Migrant kids in Dawangjing neighborhood in Beijing. Compassion for Migrant Children (CMC) is a charity that provides educational assistance to migrant children in Beijing.
(courtesy Compassion for Migrant Children)

Over the last three years, I've walked by several neighbourhoods in Beijing within the fourth ring road that used to be old-style living communities for local Chinese complete with outdoor toilets, winding alleyways and vendors lining narrow streets.

Sadly, most of these old sprawling hutongs have been replaced by large construction sites, with half a dozen cranes and makeshift housing for hundreds of migrant construction workers.

New and glitzy air-conditioned malls and office buildings appear where the hutongs once stood, transforming the quaint street into a metal and concrete jungle.

If it's jarring for me to behold these warp-speed changes, and feel a sense of loss at seeing piles of bricks instead of thriving communities, I can't begin to describe what the locals, who grew up in hutongs, are thinking.

All this construction madness is part of the rush to get things ready in time for the Olympics.

The local people have been asked to make more changes and behavioural adjustments in the last few years than in, let's say, a decade.

With only a year to go, Beijing is abuzz with 2008 Games fever. Commercials and print advertising abound with well-known Olympic medal winners like Liu Xiang, the hurdler. (So the myth goes, Liu came into his talent without the aid of a talent scout, and begged to participate in competitions.)

Drivers face changes; police to be polite

A short and ambitious test run called the "city moat" project is taking place this month to keep 1.3 million cars off the road to reduce congestion.

That's almost half of the three million cars in the city. Cars will be asked to stay off the road according to whether the last digit of the licence plate is an odd or even number. Officials are studying to see if this is a realistic plan to ask more than one million drivers to stay off the road during the Olympics and whether they should keep it voluntary.

"If the government wants to keep millions of drivers off the road, then it will happen," said Helena, an American expat who's been living in China for three years.

"The [government] has total control and if anyone can pull the Olympics off in a city of this size, it's the Chinese government."

The police have been asked to be more polite to tourists this coming year, according to state media. Not only that, they have to be neatly dressed and if they smoke, chew food or use impolite words in public, they will be punished.

Beijingers have been asked to line up in straight lines for the bus, the subway, in all public spaces, instead of making a mad dash to the front of the line.

They've also been asked not to spit in public and to use a tissue instead. I must admit that during the first few months in Beijing, it was difficult to get used to the sound of men and women, young and old, horking on the street with all the might they can muster.

This is no exaggeration, but I would hear that sound on the streets at least half a dozen times a day. Yet today, I hear less people clearing their throats thanks to the threat of a fine.

But some of the changes impinge on more than social graces. A friend who works for a foster home in Beijing said that the government has ordered several orphans to be sent back to their rural home provinces as part of the Olympics image makeover.

The reason?

"The staff members at the foster home were told that since there'll be thousands of journalists in Beijing around the time of the Olympics, they don't want them to see orphans, and report on anything embarrassing like that," said Mary (name changed).

The Public Security Bureau in Beijing has announced it will step up the policy of clearing out unemployed migrants before the 2008 Olympics because of fears that crime will increase due to their presence. These "clean-up" campaigns often involve violence and forced evictions.

Private and often illegal schools for migrant children, who cannot afford to pay tuition at mainstream schools, are at risk of being demolished.

International activists are sounding off on human rights abuses in China, calling it a blight on the world event that promotes peace between nations.

I wonder what the Olympic athletes and first-time tourists will think of this city. Will there be clear blue skies while they're here?

Beijing has promised to keep the rats and the rains away during the Games. Local media have reported that several lines of chemical-infused rockets and planes will blast threatening clouds away from the competition venues.

Protected from rats

Beijing claims it is now protected from an invasion of plague-carrying rats.

Nine plague control stations and working teams have been set up at the airport and in other areas in the city.

The concern over rats has been heightened by serious outbreaks of rat-borne diseases in Hebei province and Inner Mongolia.

In southern Hunan, rising floods pushed two billions rats out of their dwellings, causing them to run rampant in the streets, and in open sewers and fields.

Some enterprising locals caught the creatures and sold them for less than a dollar per pound to diners in Guangzhou who consider them a delicacy.

Despite the image of China as a rising superpower with the fastest growing economy in the world, the country sees the 2008 Olympics as a chance to prove itself on the world stage.

Despite an appearance of loosening control, the crackdown in recent months has been intense on political activists and people of faith.

With the Olympics about a year away, it will be interesting to witness how much more the city will change and how much more change the people will accept.