I looked up to roll my eyes for dramatic effect.  There is always a huge number of staff around, so every emotion can be shared…instead, in front of me, an accredited Chinese woman, not in uniform - so probably press rather than volunteer or staff, was sat in a comfy chair, weeping, covering her face with one hand as she stared at the television.

The Chinese women’s gymnastics team had just won gold, just as their male counterparts had the day before and just as the men had cried tears of joy, so did the women.  Their euphoria, their absolute and overwhelming elation, transmitted through the television as it easily as it did through the partisan arena - raw and poignant.

CCTV (China’s state-run TV company) cameras scanned the crowd and the ecstasy was apparent, adult men and women especially, cried...children’s faces varied from amused to bemused by what must have seemed to them a totally incongruent outpouring of emotion from the stadium floor and all around them - happiness and tears.

I watched as the woman in front of me, eyes fixated on her team, wiped each eye in turn, her hand always returning to guard her face, her emotions.  Her phone buzzed and she stood bolt upright; perhaps it was her boss? 

She turned to the bar manager.  Dressed in his suit, he too was fixated on the TV - for this moment, his attentions were not completely on his customers.  She bowed, more deeply than I have seen anyone bow since I have been here, then turned and walked swiftly towards the main press centre and was gone.

At the opening ceremony and at each bronze, silver or gold medal ceremony the Chinese have participated in since then has been a cathartic crescendo for Beijing, maybe even for China.  A chance to show the more human stories behind the too often stoic face of the establishment and the usual international, political bluster. 

I am not sure, as the government orchestrated these games, that they knew their very success might be the means that people’s minds became liberated.  It is my experience that the enjoyment and release of such towering emotion whether instigated through success in sport, activism, art or otherwise, provokes the desire and indeed a collective thirst for similar, ever more expansive future experiences.

I suspect that when the Olympic and Paralympic flames are finally extinguished, the internet will quietly re-secure itself, the new domestic and international press freedoms will become ‘old,’ and the international consciousness of dissident voices from in and outside of China will once again evanesce.  But, I believe that the Olympics in Beijing will have created evocative memories for the people of China, memories that no amount of spin or propaganda could taint: a future history - a vision of a possible future so vivid and inspirational that it is more like a recollection of an event already passed.  An aspirational goal for future generations.