Program that offered advice onsuch fine points as what color socks

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BEIJING - Everybody wants to make a good impression for importantguests, but it's almost like an episode of "Extreme Makeover" herethese days.
With a price tag of $43 billion, the Summer Games that will openAug. 8 in Beijing are the most expensive in Olympics history. Thetransformation, however, goes far beyond the eye-poppingarchitecture. The Chinese government also has been trying to createa new, improved population to go along with its spiffed-up capitalcity.
Migrant workers, beggars, and many masseuses and fortune tellershave been sent packing for the Olympic season. Since May,restaurants have been required to have no-smoking sections, andthis month Beijing's food safety administration ordered restaurantsto remove dog meat from their menus lest it offend Westernsensibilities.
DVD shops have pulled their stocks of pirated Hollywood films.Western-style toilets have replaced squat models in many locations.And a group calling itself the Capital Committee to Promote Cultureand Ideological Progress recently distributed 50,000 packages oftissues along with a warning that those caught spitting in publicwere subject to a $7 fine.
Almost all Olympics have been springboards for host cities toreinvent themselves. Barcelona redeveloped its waterfront for the1992 Games. Athens built a new airport, highway, and mass transitsystem. Like Beijing, Seoul used the 1988 Summer Olympics as acoming-out party and took the same types of steps towardWesternizing.
But everything taking place in Beijing is, like China itself,outsized. Beijing ordered 40 million pots of flowers. Somevarieties were bred specially for the Olympics. To improve airquality, officials created a forest twice the size of New York'sCentral Park next to the Olympic stadiums.
Factories hundreds of miles away have been closed, and beginninglast weekend, cars were restricted to driving on odd or even days,depending on their license plate numbers.
Costs are running three times those of the last Summer Games inAthens, which, at $15 billion, at the time were reported to be themost expensive in Olympic history. The futuristic new airportterminal designed by British architect Norman Foster alone cost$3.5 billion and is said to be one of the largest buildings in theworld.
"It's not just the buildings, it is the emotional change in thecity that is so profound," said Jeff Ruffolo, an Olympics veteranfrom Los Angeles who is serving as an adviser to the BeijingOlympic Committee.
Since 2001, when they won the rights to the Olympics, Beijingershave been honing their English skills. At least according to theofficial website of the Olympic Games, 90,000 Beijing taxi drivershave gone through a special training program. The city has cleanedup its English-language signage, removing some of the morenotorious clunkers - for example, those near the Olympic stadiumthat directed visitors to "Racist Park," now referred to as theEthnic Minorities Culture Park.
Etiquette training has been all the rage. More than 17 millionpeople participated in an online program that offered advice onsuch fine points as what color socks to wear with a business suit(dark ones).
During a competition televised earlier this month on state-ownedCCTV, contestants had to demonstrate how to greet visitors ofvarious nationalities as judges held up cards grading theirperformance.