President Hu Jintao headed to Seoul last week to meet his counterpart Lee Myung-bak, even as news that government departments embezzled or misused $660 million last year dominated headlines -- exactly the kind of stories Beijing was used to before Olympic fever transformed the city.

Hu also has been prominent in backing Russia's bid to stage the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, amid international pressure over the conflicts in Georgia. China has experience as a controversial candidate for the Olympics and is keen to show a bit of solidarity.

There are, of course, subtle post-Olympics changes in this city of 17 million: The air is still clear, and will presumably remain so until the Paralympics end mid-September.

People wander through the cleaner, leaner (thanks to the odd-even license-plate restrictions still in effect) metropolis looking shell-shocked, suffering withdrawal symptoms from the greatest adrenalin rush Beijing has seen in a long while.

For many, the Olympics meant suspending the kind of frenetic capitalism on which China's rise has been built, so maybe citizens are simply keen to get back to normal.

Or maybe everyone's just sleeping it off?

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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