The Olympic city is back to normal again today, with fewer security volunteers out on the streets and fewer visible tourists wandering around. The newspapers here are filled with praise from foreigners. That’s half the story, and we all know what the rest of the world is saying. Here, newspapers like the state-run China Daily have continued to proclaim a perfect Games. “The curtain is rising,” they say, highlighting “first-rate facilities” and “first-rate organization.” What is left out, of course, is the first-rate denial of freedom of expression for Chinese citizens, as viewed by foreigners. Yet one cannot discount the impact of these foreign views. China has recovered from a prolonged sense of being ridiculed or underestimated by imperial powers by now displaying a new-found pride in itself.

While the rest of the world focuses on the promises that China broke during the Olympics, very few are focusing on the people at the local level here who feel those broken promises the hardest. They are the ones who are silent, who don’t want to risk seeming to be unpatriotic during patriotic times. If we stop to consider how China’s foreign guests were treated, we can probably safely assume that this treatment was less severe than the way local protests were handled behind the curtains of this two-week spectacle.

There were designated protest areas (three in total) that were set up in order to allow people to protest (once their application to protest was approved). And 77 applications were submitted over the period of the Games. None were accepted. What’s worse than the denial of foreign loud mouths is the denial of local residents, the ones who know the extent of their struggles.

So while I have spent the last two weeks interviewing Chinese people to try to understand the kinds of opportunities that the Games will bring them I learned a lot about their hopes dreams. It’s hard to see just how many good things will be brought directly to the people, although the authorities insist that the undeniable improvement for many will continue to escalate. Life will still go on as a daily struggle for many, as it always has. The changes that Beijing has made or the benefits the government has reaped may be a long time coming. The thousands of migrant workers and non-Beijing residents will return to the city and life will go on as it always did.

Boasting of China’s new reputation on the world stage, The China Daily explained today that: “The good thing is, the Chinese government has assured us all the good things will stay. And the rest of the world showed us they can appreciate good things about China.” What do the people here think about that? My guess is that once the high of the Olympics comes down and the smog settles in again, the big-wigs will have to work hard to give the Chinese people all that has been promised and that the Games were of tangible use to the ordinary person.

On the plus side is the widespread revival of genuine Chinese pride and the recognition given by Boris Johnson, the new mayor of London, that this has been a rare moment in time. The future host of the next Games was genuinely exuberant in those final hours – to such a degree that his waving to the crowds and his huge enduring grin gave observers reason to think things will continue to get better, because Johnson, once editor of the prestigious and independent Spectator, and a politician who has always gone against the grain, is a stern critic of regulation from on high.