Erik Eckholm writes in the New York Times:
In April, 12 elderly civic leaders from Chinatown in New York City decided to visit the Olympic Village in Beijing to beat the crowds and see the structures that already had the world buzzing.
As they walked inside National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest, the travelers recalled in a recent interview, some wept — out of pride, they said, and joy and awe at the sheer scale of China’s transformation from the “sick man of Asia” they had known as children.
As mainland Chinese greeted the Beijing Olympics with exuberant pride, so, too, have Chinese-Americans, who have often been divided over how to deal with the Communists or the future of Taiwan, but who share a sense that China has taken a long-awaited place on the world stage.
