BEIJING - The capital of the world's most populous country and the host of the 2008 Olympics is really two cities in one, and you'd better run at 100-meter-dash speed to catch a glimpse of old Beijing before it is lost beneath the glass towers and soupy haze of new Beijing.

Wander the few remaining walled and winding streets of historic Beijing and you can still chat with the proud owner of two crickets about his mellifluous and plump pets.

At the Donghuamen Market, you can still order fried silkworms on a stick (not bad!) or sweet fungus (maybe next time!).

Then walk around Wangfujing Street or the Oriental Plaza mall and be anesthetized by Chainville, which is sucking the there out of there everywhere.

China wants the world and four billion Olympic TV viewers to see its sophisticated, glitzy, high-tech, ultra-hip face and discard any outmoded images of Mao jackets and rickshaws.

That is why the Chinese government spent $40 billion on new subway lines, airport expansion and the architectural marvels of the Water Cube and Bird's Nest Stadium, plus countless millions more on the campaign to surpass the U.S. in the gold medal tally.

China has rolled out the red carpet for the Olympics, but behind the polite smiles, the government is using the Games as a showcase for legitimacy, respect and power.

"The Beijing Olympics are not about the Olympic spirit," said Xu Guoqi, a native of China who is a Kalamazoo College professor and author. "They're about politics."

Let no one be naively carried away by the "One World, One Dream" slogan. The International Olympic Committee's decision to award the Games to China has not turned this authoritarian state into a paragon of human rights. In fact, China has moved stubbornly in the opposite direction during preparations, cracking down on dissent and bolstering its "Great Firewall" of Internet censorship.

The decision to put the Games here was and is about 1.3 billion consumers. Olympic commercialism is more rampant than ever. Advertisements featuring basketball player Yao Ming and hurdler Liu Xiang are plastered on every billboard and bus stop.

"You cannot realistically picture China as a Communist country anymore," said University of Michigan professor Kenneth Lieberthal, expert and author on China. "Better to think of it as a Bureaucratic Capitalist country."

Yes, Mao's Little Red Book has been replaced by such magazines as Comfort, Glory, Lush City and Trade Up.

Propaganda posters have been replaced by the contemporary art of the Dashanzi 798, a warehouse arts district that brings to mind New York's Chelsea or Miami's Wynwood.

As was the case with Athens four years ago, Beijing is a place where ancient collides with modern. The Acropolis and the Forbidden City are smack in the middle.

Three days before Opening Ceremonies, I set out to explore the Beijing I first visited two decades ago. I found a tale of two hutongs.

In the charming hutong - traditional neighborhood of alleyways dating back 700 years - around Houhai Lake, I met Wu Yi Wen. He has lived in his family's home, set behind a wall and around a courtyard, since 1953. Wu, 70, is a retired archaeologist who studied the Ming Tombs. He has lived through China's convulsive changes, from the formation of the People's Republic in 1949 to Mao's absurdist, destructive Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution - when Wu was forced to move to the countryside and work on a farm.

At one point, three families were ordered to live in his one-bathroom home. Today, three generations live there - Wu and his wife, their two sons, two daughters-in-law and one granddaughter.

His coffee table is decorated by a calendar photo of St. Louis and its Arch, which he would like to visit. Until recently, his home was heated by coal. In the courtyard, the family grows grapes and a pomegranate tree, dries its laundry and stores its bikes.

And now comes the Olympics. Wu is worried about pollution - "The air is quite bad," he said - but believes Beijing will do itself proud. He's looking forward to watching basketball and table tennis on TV.

"To have the Olympics in China is a dream come true," he said. "It is finally our turn."

From Wu's gate, I exited his neighborhood, saying "Ni hao" to a boy and his pet turtles, a bike tire repairman and ladies drinking tea.

I walked down a busy avenue clogged with cars, buses, pedicabs and not nearly as many bikes as I remember, to the hutong along Nan Luogu Xiang Street, also charming, lined with houses converted into quirky shops and cafes, and headed to Gapdom if it's not careful.

At the Backward Bar, owner Zhan Chang Long told me he left the ethanol business to run this small bar and music lounge with his musician brother, Chang Hai. He played a George Benson video. He pulled out an Olympic Torch Relay torch, lent by a friend who ran in Xinjiang province.

He is excited about the Olympics and the night life it will bring. He predicted that pop star Li Wen, also known as Coco Li, will sing at Opening Ceremonies.

The worst part, though, is the increased security. In the subway, there are body and bag searches. In the neighborhood, there are additional monitors. Zhan and his friend, Poon Chi Kin pointed to a man outside wearing a baseball cap. Poon, a businessman from Hong Kong, suddenly got up to leave. "Too much security," he said.

Zhan, 30, shrugged and smiled. He invited me to return with friends, and we could sing along to "Desperado" on the piano.

"Eagles, or Beatles, or Coco Li!" he said.

I made my way back to the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where Mao gazes benevolently upon Tiananmen Square - site of military spectacles, the 1989 massacre and, now, hordes of residents and tourists snapping photos, being watched by an almost equal number of soldiers and police.

I ended the day where I started, at the pungent Donghuamen Market, where you can still eat sheep's penis.

Or there's a McDonald's on the corner.