Many of the travellers who came to China because of the Olympics Games and many more among the billions of spectators who watched the Games on television will wonder if something of the Eternal China has survived the outbreak of modernity and development that it so proudly showcases to the world.The China that for millennia has been virtually closed to the eyes of the West and that today, as the backstage of an emerging prodigious Empire, is even more difficult to penetrate and truly know.
By Larry Levene (New China Old River, In the Tibetan Labyrinth, Sadhus, Holy men of India, A cloud over Bhopal, Cesan and Zain, Exile)