.

“Of course,” she said in a tone laden with equal parts humor and patriotism. “It’s China.”

What we saw at the Olympics was a finished product. This was a China that had it together, one that’s moves were synchronized to the last tee and that’s performance came off without a hitch, a China that could hold its own on the international stage.

At the panel discussion, I was blown away not only by how knowledgeable the Chinese audience members were, but by their bold patriotism and their willingness to defend it. It was a sentiment that, I believe (and contrary to the beliefs of many Westerners), would have been harbored even if the act of criticizing the government did not suffer the same consequences as it does. The students I encountered were convinced of the righteousness of their country’s actions and seemed to be willing to defend that stance regardless of who may challenge it. They were knowledgeable about the world and, much as the Olympics suggested they might be, ready to stake their claim in it.

There were parts of me (fairly large parts) that wondered how the country had been able to make the changes that it had. What programs had to be cut back in order to fund the changes that had been made and who had to suffer because of it? How did the average Chinese (and not just the average Beijinger) feel about the Olympics? Was the face the country had put on for the event the country’s real one or was it just a mask which the country might project to cover up the reality of things? Only time will tell the realities of these questions.

At one point the question arose of what would happen to the thousands upon thousands of Olympic banners that had accumulated on street lamps and bus stops reaching out into the outskirts of Beijing: What could possibly replace all of this publicity?

“There will be new flags,” one of the IMUSE coordinators responded with assurance. The country would move forward from the Olympics, keeping the face it had constructed for the event forward as it marched.