BEIJING — BEIJING - Every morning these past several months, I was reminded that, for the first time in Olympic history, China is poised to win more medals than any other nation. Each time I walked down my stairs, in fact, I was reminded. It was in plain view, right on my wall. Not an exact medal count, but an unavoidable symbol.
Last fall, on an earlier visit to Beijing, I was greeted outside my hotel by a Chinese college student. Like most people I've met here, he was exceedingly gracious and friendly. He explained he was studying art and his professor urged his students to practice their English on tourists. So we walked and chatted. He pointed out nearby sites, showed me a tranquil park and I eagerly agreed to a visit when he mentioned his university's art studio was nearby.
A couple of hours later, I sat at lunch, skimming through a travel guide. At my side, carefully packaged, was one of the student's pieces, "Four Seasons," a pricey scenic painting of his serene village. At least that's what he told me.
In big, bold letters, the travel guide belatedly warned: Beware of scam artists posing as art students. The overpriced art was fake; the crafty scam was real. And ever since, the piece has hung in my stairwell - a reminder of my naivete, yes, but also the reason I'm certain the United States' dominance on the medal platforms is about to end.
This isn't to imply the Chinese are all grifters, liars or even struggling artists. But it's difficult to deny that in China, the truth often has two faces: what is said and what is real.
The day before I began supporting the Beijing arts, I sat in a shiny metallic building - it looked like something from The Jetsons - sharing tea with Olympic officials. They told me every way they could that the medal count was meaningless to China, that the United States was still too powerful athletically. They smiled as they spoke, which at the time was disarming, but in retrospect, distrustful.
Their Olympic modesty is but a single thread of an increasingly familiar theme. With China, there's the surface. A smile maybe. Unflappable humility perhaps. Traditions, customs and history. Kindness, civility and promises.
Though each might be sincere and accurate, each is also partnered - and in many cases compromised - by a larger truth.
Sure, it's an open market and capitalist economy. But it's still an authoritarian state with roots firmly planted in communism.
