I saw the phrase, “Welcome the Olympic Game, Pay Attention to Civilization, Set Up a New Trend," on a red and white banner draped across a bridge. It's a perfect complement for a metaphor I heard the other day about China. Siok Siok Tan, director of the documentary Boomtown Beijing, told me that China is like a teenager who constantly checks herself out in the mirror, waiting for the world to tell her what she looks like. To her, the biggest change in Chinese people is a new self awareness of how the outside world perceives them and a desire to reinvent their identity. This couldn’t be clearer to me as I’ve been going around the city during the Olympics.

While foreigners may note a change in Beijing’s architectural landscape, it’s the Chinese people that have changed in a far deeper sense. The foreign press is often more interested in stories about the city’s “hardware,” like tightened security and Draconian rules, so the change in the Chinese population goes unnoticed, Siok points out. Hers is an interesting and fresh perspective on things.

Siok and I laugh about the city’s thousands of volunteers, who can be seen on every single street corner. There are official volunteers in blue and white, security volunteers in red and white and then the ordinary Beijinger, who, if not simply interested in practicing his English, is eager to demonstrate China’s goodwill. It’s like the whole city is putting on its best suit so that it can impress the world.

The other day my jade necklace broke as I was biking down a main road. I stopped to kick my bike stand down and when I turned around to look for the 30 or so beads that had fallen, there were 5 Chinese, all clearly on their way to work, already fast at work picking up the beads for me. I guess this is what Siok means when she describes the “outpouring of friendliness and earnestness” in Beijingers she has noticed recently.

Just like teenagers, Beijingers continually reaffirm their identity. Everyday I see at least a handful of people sporting "I love China" t-shirts and Chinese flags are pasted on any kind of flat surface, including dogs and various parts of the body. There is a tuk tuk (small car) parked on a quiet road near my apartment that is covered completely in flags, stickers and cultural references to China.

Even in the sports venues it's clear that China is trying hard to project a new image. When there is a lull in sports commentary at a particular event, instructions in Chinese for volunteers to cheer are blasted on loud speakers. At the women’s marathon event on Sunday, there was little English commentary before the athletes actually arrived in the Bird’s Nest. Instead, a Chinese commentator rallied the Chinese volunteers and spectators, all sitting in sections right by the track, to cheer louder. That way, if you were watching the event on the TV screen, you might think that the whole stadium was filled with cheering Chinese fans.

This “newfound consciousness” that Siok articulates is not uncommon for a country that is modernizing itself. The Chinese obsession with the Olympics can be explained when one imagines the country like a teenager who has just been introduced to many new things -- in a country that was closed off from the rest of the world for much of the 20th century. For many Chinese this is the first time the world is paying full attention.