The Paralympics ends tomorrow, and already the Olympic decorations are being dismantled.
The facade of perfection also begins to crumble.
Over the past two days, news has begun to emerge of more than a thousand babies sickened by infant formula tainted by melamine. Two babies have died. What is not yet clear is who knew what and when, but it seems that the New Zealand partner to China's Sanlu manufacturer was pushing for a recall of the product even before the Olympics, but that Chinese officials refused. When New Zealand representatives brought the matter up in Beijing with Chinese officials, a recall was eventually made, too late for many babies who had developed kidney stones.
So, did Beijing know about the tainted milk product and allow it to continue to be sold in order not to disrupt the image of the games? We know that news organisations were ordered not to report on food safety problems during the Olympics. Or did over-zealous local officials hide the scandal not only from the public, but from their bosses in Beijing?
After a series of scandals, food safety is an immensely sensitive issue here, and not only as it relates to the Olympics (there were worries that athletes might become ill). This morning I was chatting with a taxi driver, who told me that he meets up for lunch with other drivers every day, but that he avoids small restaurants because of the poor quality of their ingredients. 'Eat there and you get a tummy ache,' he told me, and then suggested that tummy ache was the least of the problems – many people, he said, were suffering from cancer and leukaemia in Beijing, and he put this down to tainted foods. True or not, food safety is a potential minefield for the Communist Party as it tries to retain the trust of the population.
Like many expatriates here, we buy a lot of imported food, from New Zealand milk to German fruit juice and US honey. Increasingly, those Chinese who can afford to, do the same.