*** Obesity certainly doesn't appear to be a problem in China. Perhaps that's not surprising in a culture where rice is the most common food and chopsticks the eating utensil of choice. Still, it appears those in the Army might eat even less than the average citizen. There are thousands of soldiers stationed around Beijing and all appear to be roughly the same body type as Barney Fife. It might not be diet. It could be the result of them running in formation from place to place and standing at rigid attention for hours at a time.

 *** I keep reading that in China the group is more important than the individual. This may be true in the rest of the nation, but it does not appear to be the case in the bus parking lot at the Main Press Center.  Many of the buses, which run from there to the villages, the hotels, the venues, depart on the hour. So at 3 or 4 or 5, about 20 of them go speeding toward the one-lane exit. The result is a scene reminiscent of one of those microscopic views of a virus attacking a defenseless host. Everyone rushes to the single point. No one yields. The concept of waving another driver on has not yet made its way to this nation, where, until the last decade or so, very few people drove or had cars.

*** The brilliant journalistic answer of the day goes to an Aussie photographer. While he and few of his mates were walking along Beiyung Street, they stopped to ask a local for directions. Afterward, apparently needing clarification from the man, one of the Aussies turned to try to find him again. Failing to do so, he asked the photographer which of the hundreds of people crowding the sidewalk had just given them directions. "It's the guy with the black hair," he said. That really narrowed things down. Now he had a 1-in-1.3 billion chance of finding the man.

 *** When you have a 1.3 billion people, you've got a pretty deep work-force. The Chinese are able to double-and triple-team most menial jobs. There are workers to open department store doors, to hand you a plastic bag for your wet umbrella when you enter. There are workers stationed at trash cans, directing your litter to the proper container. Yesterday, I had to return to my media village room in mid-day to get something I'd forgotten. When I entered, the cleaning people were still there, all five of them. They were scurrying around the tiny room so busily I felt like I was observing an ant colony.

 *** Jamaica's Usain Bolt set a world-record in winning the men's 100-meter dash Saturday night. It might have been one of the most amazing Olympic accomplishments I've ever seen. I mean how fast could he have run it if he hadn't started showboating the last 15 meters?

 ***  Some interesting signs spotted on a walk through Beijing. "Massages by Blind Masseurs" (No thank you.)." "Perfect Gentle Reflect Best" (My thoughts exactly.) "China Tibetology Research Center" (No comment till I'm back home.). "New York-style Reuben -- 7500 Yuan" (With or without pork liver?).

 *** For all Michael Phelps' dominance here and for all the face-time 7-6 basketballer Yao Ming gets, no one in China can top Kobe Bryant as a merchandise marketer. The China Daily reports today that the Lower Merion High grad's jersey is the most popular one in China.  Boston's Kevin Garnett is second. Yao is a surprising tenth. "Nationality is immaterial when it comes to most-favored basketball players," Zhong Yu, a local fan, told the paper. "Fans go by skills alone."

 *** In fairness to the Beijing atmosphere, the weather was beautiful here the last few days. When the smog and clouds finally lifted on Friday, visitors here were surprised to see that there were mountains in the distance. Chinese officials got a little carried away with the blue skies. They quickly issued a release calling this August the best summer month in more than a decade in terms of air quality. That's frightening. And, oh yeah, it was gray and rainy again on Sunday.

 *** Woe Canada. Our friendly neighbors to the north  sent 330 athletes here and until Saturday hadn't won a single medal. Canada now has three, which is two fewer than North Korea and one more than Mongolia. At the other end of the medal board, going into Sunday, the U.S. had 54 medals, 16 of them gold. China had 47 medals, 27 gold.