AS Chen Xiexia lifted the barbell to win China’s first gold medal of the Beijing Games yesterday, one of the group of volunteers watching her weightlifting final on a big screen in the city spread his arms. He was about to clap but, as his hands came together, he stopped. Six inches apart, his hands remained frozen for a second before he dropped them to his side.

With a number of foreigners in his midst, the young Beijinger suppressed the urge to scream “Jia you” (“Come on”). Chinese decorum triumphed over nationalism. So far it has been the story of the Games.

There have been many surprises in Beijing’s presentation of the Olympics – all of them pleasing. Expected to be good, the organisation has been astonishing. Traffic moves freely, the subway works and the stadiums are magnificent, but the Chinese achievement is more than a well-oiled show.

Beijing has been transformed. “I have just returned from six months working in Shanghai,” said Fang Danrui, a local resident, “and I barely recognised the city.”

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At previous Games, notably those in Seoul 20 years ago, the Olympic site was pristine but the rest of the city remained as ramshackle as ever. The London 2012 officials attending the Games will have noted, with a certain trepidation, that in Beijing everything is perfect.

New trees are everywhere, hedges have been planted and nurtured, rows of flowerboxes run like rainbows on the walls that flank big roads. There is hardly a speck of dirt.

Paul Deighton, chief executive of the London organising committee, took one look at what Beijing has done and understood that the 2012 Games cannot be better organised than this, cannot have all of the new facilities and certainly cannot build a stadium to match the magnificence of the bird’s nest.

For those who marvel at the spiralling budget of the London Games, it is worth remembering that Britain is spending close to £10 billion on 2012 while China has spent £30 billion.

“The Olympics in Beijing is going to be so different to London and the beauty is in the contrast,” said Deighton.

London will have to hope the world sees it that way.

The air in the British capital will definitely be cleaner. It has been Beijing’s bad luck that the heavy heat of the first weekend has shrouded the city in a fog-like haze. Some call it fog, others smog, and for many it is downright pollution. Perhaps it depends where you come from.

Richard Bradbury, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, has worked in Beijing for four years. “We read about the problems the athletes are having,” he said.

“Well, there are 17m Beijingers who will tell you the air is cleaner now than it has been for a long time.”

The Chinese yearning for these Games is apparent in the remarkable hospitality offered to visitors. No question is unanswered, no request is too much trouble and all they want in return is approval from the rest of the world.

While critics point to the inevitable orchestrated nature of events in a totalitarian state, the feeling is of a genuine national celebration.

On Friday, when the Games opened, 16,400 couples were married in Beijing, which even in a city of 17m people is a huge number of weddings.

Meanwhile, municipal authorities in the cities of Zhengzhou, Dongguan and Dazhou would not accept any petitions for divorce on that day. Usually, Chinese divorces are as straightforward as visits to the dentist in the UK and far less expensive.

To become the best Olympics in history, Beijing must continue as it has begun. So far has been so good and there is every reason to believe the enthusiasm of the hosts will not run out.

In the early hours of yesterday, 23-year-old Luo Weijia and her two friends could not contain their euphoria as they walked away from the Temple of Earth park in north Beijing.

They had spent the evening watching the opening ceremony on a giant screen.

“This is a festival for all of the world and we are the hosts,” said Luo, an English student from Inner Mongolia. “This is the most important day of my life.”