By GEOFFREY YORK, Toronto Globe and Mail

BEIJING -- Even as they bade an emotional farewell to the Olympics, China's proud citizens were gearing up for bigger battles to come: environmental challenges, economic inequities and social reforms.

BEIJING -- In a tacit criticism of China's intolerance of dissent, the International Olympic Committee says the Chinese government should have allowed its official protest zones to be "genuinely used" by demonstrators, rather than letting them sit empty.

BEIJING -- Don't wear white socks with black leather shoes. Shake hands for only three seconds. Maintain eye contact for 30 to 60 percent of the conversation. Don't wear more than three colors in your clothing. And above all, please stop spitting.

In the small Beijing suburb of Hongxialu, there's a new force in town. The government has recruited a special unit of 288 residents, mostly middle-aged or elderly, to work as "security volunteers" in the lead-up to the Olympics.

BEIJING -- With their infant daughter in their arms, Nuer and Guli visited a dozen hotels in Beijing in late May, searching desperately for a place to stay.

BEIJING -- Every night at 8, dozens of red-shirted security agents begin their patrols of Beijing's most famous bar district, wielding batons as they watch alertly for any signs of rowdiness or excessive drunkenness.

For years, the Zhou brothers of Beijing sold their pirated DVDs openly from a back room in a state-owned department store. Like other merchants of counterfeit goods, they knew the authorities would turn a blind eye.

BEIJING -- Daniel Yeung is still trying to understand how it happened. After eight years of steady employment, the Canadian recruitment consultant is being kicked out of China, forced to join an exodus of foreigners streaming out of the host country ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

HANWANG, China -- Above the city of Hanwang, the mountains are scarred by giant landslides -- symbols of the earthquake that literally sheered the tops off of peaks as it wreaked devastation on the cities and towns below.

MIANZHU, China -- With more than 50,000 dead, there is little time for niceties in the disposal of the victims of China's massive earthquake.