A HUGE police and paramilitary presence kept the public off Tiananmen Square last night, but tens of thousands thronged the streets around the giant concrete esplanade.

Although the giant TV screens around the political centre were disappointingly blank, crowds spilled into the Wanfujing shopping district in the north and the swanky Qianmen boulevard to the south, drawn by the promise of celebratory fireworks.

Old laobaixing - common folk - in vest and shorts mixed with peasants visiting from the countryside of Anhui, Henan and Inner Mongolia. Many sported "I heart China" tee-shirts, face stickers and bandanas with the slogan that has become the chant of 2008: Zhongguo Jiayou (Add Fuel China!).

The expression, used as a "C'mon China" cheer in football games was heard in rallies supporting the torch relay in April and after the national mourning ceremonies for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

Yesterday, the crowd said it had a different meaning: "It means get stronger, get faster, get better," said Du Zibing, a military man who led the crowd. "The Olympics is a chance to help foreigners to better understand our country."

Du said he wanted the outside world to realise life was better than in the past. "I have two cars," he said. "One with an even number plate, one with an odd."

This meant, he said proudly, that could drive every day during the Olympics despite controls that restrict vehicles to travel on alternate days so as to reduce fumes.

Ask people what they are celebrating and the main answer is a better life and the chance to show the world how much China has changed. Three decades since the country began its reform policy, the laobaixing can now enjoy a lifestyle that was unimaginable for past generations.

On a low wall on a back street, Jiang Minfu is taking a breather between fireworks after travelling farther than ever before in his life.

The 72-year-old farmer arrived in Beijing only two days earlier from Sichuan, where he said the recent devastating earthquake had claimed far fewer lives than the famines of his youth.

"When I was a child, we stole food from the dog's bowl," he recalls. "The Olympics shows how much power we now have. The change has been huge."

His son, Jiang Shunjun, is evidence of the change. Wearing a Kappa top, Nike trainers and gold rings, the 45-year-old boasts the family now have a big home and several apartments they rent out.

When the youngest of the family, 22-year-old Jiang Yuanyuan, reaches her grandparents' age, there is every chance China will have overtaken the US as the world's biggest economy.

"China will get stronger and bigger," she said. "I feel China has a bright future. We are hard-working and united so I believe things will get even better than they are now."

The new generation is not just more patriotic. They are wealthier, more globalised and far more connected to the rest of the world by technology.

When we finally find a screen showing the opening ceremony, it is just four inches wide. Cai Xiqing, a 22-year-old, shares a peek at her mobile phone TV. "It was very cheap," she says of the device, made by domestic manufacturer Tianyu, "Only about 1,000 yuan."

That sum would have been more than half the population earned in a year when the crowds last thronged to Tiananmen in 2001 to hear Beijing granted the right to host the 29th Games of the modern age.

But the festivities were mixed with tension. Police and paramilitaries cleared side-roads of crowds in between the bursts of fireworks marking the opening ceremony.

There had been small protests by foreign human-rights activists on the square the previous day. The Qianmen shopping district - opened only days before - had been mired in controversy because of the forced evictions that preceded the demolition of the old alleyways that stood here, and the spectre of the protests in 1989 has never gone away completely.

But for the vast majority of those gathered for the festivities, such problems for the minority were unimportant compared to the progress made by the majority, and the chance to chant with pride, "Zhongguo Jiayou!"

Guardian Service